$10 is quite a bit to pay before I know how "custom" my custom data input can be. Especially when there are quite a few open source similar-looking dashboards (like dashing: https://github.com/Shopify/dashing). Sure, not a full-blown app (but how hard is it to full-screen a browser from a set top box?)
I need to track a lot of metrics. Very few of them have been covered by Panic. I'm happy to pay a bit for good design, but I don't feel like forking over cash on the promise that it "might" cover my use case.
From experimenting with the app, it seems your custom input can be:
* RSS
* CSV
* JSON
* HTML <table> which the app formats to look nice
* Raw HTML which the app does zero formatting of, and they provide a PDF with the information necessary to make it look thematically appropriate (e.g. correct fonts, colors, etc).
The JSON/CSV can be displayed as a Graph, and CSV/HTML <table> can be displayed as a Table.
If you are looking for a dashboard just with your own data. Ducksboard has a free option for developers, i'm almost sure.
http://ducksboard.com/pricing/
If you later need integrate data from applications that ducksboard supports, surely it's "cheaper" pay for you ;)
I checked out the http://telemetryapp.com link above and it seems to require a lot of bitbending. I would be interested to see how you would compare something a little more geeky like Telemetry (which does have a nice polish to the UI) to Dashing.
I need to track a lot of metrics. Very few of them have been covered by Panic. I'm happy to pay a bit for good design, but I don't feel like forking over cash on the promise that it "might" cover my use case.