Friday, July 12, 2013

Chummie: Strong Deceit by Concealment.

Chummie                            http://www.chummie.com/                       (July 13, 2013)


We have noticed in Chummie’s pictures of children wearing the alarm, that the alarm is located at the neck opening of the night shirt. We are assuming that there is a device used to attach the Chummie alarm box to the user’s clothing. What is this device? Why is there no trace of it in any pictures or description that we can see on the site?

Chummie, on their web site, says that their Chummie Pro kits include a “snap-on clip.” We do not know if this is also provided with the Chummie alarm. We did not notice anything on Chummie’s site about how the Chummie alarm is attached to the user’s clothing. Nor have we seen or read anything about this snap-on clip on Chummie’s site.

We do recall Chummie proudly exclaiming that they had obtained a U.S. patent for this clip. Indeed they had. As explained elsewhere, Chummie was the first (and perhaps only) party to apply for a patent on the simple device that they show in their patent.

We wonder why the ever-vociferous Chummie has gone completely silent on their clip. Is it more of a liability than an asset? We do recall seeing several reviews on Amazon where the user’s clip broke easily. Some of these users were attaching their Chummie alarm boxes to their nightshirts with duct tape or some other very sticky tape to try and keep the box in place.

We do notice that Chummie is unusually and completely silent about how its alarm box is attached to the user’s shirt. We wonder why.

Are we repeating ourselves often? Are we sounding like Chummie? Please pardon our hypocrisy. It is very easy to fall into the trap of grandiose delusions when reading Chummie's wondrous revelations.

While we are addressing Chummie clips, let us examine the manner in which the Chummie sensor wire is connected to the alarm box. Chummie uses a push-in RCA jack. Although this is an easy-to-plug-in and plug-out connector often used for audio connections, it is not appropriate as a bedwetting alarm connector as it can come out easily as the user sleeps and applies some pressure on the sensor cable. Most manufacturers use a plastic telephone type jack (616E, RJ11, RJ12) which is very unlikely to come out by itself. Again, if you read through Amazon, you can come across various instances where frustrated caregivers or users have had to tape the Chummie sensor jack to the alarm to prevent it from slipping out during use. Is this another example of Chummies vaulted and much proclaimed research program? Or is it simply another instance of them living with something off-the-shelf that was convenient to adopt? It is undoubtedly the latter.

Again, we recommend that the reader look at a detailed and comprehensive bedwetting alarms comparison site like
http://www.urinealarms.com/Wired_Alarm_Chart.html
where you can make a detailed evaluation of what Chummie offers for its price compared to the abilities and values offered by other bedwetting alarms.

Strong Deceit by Concealment.

2 comments:

  1. My experience with Chummie has been poor.

    About the clip, I did get something that looked and felt like an add-on. It was cheaply made. It did not hold the alarm in place well at all. And it broke within a week.

    That is why Chummie hides its clip from viewers. It is junk!

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  2. My husband & I bought the Chummie through Amazon for my son while we were living in Tel Aviv. It worked about 20% of the time. The so called clip broke within an hour after we purchased it!

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