Insignia Infocast 8" Touchscreen $99
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apostolakisl
Senior Member
Looks like it is back on sale at $99 through Sunday. Not as good as $79 but still good and a lot better than $169.
apostolakisl
Senior Member
I picked up the insignia about 10 days ago as a Chrismtas gift to my wife. Tried to get it up and running yesterday and it seems to be defective. The screen goes black after it goes through the boot screen and nothing I can figure gets it back.
I went to Best Buy to exchange it and saw the lower price today. Trouble is, they don't have any to replace it with and you can't order them online either.
So, I am stuck returning it as far as I can tell. Unless someone has any ideas on a way to get mine working. My guess is corrupt software, but I don't know. I tried allowing it to run an upgrade but that reported "failed" and then the screen goes black.
I can get it to boot if I switch to a new wirelesss network. This brings up a screen that asks you to join a network and when you do that it goes to the normal screen. Then the next boot on that network fails (goes to a black screen).
I went to Best Buy to exchange it and saw the lower price today. Trouble is, they don't have any to replace it with and you can't order them online either.
So, I am stuck returning it as far as I can tell. Unless someone has any ideas on a way to get mine working. My guess is corrupt software, but I don't know. I tried allowing it to run an upgrade but that reported "failed" and then the screen goes black.
I can get it to boot if I switch to a new wirelesss network. This brings up a screen that asks you to join a network and when you do that it goes to the normal screen. Then the next boot on that network fails (goes to a black screen).
tmbrown97
Senior Member
wow - slim pickin's - there was one store this morning with them; now there are only 4 within 200 miles showing them in-stock... closest is an hour away.
We'll see how I feel tomorrow - while I like the sony one better, for half the price I'm liking this one as just a music player even.
We'll see how I feel tomorrow - while I like the sony one better, for half the price I'm liking this one as just a music player even.
It may be worth your while to actually go TO the store.
My entire DISTRICT (South Bay Area, California) is sold out. The closest store with stock is 40+ miles away.
So, just for giggles, I went down to my local Best Buy... Turns out there are 250+ 8" Infocasts in the regional warehouse, and the clerk at the Customer Service counter ordered two for me at the $68 price. I will have them on 12/30.
pete_c
Guru
Turned up a 3.5" and 8" Insignia Infocasts over the last couple of days. Both updated themselves within minutes of being turned on. I guess the 3.5" is closest to the Chumby 1. Without much effort found the "hidden" features of the 3.5" and was able to SSH to it by turning it on via the "hidden" menu. The 3.5" also has a default wireless NIC HTML page. I can also automatically dim the screen down using the "alarm" features. The 8" Insignia doesn't appear to have these same features "off the shelf" from what I can see right now; haven't played with it as much though. The speaker sound on the 3.5" is decent and not really tinny sounding; makes for a decent "clock" radio for my bedside. I actually swapped it with an "old" alarm clock (which used radio to sync time). So it kind of went into "production" right away. I did test streaming audio from Pandora and it worked well on the 3.5" Insignia.
Relating to HA it would be nice just to have HA simple widgets running; but thats me.
Relating to HA it would be nice just to have HA simple widgets running; but thats me.
tmbrown97
Senior Member
Pete - the post I linked above had quick reference to the fact that you can actually put the Chumby 1 boot image on the 3.5 and get all the features of the Chumby 1 that BB decided to disable.
I did find the hidden menu on my 8" insignia to turn on SSH and all that back door stuff as well - but I'm just not into hacking it at the moment.
I did find the hidden menu on my 8" insignia to turn on SSH and all that back door stuff as well - but I'm just not into hacking it at the moment.
apostolakisl
Senior Member
I seem to have isolated the source of the problem with my 8 in Insignia. It seems that there is something screwy with how it plays with my home router. I have the exact same router and wireless AP at the office as at home, but at the office the Insignia works perfectly. The routers are Linksys vpn's and are tunneled together. I use my server at the office as the DNS and run my home system on 192.168.1.x and the office on 192.168.2.x. Otherwise the two systems are set up identical. I can't figure out why the difference in performance.
By the way, the issue is that it won't boot past the "downloading control panel" screen but once out of every 10 tries or so. When it does succeed it seems to work fine. I tried doing manual configuration with static ip and different dns's but the problem persists. I don't get it. Every boot at the office works on the first progress bar "downloading control panel" whereas at home it goes 5 times with the progress bar and gives me an error, except the rare time that it gets past this step (even then the progress bar does multiple passes versus the single pass at the office).
Any ideas?
By the way, the issue is that it won't boot past the "downloading control panel" screen but once out of every 10 tries or so. When it does succeed it seems to work fine. I tried doing manual configuration with static ip and different dns's but the problem persists. I don't get it. Every boot at the office works on the first progress bar "downloading control panel" whereas at home it goes 5 times with the progress bar and gives me an error, except the rare time that it gets past this step (even then the progress bar does multiple passes versus the single pass at the office).
Any ideas?
