Phones should have FM radio again
Phones should have FM radio again
www.spacebar.news Phones should have FM radio again
Radio access could be a critical safety feature in the years ahead.
412 comments
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The 90s kid in me yearns for a phone with Fm radio, headphone jack, IR blaster, stylus, memory card slot, slide out keyboard and one of those click on projectors the Motorola phones used to have. I would call it the Donatello and it would be radical.
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And a translucent purple case!
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I've refused to buy these "flagship" phones that don't have a headphone jack. The 90s kid in me will live on, damnit!
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Basically all the phones with headphone jacks now have abysmal long-term support. Even the fair phone got rid of the headphone jack so they could sell their bullshit wireless headphones
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This is why I love Sony phones.
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I've an Armor 21, it has the radio, headphone jack, IR blaster and the memory card slot, plus a loud and clear speaker, actual night vision and is rugged as fuck. Base price sub-$250, upcharge for an attachable endoscope.
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You'll be happy to know that I bribed my kids into watching the 1990 TMNT live action movie this weekend. The younger one loved it, but the preteen was full of critical commentary the whole time. Go figure. But hey, I won one of them over to the TMNT side.
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how do you know someone was born in the 80s? they'll fucking tell you. you can just like stuff without referencing your stupid metal lunchbox all the time.
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I was born in the early 70s. We didn't have anything cool.
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I hate this idea. FM channels have more advertisements than they have music. And there's no technical way (yet) that I know of to automatically block said advertisements. Advertisements have driven the world into madness, as now anything that requires them to stay profitable either jams them into everything, or has a huge focus on rage-bait in order to get people to listen/watch/click. This rage-bait has made our world more angry, more divisive, and more chaotic than ever. Fuck advertisers.
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The point of the article is to have them there for emergencies since we already have systems in place to broadcast emergency info over radio, and it's a lot simpler to implement than satellite for when cell signal is down.
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And it's way better than the xitter.
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I don't see the necessity for FM Radio to be used for this. They've removed them from most of today's phones, and adding them back would be just as complex as adding something like LoRa for emergency messages.
LoRa could also be used for mesh-messaging, and bring some added privacy features that people genuinely would have a use for.
I guarantee this article has FM Radio station money behind it.
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It's not like you have to use it. My phone has it, I've used it to listen to local football games while camping. Worked great. Some people like to have the option to use it though.
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There are some channels that aren't like this if you're lucky enough to live in an area with something like NPR stations, college/highschool stations, or donation funded music radio.
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I just built a website that makes it easy to find and stream community radio stations (which you refer to as 'donation funded') There are over 100 stations listed. Just choose from a drop-down and hit 'play'. Looking for more beta testers https://AlternateAirwaves.com
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If you live near a University, tune in to the local student radio.
It's usually run by the University without ads.
I rock out to WPTS radio in Pittsburgh and both WUOG and WPPP in Athens, GA.
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I love our local university radio. They actually play jazz sometimes. It's basically mindless pop, frozen in time 90s, or you can pick between new country and even newer country where I live.
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Our local college has an alternative rock station that radio students come on air. Minimal ads with great music and personalities.
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Imma just leave this here: https://www.campus-fm.com/
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There is also WSOU in northern New Jersey. Seton Hall's Pirate Radio.
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The emergency channel has no ads...
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Oh no! Imagine being forced to have the option to listen to another form of communication!
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I hate it when this hypothetical radio app downloads itself and turns itself on every time there's a radio ad break!
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I could use public radio.
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That's not all radios for sure. For example the Bulgarian Radio 1 seems to be almost exclusively music. Sometimes there are advertisement blocks that are long, but usually it's just music. Then there may be local stuff like college radios (e.g.: KGRG) that won't have as many advertisements, if any. In Slovakia there used to be Rádio Anténa Rock that was also mostly music as well, but they shut down as it wasn't profitable. They are now owned by Bauermedia and operate as "Rádio Rock" with only 3 low-power FM transmitters which barely cover 2 cities. At least they're in DAB+.
Anyway, there are some radios that do not have as many advertisements.
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The reason they had FM in the past was because broadcasters lobbied for it to be a requirement.
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I’d like to listen to my local NPR station. It’s not an advertising nightmare.
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There are gaming phones, phones with crazy cameras, and iPhones where the lack of features is a feature. What I wish to have is a phone with as many features and functionality as possible.
That includes (but not limited to): IR blaster Headphone jack MicroSD card slot FM Radio RGB Notification/Status LED
Rather than a slim phone with a glossy finish that will pick up scratches right away unless wrapped in a phone case, the outer cover of the phone should be rugged and replaceable. Like with old Nokia phones. I don't care about few extra grams, or another millimeter of thickness. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I was hopeful about the Fairphone at first, but they started removing features as well.
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When I changed in my iPhone 3g for an original Galaxy S, with barometer, I thought that by the iPhone/Galaxy 10 we would all be rocking tricorders. What kind of crazy sensors would they jam in by then? Zero. Here we are at generation 15 with no additional cool sensors.
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It's intentional. They'd like to drop features to cut on design and manufacture costs, while taking out features most of the target audience doesn't really care about. Some of these are just greedy. Phones used to rely on microSD expansion, but once you drop this option you could charge for additional space much more than what the equivalent microSD card would cost. You can also stop shipping phones with chargers because most people have them anyway. This is pure profit as the customer is paying the same price, but doesn't get a charger.
As for other features, they probably dropped them because people just didn't care enough.
It seems to be incredibly difficult to design a phone from scratch, and that's why we only see a handful of manufacturers, with the small endeavors being able to make something that looks obsolete by the time it rolls out and even then it takes a few months to overcome all the bugs and glitches. Fairphone is the closest we've got, but it's still far off and strays further with each generation.
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"You don't need practical capabilities, you need to be an obedient consumer."
—OEMs
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Disappointed Moto Mods didn't catch on. The obvious approach of "skinny phone with minimal features but you can slap whatever you like onto the back (radios, projectors, beefy batteries, gamepad, etc)" - just makes sense for me. I loved my old Moto Z.
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Still have my force 2 with the click on battery, loved that phone.
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I actually meant to reply to your comment but replied to the main thread by mistake, I had the same frustrations with modern phones losing features, and even fairphone dropping the 3.5mm jack was a wtf decision to me. See my comment on the ulephone 18t, it had virutally everything I wanted in a phone.
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That includes (but not limited to): IR blaster Headphone jack MicroSD card slot FM Radio RGB Notification/Status LED
My Poco F2 Pro has all of those but microSD slot (none of my recent phones have had it, and I'm starting to miss it right now with 128 gb of base storage) and the IR blaster has saved my ass more than once!
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I still have my LG v20 because of this. I'd love to upgrade but nothing that's come out since even comes close.
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I've been saying this for a while now. FM radios and such are invaluable in emergency situations.
There have been times in the past where I've lost power to my house. No internet, no electricity etc in the middle of an emergency weather situation. I had to rely on battery powered radios to learn about what the situation was elsewhere and how long we'd be stuck etc. There is basically no reason why this can't be incorporated into phones, aside from the fact that phone makers would rather you use Apple Music etc. It should be legislated for I believe.
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One reason is that every implementation I've ever tried relies on using the wired earphones as an aerial and Apple magically convinced everyone that having a 3.5mm port is somehow a bad thing.
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Just buy a $15 FM radio. Especially since you can't charge your phone when you have no power, but a small radio takes AA batteries which can sit in a drawer for 10 years until you need them.
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You'd think so but every device around my house that I "put batteries in it and forget it" when I need it I find the batteries have exploded and the device is ruined (regardless of the decade on the expiry-date label of the battery). So my plan now is to keep the device separate from the batteries like it's a freaking handgun and make sure my phone is charged so I can use its light to make my way to the drawer where we keep the batteries.
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A weather radio is even more useful. It usually has FM as well, but getting National Weather Service alerts can be vital.
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one of those windy radios you crank for a bit would be better for emergencies
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You can make your battery phone last a lot when you are not using the display and disconnect from any networks. You can also have some powerbank around. Emergencies won't necessarily find you in home or wherever your radio is stored in. You keep your phone with you most of the time, chances are, if an earthquake happens, for example, you'll have your phone with you. Been there.
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Yes... but... this becomes one of those things that everyone should buy to be prepared but few actually do or they forget.
I keep a little crank-chargeable radio in our emergency kit but most people don't. If the cell networks go down (and they usually do in severe weather and most other big emergency situations) most people will lose all of their access to information.
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I wholeheartedly agree, but I don't think there's any saving it at this point. Car manufacturers are dropping it from new models and that's the only actual AM/FM radio most people actually buy these days.
Same thing happened to the phone network. It used to actually be possible to call 911 when the power was out. The central stations all had battery banks and diesel generators. Unless the lines were cut, you had service.
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I wanted to tag on to your post. I've been without power for weather stuff too a few times and one thing i learned was that my cheapie 40" TV would only pull 10-15watts with backlight all the way down. With a small battery bank you can go a good while on that and tune into your local station via OTA. It was very watchable especially given the only light around was my candle.
For a couple more watts you watch shows off your memory stick as well once the event is over and you are just waiting for the power lines to get fixed.. my phone drained nearly as much but to be fair i left the radio enabled so it was hunting for a tower.
Just something to consider for your gear if you live near the coast or in Texas. Battery banks are pretty cheap.
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I'm glad battery backup can keep the internet going for a long time but I also have data to use and never get close to making a dent in it. If service providers went down though I do have several radios around the house. I don't go anywhere but I'd I did i would carry a little radio lol. That being said, I miss my smart phone and flip phone that had radio on it. I don't care about headphone jacks but I definitely would love radio.
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The components to make the phone able to decode FM radio take place. Which, in such small device, is valuable. If you really need FM radio for emergency situations, why not take a dedicated miniaturized FM radio receiver?
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I've come to the realization that the phone I want is a Nokia 3310 "brick".
- Infinite battery life
- compact size
- headphone jack
- indestructible
- no spyware
- no social media
- T9 texting
- no software updates
- Snake
- Brick Breaker
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Everyone talks about how great Nokia bricks are, but you actually do have to be careful not to drop them or you might damage the floor.
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Some of these I get, but I don't get the T9 thing. T9 was so bad! It took ages to type many words. Today's predictive keyboards are miles better.
Also, no software updates? Sure, every now and then there's a shitty update, but most updates are great. New features and especially bug fixes are amazing. Used to be that if something had a bug, you just had to deal with it. There's no guarantees it'll be fixed today, but many companies do fix their bugs at least eventually. The ability to iteratively develop is huge for software quality. These days, unless you're developing something that absolutely cannot fail (like a mars prober or radiation therapy machine), it's widely agreed upon that iterative design is superior to "waterfall" design of trying to plan it out all ahead of time. Part of why is so you can get feedback continuously instead of only after you've committed to months of tech debt.
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When T9 was all we had, we got real good at it.
No software updates mean they have to get it right the first time, which they always seemed to manage.
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Dr Who vs Daleks. I think it's krobot on linux.
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Why? Have you heard radio? Every station is just a glorified shitty playlist that they cycle through a dozen times a day
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Because if the cell networks fail, right now there's no backup method to get crucial information to everyone's hands.
Radio are an easy secondary, really long range mechanism to get information INTO disaster stricken areas when normal means of communications have failed.
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Back home we had a local station, felt like a way of tuning into "the city." Very few breaks outside of their pledge drives once/twice a year. Listening to the Jazz station here on short drives these days. Very few ads, and some pretty gnarly shit. College radio stations are also pretty easy to find and escape that ad insanity.
Don't let radio and broadcast TV die quite yet, it's still very viable, especially as we sort out net neutrality and failsafe systems in cases of emergency.
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That's what happens when we "removed regulations" and allowed Clear Channel (aka iHeartRadio) to buy up most every major station in the country.
However you can still do short range FM transmissions yourself, as a lot of people do with elaborate Christmas light displays, plus it's useful in emergency situations.
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And crazy levels of advertising to boot.
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Emergencies that would normally sever other means of communications. Think natural disasters that interrupt internet access. Usually radio stations are the first to come back up, and priceless at times where information is key.
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Where I am we've got the BBC local radio network and they've got some amazing local music shows for each region granted all is available via their now locked down sounds app
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In Atlanta we have a pretty nice jazz station (WCLK). The station that NPR took over (Album 88) was a university station and they still play stuff in the evening I think. There can be good content but it is heavily reliant on where you live. Come to think of it, WCLK is a university station as well. So I guess you have to have universities around.
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Maybe if you live somewhere with good radio stations... the radio is pretty much dead here. Nothing but Christian talk and static.
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And ads... You forgot ads.... Never ending ads..
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I switched to satellite years ago (when there was two competing services) because I once had an hour long drive and didn't hear anything but ads the whole way. I was fed up with it.
I now pretty much use Spotify because XM and Sirius merged, so now there's only the one service, and they immediately cut features, introduced ads, and jacked up prices. So I cancelled.
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This is tangential to the conversation but have you heard of Radio Garden? You can listen to radio stations around the world. As for "good radio stations," I'm partial to college radio stations like 90.7 FM in NYC. They have a lot of freedom with their playlists.
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Would be great for an apocalypse
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Careful now, that same kind of wishing gave us a plague, lol.
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Then you'd need to include a headphone jack since the headphones acted as the antenna.
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I wonder if wired USB-C Headphones could work the same?
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Yes. But it would also drain more power.
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i remember old ipods could listen to the radio using the headphones as an antenna and i thought it was the coolest thing in the world. listening to a live feed like that is so much more...viscerally satisfying than just streaming a song or even listening to internet radio, where it could easily be just a computer. it's nice knowing someone is actually creating a show for you in real time
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Sadly 95% of the shows are just computers with a pre-loaded playlist. Still fun to know though that you are listening with a lot of other people together.
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The shows don't really exist anymore. At least not in my area. Well over a decade ago they were all replaced by playlists and commercials.
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You could check out NTS Radio - so many shows from a very wide variety of genres, and they have an archive of every episode
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Only a couple of the final pod nanos had built-in radio, the other iPods all required additional hardware to be plugged in. I found that the hard way with an iPod classic... Even my shitty flip phone had built-in radio with an earpiece connected lol.
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Uh, no. It entirely depends on the station. My wife has radio stations in her car that sound almost 100% prerecorded and edited together - I can never tell if someone is actually talking now or if it's just a snippet from a previous recording. However, if I listen to a very specific radio station from my home country, which I can only get via internet stream, it still feels like listening to the radio. The way of listening has nothing to do with it, it's all in the station's programming.
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I'm going to chime in here to plug the ulefone power armor 18t I just got. I was pretty nervous to get a chinese phone as I've only had samsung and lg phones before, but this thing legit blows me away. Not only does it fully support every band that my carrier uses (rare even for phones made for the US market), but it has:
- Replaceable battery that lasts 3+ days between recharges
- Extremely rugged, IP69 waterproof and designed for underwater photography (physical shutter button and diving camera app)
- 3.5mm jack, sd card slot, FM radio (with built in antenna - no headphones need to be plugged in), and an RGB notification led
- Dimensity 900 chipset that beats a lot of the snapdragon chips on the market.
- 12 fucking GB of RAM... yes, 12...
- Wifi 6(ax)
- Wireless charging and reverse charging
- A fucking 60x magnification microscope? (Why???)
- A FLIR thermal camera (Just because, why the fuck not)
- Runs mostly bloat free stock android
All that for under $600 (on aliexpress)
The only thing it's missing is an IR blaster, otherwise this is the best phone I've ever had, bar none. It is a chonky beast though, be warned.
This has really changed my view on Chinese electronics, especially at a time when phones for the western world are losing features and functionality all the time (including stuff from South Korean). Turns out capitalism isn't that great for innovation!
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As a former fan of ulefones:
They're great as long as they work, but I already had two ulefones where something broke internally physically and the IR-blaster blasted non-stop, even after the phone was off. Never had other significant problems, tho.
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Damn, this seems like exactly what I've been looking for... Shame I'm finding it a year late.
One last really important point you didn't mention is how long do they serve security updates for?
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Yeah I'm not looking for Chinese spyware on my phone's from a company that will no longer exist in 3 months.
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Honestly this is amazing. If only it wasn't so big...
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Wait, you guys don't have FM radio on your phones?
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Most scrappy overpriced phones doesn't have mini jack so no antenna to get radio
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Why? ClearChannel has all but ruined it.
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Remember, not everyone lives in the US.
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Fair, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before it’s ruined elsewhere also.
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There is a conspiracy with the iHeartRadio music festival.
How many people do you know who get hyped up to go see an amalgamation of 6-15 year old bands with no new music?
ClearChannel (and therefore iHeart) sells advertising enmasse so that messages and products can be pushed the largest groups. They hype up the music festival like its a great big deal, and then they give away tickets.
I genuinely wonder how many people paid for tickets vs. "won" tickets from one of the 9 different radio stations that cover their area.
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For emergency purposes, mandate cell tower batteries with solar supplement.
And generators for bigger hubs.
Cellular internet is critical infrastructure now.
Same for ISPs. My internet wifi has battery backup, so as long as the ISP stays up we are good.
Cell towers nearby all went down during the last big power failure. I could hit one distant tower that still had power, but the signal was weak, and the tower was swamped. It could barely push data.
Next big earthquake will be a total shitshow if that's not fixed.
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I have battery backup for my modem and router as well. Also my doorbell has a battery (for installation without access to wiring). This means I can still get motion alerts while my power is out lol.
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high end ones dont even have headphone jacks for starters
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Imagine if every American had a shortwave radio transmitter in their pocket. Endless September for hams
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As a ham, ugh.
I dream of it being more common to have radios in everyone's pocket, but it needs to be accompanied by some level of education on how to use it.
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Maybe the price of the transceivers would go down, at least, lol. I have a general license and I just mess around with a Baofeng for the most part because I cannot justify buying a better radio. Tempted to get a QCX-mini or Pixie kit for a project... Unfortunately the like... $1000+ transceivers are just way out of budget for me, and I'm not sure I'd get enough use out of it to warrant the expense.
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A lot of posts in here complaining about shitty commercial radio. Do you all not have local radio stations? I love my local stations.
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We have a dozen local stations...all owned by clearchanel.
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The high school the next town over has the best music in the whole city. Unfortunately I live right on the edge of the broadcast range so it cuts out at home.
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I had read this in another thread, but radio was one of the first (if not first) media form to be entshittified. Decades before we even had a term for it.
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My comment pertains to the USA, but regardless of where you live, there is a very strong likelihood that your local commercial stations are owned by a company like iHeartRadio and much, if not all, of the content is syndicated.
The only exception might be a local nonprofit radio station. You probably have at best one local station in this case, unless you live in a major city broadcast region. Keep in mind I mean one local station that plays music. A local NPR station is probably separate from this. Even most of NPR is syndicated, however.
If you're lucky, a local college might still have a radio station broadcasting over FM, but so many have moved online since you then don't need an [expensive and volatile] FCC license.
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I've never bought a phone without FM radio. I regard it as an emergency tool.
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That doesn't help much if your country has shut down FM broadcasting though.
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Well, that's surely something to consider, but it's still not a fact. I wouldn't even expect that to happen in my country any time soon. I know radio is struggling right now, but I also know I can stream live FM radio stations from all over the world.
In any case, if DAB can replace FM even for emergency use, that's what I'd want in my phone.
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wtf
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ITT: people who have never heard of college radio stations
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There is no such thing in France. Only crap between lots of ads.
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In Brazil there is a lot of decent radio stations, though they mostly play the same music they have played since the 2000s.
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When I was at uni in the early 2000s in the UK our uni radio was internet only. I would assume that's something that wouldn't have gone backwards in the last 20 or so years.
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They should have DAB+ radio. Much better.
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My car has DAB+ and it kinda sucks. In principle it's better, the audio quality is better and instead of static it decreases the volume when the signal degrades. But it's so sensitive to interference and when it looses the signal (or thinks it has lost it), it starts hunting and gets totally confused. Often it can't re-acquire the signal till I just hit the button to re-tune to the channel. Maybe it's just the radio in my car is bad (2016 Chevy, nothing special) or I live in a bit of a dead zone or something. I imagine if you don't move it would work perfectly, but when driving it's mostly annoying. Which is a shame, because a lot of stations are only on DAB+, not having the money for an FM license.
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Definitely. Especially in countries like the UK where the only decent commercial radio station (absolute radio) is now DAB only.
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I don't even remember the last time I listened to FM radio. I just don't like listening to the same 20 songs on repeat with annoying ads
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They're all run by really cheap computer programs now, they have been terrible since they fired all the djs.
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Can you pick up any community radio in your area? We have one and every couple of hours it's a different type of music. Blues, Rock, Hip-Hop, Reggae etc. All music chosen by the person you hear on the air.
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They don't even play good music
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from what i recall almost every QCOM chipset has the circuitry baked in, it's just disabled. https://www.wired.com/2016/07/phones-fm-chips-radio-smartphone/
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Yeah, a lot of smartphone chipsets still have an FM tuner, but it needs additional circuitry (e.g. a 3.5mm jack to use as the antenna) that most device makers don't implement.
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it probably wouldn't be too hard to diplex it with one of the low band antennas, wouldn't be great reception but it'd give you something for FM stations that are close enough. a relatively big ass coupling inductor and small series cap before the antenna tuner shouldn't do too much insertion loss damage, these cellular front ends are lossy AF already... and the lowest low band freq is like 6x higher from the FM band, so isolation should be ok... dunno, obviously adds more cost than what it's worth to the bean counters in charge i'm sure.
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Not long ago I decided to buy a radio just for emergencies. I guess having it in my smartphone would be better yes.
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OTOH I bet the radio would last a lot longer.
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For a while, a lot of the software designed radios already in phones could be hacked to play FM. I remember a friend doing it back in 2010-ish on his Nexus One.
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In 2017, Mexico passed regulation that required all smartphones with FM chips to enable them
Now I've got in my head "I'm on a Mexican, radio..."
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Considering when I use the radio in the car I might get 2 songs before 5 minus of commercials, no thanks. Audiobooks, podcasts, and PlexAmp all the way
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it's not about the entertainment value, but rather news, weather and other information during emergencies when your cell signal might, and is more likely to, go to shit.
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I mean, just because it’s included doesn’t mean you have to use it.
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Certain phones have it, but use your wired headphones as an antenna while leveraging your Bluetooth.. In Japan they had phones with TV tuners
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In Japan they had phones with TV tuners
Not my phone Mr. NHK man.
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Mobile carriers are worried about "congested mobile broadband" right? Surely they'd want something like this implemented if it could cut down on peak usage and not have to force their hand to do that awful throttling they must hate so much?
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only time i ever used phone FM was camping. not often lately. car has fm but radio commercials assault my nerves, use mp3s on a stick or streaming w/$10/mo
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for police/fire scanners https://openmhz.com/
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With all the blackouts I had these past 2 years, YEA PLEASE. Hell, I was a out to relearn how to make a homemade AM radio. Haven't done it in 28 years.
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Coming late to this part but Umidigi phones still do FM radio and don't even require headphones to be plugged in any more.
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Phones still do. Xiaomi phones for example.
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Almost any mid-range phone with headphone jack
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The last couple major power failures we've had in my area, information was by far the most difficult thing to come by.
The power goes out, and shortly thereafter so does cable internet. My UPS usually keeps my cable box up longer than the service itself lasts. That puts everyone on the cell network, which is immediately overloaded. So the internet is essentially worthless during most hours.
FM radio stations are similarly worthless. I remember a power outage last winter where there was going to be a press conference, I think the governor was going to talk about something...couldn't get coverage. The local FM station was up and running, they were broadcasting just fine, but they were trying to patch into the press conference via Facebook, and the internet wasn't up to it. They apparently don't have their own radio uplinks anymore.
The local television station would have been more help...if I could get an antenna high enough to hear it.
And during normal business hours most broadcast FM stations are IHeartRadio transmitting the same 20 songs intercut with the same 90,000 advertisements. Or broadcasting The Two removed Named Chris show three times a day.
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Even most cheapo mp3 players have this functionality built in
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I miss when MP3 players were popular. There was a lot more variety in consumer tech before 2013-ish
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I love my Surfans F20 got it 3 years ago and its still going strong after quite a few drops and nicks. I wish they made a updated usb-c version but otherwise as a big music guy that hates music streaming, downloads everything, and prefers the convinence of a dedicated digital audio device its just awesome.
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Bring back PTT! Miss my Nextel.
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I just looked, the app I used to use for a Nextel replacement still exists, it's called Voxer. Cannot speak to it's quality anymore but I did use it a lot back in the day.
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That was a horrible gimmick, mostly useful for annoying people. But I believe iPhones have it, or at least Apple Watch does
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I was in my late teens and annoying AF! But the ability to speak quickly with my most frequent contacts without having to dial was really convenient.
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Why? My country doesn’t even have FM anymore. It shut down in 2017, frequencies repurposed for more useful things.
It’s an almost 100 years old technology..
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Norway?
How's the DAB+ coverage now? I've heard some ugly stuff about it before when the switch happened. -
My country was planning to do that, then the main party remembered that most of the people who vote for them are really old and are the most likely to be annoyed by a change like that.
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Fun fact: almost every phone on the market has the hardware. It's just drivers/software that are missing (and, more recently, the antenna's been unavailable with the removal of the audio jack. The radio chip is still in there though)
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I'm sad that my Asus Zenfone 9 (it has a headphone jack) can't get FM radio. The app I use (NextRadio) can't detect a FM tuner on the phone.
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You might like radiogarden! It pulls streams for any radio stations that clone their feed online. You won't get everything but you have the option to listen to radio from anywhere in the world!
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This is still a feature in some major brands though. I have a Moto g power from a relatively recent model year and it comes with a built-in FM Radio app that uses wired headphones as an antenna. It also still has a headphone jack so I don't know how indicative it is of the broader US market.
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Every phone I had that did this also used the wired headphone cable as an antenna. Personally I do like Bluetooth on the go (for casual listening only), so I'm not actually sure it would be usable unless the phone had a separate antenna.
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No thanks. I listened to radio the other day (not in my car) and it was all ads and a shortened version of a song so they can do more ads.
I didn’t realize radio got so bad.
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So glad that mine does.
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The one headphone adapter I have doesn't seem to work, and I don't think there was one with the phone. Finicky is probably right!
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FM radio is the one feature removal I don't mind. You can access all radio on the internet now, so it's unnecessary anyway.
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And when the internet goes out during a hurricane? Thats a thing
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One of the reasons why I picked the Xiaomi Poco X3
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Mine still does. puts on shades
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FM was switched off in 2017 (Norway), but a DAB chip would've been nice.
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This 2022 Nokia has an FM radio. I had a look at the app and it says 'Please plug in your headset to tune'. It's not impossible that the USB C port is wired so wired headphones plugged in through an adaptor act as an aerial I suppose.
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Yes they do, and it's amazing to "tune the radio. Those wires are soo finicky you can hear high school physics!!! Not sarcastic btw. I really do enjoy those damned finicky cables xD
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So, what, we're just going to carry around USB antennas now?
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A lot of phones already have the capability to recieve broadcast band FM, the type and electrical length of the antenna matters a lot less when you're just receiving signals.
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I already do, sort of. RTL-SDR
No better way to drain phone battery. Also doubles as a hand warmer.
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You do SDR on your phone? The last time I played with one of those dongles was like a decade ago and mostly I used it to check out NOAA satellite data and eavesdrop on air traffic control at the local airport.
I wonder how useful that would still be to keep tabs on the local pigs during the protests the next time they murder someone?
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I must be ootl; what’s the upside compared to Spotify ? Having to endure ads, talk-shows and other open mics while having shitty reception isn’t enticing… at least here there isn’t any station I would find satisfying content-wise; given the whole frequency assignment bullshit small stations are few and far between with nothing that would cover metal and / or frenchcore. So the small benefit of music discovery isn’t really possible anymore for me.
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If you can afford to pay for all that mobile data usage, and if you're walking through an area with good mobile data coverage, go right ahead.
For the rest of us, we have to suffice with saving our MP3s to an SD Card and listening that way, or using the radio, though as you pointed out radio sucks haha. But it is very low power and low barrier to entry!
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What mobile data usage? I’m loading my tracks at home save a few times I browse where I have network coverage… for all intents and purposes bar the monthly tax it’s the same as my good old mp3 player. Also audio streaming isn’t exactly the most bandwidth consuming thing right ? Unless you want lossless quality but then good luck with FM radio…
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Bring back vinyl record players!
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My phone has an FM radio.
I've listened to it in long international flights just to see how things change.
other than that it serves no purpose whatsoever.
I suppose it could be useful in an emergency but I'd bet just having cell seryqould fair better.
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FM access would cut down on mobile data usage… up-to-the-minute weather reports and automated alerts… are broadcasted at 162.400, which means you need specialized radios to pick up the stations… maybe an external antenna could use the shield or one of the pins on the phone’s charging port, or wired USB-C headphones and 3.5mm adapters could be updated to work as antennas… There could also just be an adapter that connects to the phone and contains all the required hardware…
What the fuck is this person smoking?
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No idea?
but to break the points apart a bit...
FM access would cut down on mobile data usage
FM radio is something like 54kHz. Simplisticly we can say that would be 54kbps... let's even say it's double that to account for overhead. so 108kbps. That's just about 1 GB/day. That's not really an amount that carriers sell anymore... Nor do people normally listen to music 24hours a day.
up-to-the-minute weather reports and automated alerts
Only if you're listening... and our phones do automated alerts already... as long as those systems are working. And considering that FM is a completely different well documented thing... it's worth keeping it around.
are broadcasted at 162.400, which means you need specialized radios to pick up the stations…
Nah, FM has been built into chipsets for well over a decade at this point. Most radios even still have them today. Just disconnected. But even if it wasn't available... Most phones at this point use RTL-SDR radios... software define radios means you can just program it to FM frequencies and it will work.
maybe an external antenna could use the shield or one of the pins on the phone’s charging port, or wired USB-C headphones and 3.5mm adapters could be updated to work as antennas…
Or even the wireless contacts for Qi charging and NFC... Just disable the radio app when these things are actually in use...
There could also just be an adapter that connects to the phone and contains all the required hardware…
No need, the vast majority of phones already have what you'd need. Just never connected/used by software for some reason.
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