[November 15, 2009] The Hartford Courant, Conn., Kevin Hunt column: Squeezebox Radio Delivers A Wakeup Call Tweet Nov 15, 2009 (The Hartford Courant - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- A new generation will never know life without a cellphone, iPod or DVR. Who needs a land-line phone, CD player or VCR, anyway? Next on the endangered list of old-folk technology: the venerable AM/FM radio, which appears increasingly vulnerable in a wired world to multipurpose, Wi-Fi-enabled devices like Logitech's mighty Squeezebox Radio. The $199 Squeezebox, the little brother to the Squeezebox Boom streaming-media boombox, might look like a lowly clock radio that spews Jay-Z and Kenny Chesney and faithfully recites local news, weather and sports each morning. It is, in fact, a potent Internet device whose repository of music includes the thousands of radio stations around the globe that stream daily programming and assorted music-rich apps like Pandora, Last.fm, Rhapsody and Napster. Free, music-on-demand options range from Classical.com, which stocks almost half a million classical tracks, to the Live Music Archives' warehouse of concert recordings -- including several hundred by its marquee band, the Grateful Dead. (Now cuing "Playing in the Band," from San Rafael, Calif., circa 1984.) Music is also searchable, globally, by genre or individual station's call letters. The Squeebox's skill set also includes podcasts, Flickr photo-sharing and Facebook, which enables the social network's users to check status updates or annoy friends by posting what they're listening to ("Bohemian Rhapsody"?). Here's the kicker: It also streams music from your computer, everything but encrypted music purchased from iTunes. The music might reside on a PC in the den, but it's all available to the Squeezebox on an upstairs nightstand. Is this the clock radio that kills the clock radio? Possibly, though it's asking a lot from a bedside (or kitchen) companion that measures less than 9 inches wide, about 5 inches deep and 5 inches tall. The Squeezebox actually needs a lifeline -- an Internet connection, wired or wireless -- and, to link to your music library, the Squeezebox Server software installed on a Windows, Mac or Linux computer. Then it's your faithful musical servant. Manage the apps directly on the Squeezebox or online at mysqueezebox.com. In most cases, the Squeezebox quickly joins your home network, as it did mine, by simply entering the network's password. It took the Squeezebox more than a half-hour, but it indexed each of the 18,000-plus songs in my music library over a Wi-Fi connection. That included album art available for display, iPod-style, on the 2.4-inch LCD screen. Another Squeezebox option: A photo screensaver, whether it's that cheesecake Facebook profile or your little feline friend, Mr. Whiskers. The no-ego Squeezebox even allows the user to rename the radio, as in "Rufus' Radio," on the display. The Squeezebox has three station preset buttons on either side of the screen, but its controls otherwise look like a digital music player's, not a radio's, with pause/stop, rewind/forward and "home." The largest knob is neither a channel selector nor volume control but a push-button menu navigator and selector. Think of it as an oversize iPod clickwheel. Sometimes, though, I thought of the Squeezebox as a fickle computer. It took almost 45 seconds to boot from a dead start and, one day, shut down repeatedly after a minute or two. Other times, it locked up when I tried to access the apps menu. Or the presets failed to work. Each time, I had to restart the Squeezebox. Expect Logitech to address these stability issues in a future software update. That's the difference between a Wi-Fi-enabled radio and an AM/FM radio. Another: To get music playing from clock-on, standby mode, the user must press both the Squeezebox's "power" and "play" buttons. The Squeezebox ( www.logitechsqueezebox.com) is the rare clock radio that goes portable: A $50 option includes both a battery pack and a mini-remote control. Even rarer, its available alarm sounds include a horse whinny, spring peepers and a hair dryer. For all its firepower, though, the Squeezebox sounds almost too polite, as if it's afraid to disturb. The soft-dome tweeter and 3-inch woofer could not quite match the volume levels of another Internet radio, the $200 Livio Radio. Yet the Livio ( www.livioradio.com), which so impressed this listener last summer, is out of its league here. The basic Livio -- a charming retro table-radio design, with monochrome screen -- is still the safest choice for the technophobe. The Squeezebox Radio might not revolutionize Wi-Fi radio the way the iPod revolutionized mobile music, but it's safe to say there has never been a clock radio like it. To see more of The Hartford Courant, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.courant.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, The Hartford Courant, Conn. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]