Entered CNET Catalog: 05/27/2004
SKU: AMBIENT STOCK ORB
Manufacturer: Ambient Devices
Product summary
The good: Simple to use; unique concept; actually rather useful.
The bad: Monthly fee for interesting information is rather steep.
The bottom line: A globe that glows different colors depending on your stock portfolio or the weather, this gadget has shown staying power due to its genuinely useful underlying concept.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 05/27/2004
Well, it's 2004, and the Ambient Devices Ambient Orb is still here, thanks to its strangely enduring appeal. Although it looks like a prop from Woody Allen's Sleeper, the $150 Orb has stood the test of time better than the film. Aside from the direction of the stock market, it can also be set to reflect the weather forecast and other information, all by its changing colors. That's all it does.
The Orb is driven by wireless data sent over paging networks. Ambient Devices claims that 90 percent of the U.S. population can receive its network signal and can therefore use the Orb. There is no wired backup connection.
Basic tracking of the Dow and your local weather forecast is free with the Orb. Just open the box, plug the 4.5-inch-diameter frosted-glass Orb into a wall outlet, and watch it go to work. Green means the market is trending up, yellow means it is neutral, and red means it is trending down. The weather forecast works in a similar manner. You go to a Web page to choose which data your Orb will display.
If you want the Orb to monitor more specific information, such as your personal stock portfolio or whether your kids are online, you'll pay $6.95 per month or $19.95 per quarter for a premium connection account. That seems rather steep for a device that has no text display.
Like most products in this category, the Ambient Orb succeeds as much as a conversation piece as a useful tool. But Ambient Devices seems serious about enabling humans to use "the cognitive-psychology phenomenon called preattentive processing." All we know is that we like this thing.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6out of 6 user reviews
It isn't what it used to be.
Pros: When it works it works fine. the colors change with the temperature just fine. On thier old website they had alot more options for premium subscribers . The tech suppoback then was good.
Cons: range for my area went fm 60 to above 90 and it's stuck on the70 degree range.
out of 6 user reviews
great concept ... stunningly poorly executed
Pros: innovative, looks great, calming, interesting
Cons: Double billed, cannot program, absolutely no support
The orb works and the premium service is OK.
The company double charged me for my weather beadon premium service and it still cannot be programmed through the web. I have submitted two requests through the web support line for assistance and fix to the web. Absolutely no reply!
When I call I sometimes get someone. The support person is nice and knowledgeable. But I am sometimes on hold for a long time and cannot get to a person.
Ambient did solve my double charging for premium service. But I still cannot adjust anything for my weather beacon through the web site. I do not have the time to waste during my work hours waiting for someone to answer the phone.
This is a great concept and is stunningly poorly executed. It is not the people on the phones.....but there is significant incompetance or wanton disregard for the design and implementation of a customer service philosophy.
I can only hope that a competent company will see the potential and buy it out.
out of 6 user reviews
FLAT OUT DISAPPOINTING !!!
Pros: Concept has promise, but is being handled by people who don't know what they're doing
Cons: Company fails miserably and ruins a neat idea
Not only could I not register my orb b/c of the company's LAME, non-intuitive and broken registration process, I could not even get a hold of them through their customer support line; the automated system was as broken, frustrating and useless as their site. (The site apparently logged my email address & serial # for the device, but would never let me log in...it would just bounce me back to default pages. And when trying to register again, it forbade me since my email & serial # were already somewhere in the system. LAME! And their automated system would take you through about 6 prompts and then have you wait, say, 15 min before it bounced you to a voice that said "Thanks for calling. Goodbye." Again, LAME.)
To add to this frustration, I found out that in order to get weather for my area (Washington, DC), I would actually have to pay $6.95 per month, since that was deemed a premium channel. In fact, the half-assed company only has 4 cities that you can get for free -- San Fran, Chicago, Atlanta, and somewhere else (the name is escaping me now, and of course, I can't find the list again since their site sucks so bad). Since they advertise basic channels for most cities and blah, blah, blah, I naturally anticipated Washington DC would be on that list.
To end this rant, I could not be more disappointed in the execution of this product by this company. It's a shame that such a neat idea is in the hands of such butter-fingered, clueless and entrepreneurially inept individuals.
out of 6 user reviews
"Zen simple, calm technology"
Pros: Beautiful product Offers data at the right-resolution for noticing trends
Cons: Hard to find in-stock. Had to buy mine from MoMA.org
out of 6 user reviews
Technology that's useful and beautiful
Pros: I bought it because of the pretty colors, and now I'm hooked. It's pretty and I find myself (and all my coworkers) checking up on it all the time.
Cons: No realtime stock quotes yet.
out of 6 user reviews
Single-pixel browser
Pros: Easy to set up, just plug into power. No computer or Internet connection needed. Beautiful colors, my wife loves it too! Incredibly flexible, it can track weather, stocks, pollen count, or even my data feeds: my site visits, my email waiting, my google ad
Cons: Made of frosted glass...so don't drop it! Expensive. It were $99 I'd buy one for every room of my house and one for all my company's sales people to show if they are hitting their sales plan.
