[Closed] What internet radio?

Smart Speaker for sure

ditto

got rid of all radios, whether old skool/DAB/Digital in favour of various googles

For £100, you could get 4ish (depending on the time of year), and dot them around the house

Shirley an iPhone (even and old one) would have enough power to stream music/radio? have you tried streaming from your 'good phone' to make sure it's not your interweb connection?
If looking for a similar device now I'd for one of these
They don't seem to do them anymore for some reason but they have the whole modern streaming thing going on along with being able to turn a knob and play preset 'stations'. Pretty sure you can set an internet radio station (R2?) as a preset.

Yeah Echo Dot I reckon, but get them when they are on sale (£49, I think they go down to £25 or less).

If you want better sound, I guess you can get one of the bigger more expensive ones but this will allow you to test without spending much.

Even if you don't use Alexa, you can just Bluetooth you phone to it.

Mick

We went through this - but an Echo Dot + Anker speaker ended up being half the price of a dedicated internet radio in the sales. Then you realise how useful voice control is in a kitchen when you are cooking, washing up, wet/greasy hands etc. Then you start coming up with things you can get smart plugs etc to do.

I’m fed up with the buffering on ye olde phone so would quite like a proper internet radio.

However the buffering is not due to the phone, it's due to your internet connection.

The internet is fine as my good phone plays no problem.

It may not be buffering but I do get that whirly wheel at the top of the screen and when that happens....no music.

My phone rarely buffers listening to various stations on its own data connection, never mind wi-fi. In fact I can listen in the shed, connected to the house WiFi

With an echo how would it know that I want to listen to the U.k Radio Caroline rather than the Italian one?

If I said" play 6 music" would it, or would it give me examples of 6 types of music?

Voice dialling in my car normally ends with me smashing the dash up.

It's quite intelligent. There are two Radio Xs, one is in Arabic not sure where. For a while it would play the Arabic one so I had to say 'play UK Radio X' - but I think it's worked it out now that I am more likely to want the UK one.

You have to ask for BBC 6 Music. I used to have to specify '.. on Tune In' but I think I'm now using the BBC skill so it uses that. The BBC skill has loads of features, you can listen live or to specific programmes from the past just by asking.

With an echo how would it know that I want to listen to the U.k Radio Caroline rather than the Italian one?

Because you're in the UK?

If I said” play 6 music” would it, or would it give me examples of 6 types of music?

I just tried it. I got "here's Radio 6 Music," the BBC Sounds app jingle, then 6 Music.

If it does get in a twist you can specify the source. Eg, "Alexa, play 6 Music on BBC Sounds." You can also specify default sources in the app, so say you have Spotify and Amazon Music you could set AM as default and it'd use that if you just asked for a song rather than "play [song] on Spotify."

Voice dialling in my car normally ends with me smashing the dash up.

My experience of OEM in-car voice dialling is similar. You usually need to know the exact command words and structure or it gets into a tizzy. Alexa / OK Google is much more sophisticated, you can pretty much just use natural language with it.

I use Android Auto in the car and the voice recognition is astonishingly good, one thing that impressed me the other day was I told it to navigate to somewhere and unbeknown to me the venue had been renamed, Google didn't even blink and pointed me at the correct place.

Alexa works very well 99% of the time, except when it doesn't and starts doing something completely random, which can be hilarious. "Alexa, put milk on my shopping list." - "OK, playing 'I don't like Mondays' by the Boomtown Rats on Spotify." (Not an actual real example, but it wouldn't surprise me.) As Mols said, it's ace when you're in the kitchen with your hands covered in stuff and you want to turn the lights on or need to stick something that you've just run out of onto a shopping list.

I got my Echo given and thought I'd never use it, but I wouldn't be without it now. I bought a second Dot for the bedroom - it makes a great alarm clock - and am considering one of the new plug things for the kitchen so I don't have to yell at her from a different room.

My experience of OEM in-car voice dialling is similar. You usually need to know the exact command words and structure or it gets into a tizzy. Alexa / OK Google is much more sophisticated, you can pretty much just use natural language with it.

This is true. But then, I'm not Scottish 🙂

Any Scottish people have issues?

The other cool thing about the setup is that it's all being updated all the time - the recognition gets better, but also general stuff and the skills are getting better too. You don't have to do anything it just happens.

My Google Home usually works fine for playing 6 Music. But sometimes seem to get Sex Pistols instead.
If specifically ask for "BBC Radio 6 Music", more likely to get the right thing.

Any Scottish people have issues?

You can get it to do voice analysis to improve its recognition, but that involves sending data back up to big brother Amazon so I declined. It seems to cope well enough with "Northern bastard" at any rate.

Any Scottish people have issues?

Nope, quite a broad (unintelligible?) galloway/argyll accent but nae issues even though i'm suspicious and have locked mine down through the settings so it doesn't store previous searches nor send my voice data to amazon (but do i really trust it?). I only switch it on to play the radio (3/4/5/6/world service/lbc). Thinking of changing to apple homepod as i don't like/trust amazon.

You can get it to do voice analysis to improve its recognition, but that involves sending data back up to big brother Amazon so I declined.

Your commands go up to Amazon anyway. If you're worried about privacy check the T&Cs, they won't be breaking them - too risky and no-one reads them any way so if they wanted to do nefarious stuff they'd just put it in there.