Customer Reviews
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55 of 56 people found the following review helpful.
Really good, a few quirks
By Mr. T. Anderson
This is more than just an Internet radio. Out of the box, it will play internet radio with thousands of stations available, no setup required beyond connection to your home network, usually Wi-Fi though a port for wired Ethernet is available too. Find a station you like, press a preset and it is saved.Sound quality is mono, but surprisingly rich and deep, thanks to separate woofer and tweeter and the usual high quality of the Squeezebox system.Squeezebox system? This is where you need a little background. Squeezebox was originally a system for streaming music from your computer to one or more players around the house. It was extended via plugins to support internet radio and more. A great system, but users found it too complicated, or Logitech thought that they did, so the Squeezebox brand seems to have been abandoned.It lives on here, though in simplified form. You can download the UE Music Library and install it on a PC or Mac, whereupon the Smart Radio will automatically find it and list your music collection as My Music. Supported formats are MP3, FLAC, WAV, AIFF, WMA, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, and Apple Lossless. Album artwork shows up on the 2.4 inch colour screen.The UE Music Library is none other than the old Squeezebox server, though cut down so that features such as plugins, playlist, and remote control of players are missing. This is annoying.Worse still, there is no compatibility. The Smart Radio cannot play music from an existing Squeezebox server, and an old Squeezebox cannot connect to UE Music Library.While that sounds bad, it is not as bad as it seems. You can install the UE Music Library alongside a Squeezebox server, and it automatically sorts out the ports so it can run side by side and stream the same music collection. Although it is a shame to lose features, the new system does require less configuration, and retains its most important feature, which is to let you play music anywhere in the house.You can download a remote app for iPhone and Android that lets you control your Smart Radio, selecting stations or tracks and albums from your music library. Search is easier on the remote app than with the rotary controller on the Radio itself. No iPad support yet, which is a shame.You can also log in to Logitech's cloud service, where you can add services such as Spotify, Live Music Archive and Last.fm, though note that most of these require a paid subscription for full access.The Smart Radio makes a neat 7-day clock radio. When in standby it shows a clock with date and time, and you can set alarms to sound only on selected days. Oddly, the alarms can be managed on the internet - I have a suspicion that this means you will not be woken up if your internet goes down. If on battery, the unit will turn itself off to save power but turn itself back on just in time to play the alarm.Physically the Smart Radio is very similar to the Squeezebox Radio. However, the Smart Radio comes with a 6-hour rechargeable battery included, which is handy; this was an extra before. If you don't need the battery, the old model may be better value.There is also a hidden feature, an infrared receptor. Point a Squeezebox remote at the unit and it works, though no remote is supplied and since it is undocumented I guess this feature might disappear in later production runs.As a long-term Squeezebox enthusiast I came to the UE Smart Radio expecting to be disappointed, but was pleasantly surprised. It is still a slightly quirky system, but the added ease of use made me understand why Logitech has chosen to remove some features. You no longer need to select between a local and internet server, making it less confusing, unless for some reason you have multiple Music Libraries installed on the network (and why would you?).There are a few things I would like to see. There is no line out other than the headphone socket, and I would prefer a fixed output for connection to a hi-fi system, especially if the other Squeezebox players disappear. I also find the controls non-intuitive at times.Still, look at what you get. Physically the Smart Radio is great, well made, with a beautiful black gloss finish. Sound is excellent. And you can still play your small or large home music collection as well as connecting to a huge range of Internet radio stations and other music services. It may seem expensive, but once you appreciate the capabilities on offer it is good value.
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Smart Radio vs. Grace Mondo
By D. Gardner
I had the Grace Mondo for a couple of months, and while I liked it, I feel the Logitech UE Smart Radio outshines the Mondo. The first thing you notice is how much faster the Smart Radio is. From connecting to the wifi to clicking through the menus to actually connecting to the stations. It's noticably faster in all areas.The other thing that stood out was the clarity. Playing Pandora and Live 365 seemed to be much clearer on the Smart Radio than the Mondo. Not that the Mondo was bad, but my ears noticed the difference.Both have iphone apps to control the radio, that is really nice. The Mondo app lets you turn the radio on and off, while the Smart Radio app let's you control volume. It would be nice if both did both.One thing the Mondo has over the Smart Radio is the EQ. Put it on classical setting and you will get some booming bass. The Smart Radio does not have an EQ.All in all I do like this over the Mondo, but again, I really didn't have any real issues with the Mondo. I just think the overall sound and smoothness of the Smart Radio gives it an edge.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
Satisfied so far
By Ed
My friend had the squeezebox, and highly recommended it, and it just so happened that the weekend I was there they announced the new Smart Radio. I pre-ordered and received it today. There were a lot of complaints on the squeezebox forums about them taking away functionality, but so far it's met all my needs.Wants:1) To be able to stream music in multiple rooms wirelessly2) Be able to play music separately, or synced3) Connect that music to a 'media server' (ie my laptop with a disorganized collection of mp3s)Bonus:4) be able to play pandora or streaming radio (before hearing about the squeezebox I didn't think this existed)It met all of these conditions. Setup was a breeze to configure my laptop, cell phone, and 2 smart radios (less than 10 minutes).I like how it detects local radio stations that have online streaming so the only need I'd have for a regular radio is mlb games which are blacked out on streaming (angry!). There's a few talk radio shows I like to listen to and didn't even think about how this would make it easy.1 thing I was hoping to be able to do, was to play and sync from my laptop and cell phone so there would be one less box I'd have to use. Of course then that's one less unit they'd sell so I guess I understand why they wouldn't do that. Having the battery will be useful for taking it out of the office when i'm done working for the day (I work from home), although I might just buy another power cord. The battery seems almost useless when you need to have it be in your wireless network range, but I guess it will help when entertaining and want to put it out of the way or take it outside and not worry about plugging it in.Another big concern of mine is how many connections my wireless router can hold, but right now I have 2 laptops, a cell phone, and 2 smart radios and everything runs fine.I'd recommend it to my friends for sure.
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Wonderfully transparent sound, reasonable price
Good product, but it's true the setup instructions suck.
