Home
This is an Internet usage meter widget for Chumby.
Currently, the following ISPs are supported (among other reasons, they have data usage feeds):
- iiNet
- Internode (except the new Easy Broadband plans – see ‘News on new Internode API’ below)
- Amnet – NEW, thanks to lionslair for getting this working
These cannot be loaded via the Chumby website because that would put them in the Flash sandbox, and none of these ISPs have crossdomain.xml files set up. Also, the tap to load data is required as data cannot be stored on the Chumby itself, and no caching mechanisms have been setup by ISPs to effectively deal with a reload every couple of minutes.
For the Amnet version, only the non-peering allowance values are shown in the widget.
This widget is not endorsed by any of the ISPs.
The ‘internet’ icon used in the widget thumbnail is licensed under LGPL from the Crystal Project.
I’ve been looking around the new Internode API (v1.5) which includes the ability to view uploads, as well as statistics for the new Easy Broadband plans. Unfortunately this widget cannot be updated to support that API (cleanly anyway).
The technical details are that the new API requires HTTP basic authentication via HTTP GET, and unfortunately, the Flash implementation on the Chumby prohibits this (regardless of any sandbox behaviour – it is simply not possible to set headers on GET requests).
A possible hack would be to route these requests through a website, but this would mean disclosing your username and password to that website, and is something I’m not comfortable with at the moment.
The other trick would be to use Python, Java, Ruby or some other runtime on the Chumby itself to perform these requests (as these runtimes do not have the above HTTP limitations). This would necessitate the installation of a runtime, and also running a daemon to service requests. Feels like too much overhead for me.
I’m not sure when/if Internode will kill the old API (the one this widget uses), but it is out of my hands. I’ll create a ticket at Internode; we’ll see.
- Download the latest version for your ISP at the downloads section.
- Extract the contents to the root of your Chumby’s USB drive. If profile.xml already exists, DO NOT overwrite it. Instead, rename the existing one, extract the usage meter widget’s profile.xml and manually merge. Otherwise you will lose your other custom widgets. Beside the widgets have unique IDs.
- Open up profile.xml on the USB drive in a text editor. Notepad is not recommended due to the Unix line endings.
- In the widget parameters section, fill in your username and password. You can optionally add an account name as well – this will be shown instead of your username in the widget. If you do this, be sure to remove the surrounding comment tags.
- Save profile.xml.
- Plug the USB drive back into Chumby and reboot – you should now see the usage meter widget in your widget list.
If you want to monitor multiple accounts, you can add the widget more than once, and give them different usernames/passwords.
Feel free to add issues to this project or use the forum thread over at the chumby forums.