- Many uses - from alarmclock to picture frame to social networking device
- 7" colour capacitive touchscreen display with impressive brightness, contrast and horizontal viewing angles
- Designed to lie flat or sit vertically
- USB port for hardware expansion, WiFi
Do NOT buy this product as it's apparently end-of-life! Yet another device that had promise only to be ruined by Sony's
mismanagment. The Dash is (was?) a luxury alarm clock developed by a company named Chumby who also produced models of their
own. Some months ago, Chumby decided to exit the business and allowed their own devices to be released from the central
managed service with a firmware update. Rather than following suit, Sony decided to take on servicing the Dash by moving
the service to it's own in-house servers. They also shut down the developer service earlier in the year while continuing to
maintain that the service itself would continue. They continued to sell the product on their own website up until a few
weeks ago.
For weeks now Dash owners have suffered random outages (including the device as well as the Dash management website) with
no explanation from Sony other than canned repsonses. Even those (useless) responses have now stopped and any comments on
the Sony forum pointing out the now solid outage of service are being deleted. Let me be clear that a service outage turns
the Dash into a brick... it is completely useless and simply shows error messages on startup (just what you want from a
device many use to wake up in the morning).
This is not the first time Sony has left customers in the cold and it shows a clear pattern of disinterest in true customer
service. The fact that Sony has consistantly lost millions of dollars per quarter over the past several years shows that
consumers have had enough of this policy and are leaving Sony in droves for companies that value their customers. So you
don't want to support the Dash service anymore? How about opening it up to the homebrew community like Chumby did for
future development, or BUYING US OUT. No one who bought a Dash for upwards of $75 (many over $100 or even $150) did so
thinking it would be useless in a year or even a month for some. It's incredibly disrespectful to the customer base.
The worst part of all of this? Not only did the device, in my opinion, have the potential to single-handedly take over the
vast majority of the alarm clock market if properly marketed/priced, but it was also rather intuitive to use and quite
versatile. It's all been a poignant lesson on trusting any cloud service, even ones associated with companies that have
plenty of resources to run them properly. In this case, it appears that they simply choose not to follow through. Never
again Sony.
Thanks for reading. If you were interested in the Dash I hope this has saved you from a certain hassle.
Product AKA: Sony Dash Personal Internet Viewer / Sony HIDB7 Dash Information Alarm Clock / Sony Dash HID-C10 Internet
Surfing Device / Sony HIDB70D Dash Information Alarm Clock / Sony HIDB70T Dash Information Alarm Clock
Buy Sony Dash HID-C10 Internet Surfing Device Now
This is not a tablet. But this is exactly what I needed or wanted. I really enjoy internet radio and I wanted something for my home office where I do most of my sewing. It's the perfect size, it was really easy to set up, I can watch my Netflix on here while I'm working, I can listen to Pandora or Slacker or TuneIn radio while I work.
I have a number of little apps on here that come in handy. I press the menu and hey there's the weather in a snap for the location I need it. I read my NPR headlines on here, I get a word of the day. My son can sit and play a few a games while he waits for me to finish a project.
This could make a decent alarm clock, waking you up and providing you with all the instant news or weather info you need.
This was super easy to set up. If you want to set up Pandora on the Dashboard you need to go to Sony and enter a code to transfer the account to your Dashboard, but so far that was the only account that was 'tricky' to set up. If you want a news station on your desk, in your family room perhaps in your kitchen this could be great for you. If you want an inexpensive way to listen to internet radio, this could be your answer. You want a really fancy alarm clock, go for it. It's easy to use and navigate, it has fun apps, and I like it, it was what I expected and what I wanted.
Read Best Reviews of Sony Dash HID-C10 Internet Surfing Device Here
I use this as an alarm clock that provides personal and customized internet at my fingertips when I wake up each morning. The price is a little steep but the convenience factor and the great updates make it worth it for me.
This unit needs to be plugged into an outlet and your house needs to have WI-FI SET UP for it to work properly. The Dash is not a portable unit! even if the photos seem to suggest it. It comes with popular ones preloaded (Facebook, twitter, CNBC, etc.) and to access more apps (NY Times, Netflix, Amazon on Demand, Pandora, Slacker, homebrewed), you need to register online. There are plenty of cool apps to browse through and new ones are constantly added. I cannot comment on using it around the house as a "personal internet viewer" as advertised since I do not need it to provide that function but I could see it working well in a kitchen. I sometimes play videos and music understanding that the video source determines quality and the speakers are basic and okay but not outstanding. Since I use it as an alarm clock, the speaker quality is not an issue for me. There is no memory card slot but there is an usb port. They recently added a "WWW' button on the menu which allows for easy connection to yahooo.com, goggle.com and sony.com homepages only, for now. The updates are amazing and the Sony Dash keeps getting better and better the longer I have it (going on 1 year).
The two beefs I had with the Dash have been fixed: (1) I had trouble getting it to display the correct time zone but this was addressed by very helpful Sony customer reps.; and (2) instructions to press snooze button twice to access menu was spotty and took several attempts but was advised to use one long touch to access menu and that works every time. The only remaining issues are that the touch keyboard can be tricky (people with large fingers or long fingernails will have a problem with the small keyboard). Despite these minor irritants, I think this is the best alarm clock ever!
I use this strictly as a bedside alarm clock with super benefits. The light given off is adjustable with a nighttime mode easily reached at the press of an onscreen button (moon icon) and you can even put it into a black sleep mode for a perfect night's sleep if you require complete darkness. The unit has a 7" screen and the ability to customize it. The set background colors change throughout the day which is pretty cool. Granted, it takes a little work to set this puppy up but once it's running, it's a thing of beauty. I love being able to set several different alarms (weekday AM, bus pick-up, weekend AM, soccer practice, etc.) and be able to set them to different alarm types (regular alarm sounds, radio, videos, personal messages, etc.). I can program my local weather, get top news headlines, music, video or any other of the 100s of apps it boasts and at the touch of the screen -view them when I roll over in the morning. It's a brilliant way to start the day!
Want Sony Dash HID-C10 Internet Surfing Device Discount?
I agree with the other Sept. 15, 2012 reviewer/user, this product is now useless as of yesterday (at least, for me).
I woke-up yesterday -9/14/2012and saw this message on my DASH screen: "Failed to authorized: No response from the server. Please visit for help with this problem".
Prior to yesterday, most of the apps either slowly disappeared or won't work properly.
So, I spent the better part of yesterday, trying to resuscitate my DASH. Went to my sony.com account & deactivated the DASH with the intention of reactivating the unit. Boy, their site for the DASH is horrible now (Sony can't even create a decent web site to support their products??).
I also went to (I also learned that this company is slowly disbanding or had already disbanded but, at least, their web site is still running though a bit flaky at times) to seek help there, but, it will re-direct you to Sony's horrible DASH website if you wanted to activate your Sony DASH.
Restored to factory default, updated the firmware via USB & via the Internet...but still I get the same error messages I mentioned above or something like, " device and suit mismatch"
Today, I'm still working on it but, still getting the "No response from server" to re-authorize my DASH.
I bought this Sony DASH (HID-C10) only sometime in Jan. 2011 for $149 and now, I'm just looking at a black paperweight.
Sony will never be like Apple. I bought my first Mac (Mac Plus) in 1985 and it's still working today!
The intent of this review is to warn people to avoid buying this end-of-life Sony product, as well as, to show how horrible Sony supports some of their end-of-life products.
My wife has been using a cheap Emerson alarm clock for years. The buttons have broken off and it was time for an upgrade. I gave her my Bose wave radio, and I decided to buy the Sony Dash.
I got a great deal on this from Amazon, under $100 for brand new. I hooked it up and was told I needed to upgrade the firmware. I grabbed a USB drive, formatted it to FAT32 and downloaded the zip file for the firmware direct from Sony (must be kept zipped...DO NOT UNZIP this file). After successful firmware update, which acted 5 minutes or so, I was able to play around with it.
The Dash plays video from Netflix and Amazon (yeah!), and a few others. It also plays music from Pandora and other streaming services. For me, I really just wanted an alarm clock on steroids. This is it!!
The Dash sits nicely on the bedside table, showing me hyper accurate time and current weather. At night, when I need it the most, there is a night mode that dims the display to almost nothing and enlarges the time to a perfect size. The night time mode is minimal info the time. Another tap of the power saving button and the screen goes completely black. When this happens, a small orange light comes on on the bottom right of the dash. Probably so you can find it in the dark. To me, the nighttime mode is the best feature. I need it totally dark to sleep and this fit the bill. To see the time, you just tap anywhere on the screen and it will go back to dim mode where it shows the time. Another tap and it is black again. Amazing!!
Sound quality is quite good at low levels, though there is really no bass to speak of. I can listen to one of my Pandora stations and set the sleep timer to drift off to sleep. Wonderful!
Buy this for what it is, a great bedside alarm clock, not as a device to watch movies on. It does that fine, but it is awkward with a cord lying in bed. I have an iPad to do that.
