Garfield Cat

On most smartphones, it can access a radio station for live streaming. But I found a Logitech Squeezebox that is like a web radio for home use. It works off of the wireless at home. But Logitech is no longer carrying the Squeezebox.

I thought that radio would be ideal for me. I really don't need the portability aspect. Just a nice radio with a big speaker for good sound and lots of volume without distortion. Mostly for morning news, weather, and traffic. Perfect for the kitchen.

But what are my alternatives? Do I get a docking station for my iPhone?

alaskanb3arcub

I don't see why not. It makes sense to use what you have before buying another dedicated device.

Looigi

Yeah, or bluetooth speakers that will work with your smartphone.

noglider 

I use the TuneIn app on my iphone and bluetooth headphones. I usually put just one earpiece on so I can hear traffic.

Streaming radio this way puts a noticeable drain on the battery, so I don't do it on long rides.

rumrunn6

wutz wrong with just getting a nice radio for the kitchen?

Dahon.Steve

I have the Squeezebox and there were many issues which is why Logitech is no longer making them. Today, I keep it on one station and leave it there. You couldn't take the Squeezebox on your bike because it still needed to stream from your modem at home.

Looigi

It'll only pick up local broadcast stations. Streaming you can get just about any station in the world.

ItsJustMe

I've been seriously thinking about using a Raspberry Pi or something like it to replicate the Squeezebox. I wouldn't be surprised if there's already a project for it.

Looigi

I use the Tunein app on my smartphone with blue tooth speakers when at home. The BT speakers have an output to drive a stereo system if desired. You can use an old smartphone for this via wifi without having a phone or data contract on it.

bikemig 

The squeezebox touch was an awesome product. It had a high quality DAC and the SQ is absolutely first rate. I own two of them to stream music around the house. The best option now is something along the lines of post no. 8; a raspberry pi would be very inexpensive if you can get it to mimic what the touch did. Here's the rub, the SB touch not only allowed you to play music off the net, it also let you stream your own music from a server.

At this point, I'd seriously think about getting something relatively inexpensive with a web browser like a google chromebook. You can upload your music to the net (Amazon, iTunes, or Google music) and access spotify, MOG, etc. You'll need a pair of powered speakers and perhaps an inexpensive usb dac.

ItsJustMe

That's trivial, you just throw in DLNA support. I just enabled that in my router, plugged a large thumb drive into that and I've got movies and music without having to keep a computer on all the time.

bikemig 

Sure, but the SB touch can be connected directly to your music system and it has a very high quality dac so that the SQ is first rate. It is pretty seamless to set up and run.

Cognitive

I spent two years writing apps for streaming radio. It's not trivial. Your best bet would be a Craigslist used smartphone and a little clever cabinet around it. Anything homemade will need to run the Pandora or what-not client, and those are not very easy to come by. It really depends on how much you want to spend, look at the streaming services clients for PC/Windows and other platforms and choose the common denominator. It's usually PC/Win.

Athens80

That's a straightforward project for a techie. Use hardware like the Raspberry Pi and a distribution like XBMC/Kodi and you get pre-configured Pandora, Spotify, etc. There are tons of how-to write-ups, videos, etc.

ItsJustMe

Luckily we don't have to actually write this stuff anymore, there are already libs and apps for it. I don't need to write low level firmware for this, just like I don't need to implement a TCP/IP stack on bare metal.

noglider 

Streaming radio has come a long way, and it still has a long way to go. I use it every day, and it still has several annoyances, enough that I can't recommend it to others, knowing I have more patience than most with stuff like this. I am grateful to people like @Cognitive for bringing it to its current state. He says it's not trivial, meaning there is a lot of tricky stuff to it, some of which hasn't been worked out yet by anyone.

ItsJustMe

I really don't care personally about streaming radio, I don't think I'd use it if I had it. I'm more interested in playing from network shares and DLNA servers and local filesystems.

Athens80

There are entire operating systems designed to make streaming media easy, several for free, others at cost, like Windows. These can be easily set up on hardware from a PC or Mac HTPC for a few/several hundred dollars to the previously mentioned Raspberry Pi circa $50, minus the speakers.

Or there's the previously mentioned used/cheap smartphone and a $2 app, plus the speakers.

The technical stuff is already done and the benefits are easily accessible to consumers. I listen on a cheap smartphone every day, to local and international stations.

So the easiest is to go back to the OP -- get a docking station for the iPhone.

Cognitive

Most of the tedious work is the protocols - the two I worked on have simple but very peculiar protocols that talk to the mothership. So if something goes wrong - outright disconnected, bad signals, tunnels, retries, etc etc - in the mobile world there is a considerable amount of heartburn that needs to be handled.

If you're dealing with fixed connectivity (wifi, wired) it's not THAT difficult but the moment you throw cellular to the mix it's a free for all. The real hard work is integration of the pieces (OS, mobile connectivity, streaming libraries, plus the user interface to make it easy to use while riding).

The best thing is developer accounts, no commercials / skip limits depending on the service.

ItsJustMe

Yes, now that I think of it, I should just take one of the old smartphones lying around and plug that in to a charger and an aux cord.