Slashdot Mirror
Future Samsung Phones Will Have a Working FM Radio Chip (androidpolice.com)
A few months ago, LG announced a partnership with NextRadio to unlock the FM chip in its smartphones. Now, Samsung is doing the same. Android Police reports: NextRadio made the announcement, rightly explaining that FM radio is essential in areas with low connectivity and in emergency and disaster situations where a connection might be difficult to obtain or maintain and where access to information could be a matter of life and death. With the chip unlocked, users will be able to listen to local radio on their phone using the NextRadio Android app. The press release mentions that "upcoming [Samsung] smartphone models in the U.S. and Canada" will have the FM chip unlocked, however I did find several existing Samsung devices with their FM chip enabled on NextRadio's site.
Most of the shit on FM is fake news. I need the good stuff.
for antenna, just plugin your headph..... crap.
Super!
(Apart from that, why the FUCK was that locked in the first place and who was benefiting from that an/or who paid them to have it off ????)
Didn't Norway just do away with FM radio. I keep seeing articles about how FM is dying and Digital is taking over. Great timing for doing this.
That's nice but if the carriers disable it (I'm looking at you, Verizon) what's the point?
I hear they’ll also be packing in a buggy whip for your carriage, too.
I want a feature where I can enter my callsign, and use it on HAM bands! Sure, I can use Hamsphere, or one of my handhelds, but if I have an FM chip, I want to actually use it.
Make America grate again!
I just tried it on my Samsung Galaxy S5, and it works, but it appears to be using WiFi. How do I know if it's using the FM chip?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
My Galaxy S7's FM radio has worked with NextRadio (FM broadcast band) for quite some time now. AM is possible, if they are so inclined to make that happen. Because...
Also interesting is that for an FM radio to be practical, you need an antenna, and so far, that's been the wire to the earbuds / headphones, which is decently longish. So very likely implicit in this "there will be FM radio" lies an "there will be an audio jack", and also, "if we want AM radio, we can do it." Ever since low power software defined radio has been possible, this stuff can be done. Particularly in a high-power availability device like a cellphone. It can be done the old way, too, but not nearly as well.
I suspect the whole "there will be FM" thing is known somewhat gleefully in the hallowed corporate halls at Samsung as "taking advantage of Apple's... courage."
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
... broadcasting is easy peasy for a lot of techs like ham radio operators and Radio Shack project dweebs.
This could be the answer to mesh networking.
That will be the "next radio" step.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Pretty close...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
At least so far, using headphone jack / headphones for the antenna for FM is the only way. I rag on Samsung for alot of things, but this is really cool and makes me want their smartphone (having batteries that resist degradation s8 onward and SamsungPay working at registers that don't take normal wireless payments are two others).
You asked.... AM is amplitude modulation.
at the comments on nextradio's app install says it still uses data for streaming radio.
is it really using the chip? and why the hell do you need a third party app for an fm radio?
Come On tech folks. I kept my Zune HD *JUST* to listen to HD Radio. WTF, make it so. Seesh.
You can't fit a decent FM radio antenna inside a phone, especially if the case is metal. Walkman-type radios used the earphone wire as an antenna, which is probably what the phones are going to have to do. This means you'll have to have wired earbuds for the radio to work.
The smallest workable AM antenna is a ~5 inch bar of iron with a super thin wire wound around it hundreds of times. You're *never* going to fit that into a modern cell phone.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Norway has already abandoned FM completely, the rest of Europe not far behind.
... via Simple Data.
Eavesdropping on what station(s) you prefer, what genre music you like, you know ... just like apps do now and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I want a valve operated radiogram and a built in stage coach too.
WTF do I need FM for?
There is lots of talk about headphones used as FM antennas which I remember well. As it is not really an option for Apple and some other phones, could a charging cable be used in a similar way as the headphone cable? I realise this would require phone hardware designed this way.
since th first smart phones, and often even before?
I didn't even think any phone came without it in the last 15 years. So this is rather weird news from another planet for me ...
A headphone jack and FM radio. Samsung is sooo cool.
Nokia didn't care.
They just invented a shorter FM antenna.
But year, fuck all that. Rather give me, finally, a good mobile Internet connection everywhere! On self-stabilizing solar-poweded mini balloons, if necessary! And none of those frequencies that donâ(TM)t pass through buildings either!
Only quick enough to run Vorbis or Opus streams without interruption, websites and instant messengers at 300km/h in a train. I donâ(TM)t need streaming video, let alone 100Mbit. Which will be split between users anyway.
How my Windows phone has a working radio in it yet next to no android phones do.
This would be really handy. If I want to listen to the radio commentary at my local sporting games, the streaming services are 30 - 60 seconds delayed.
They force non-commercial broadcasters to route through their app if they want to stream, but delay it so you can't stream it "live" and commercial-free over the top of the TV broadcast.
But the AM/FM broadcasts are instantaneous, so I always have a pocket AM/FM radio with me at the game.
Carrying one less thing would suit me fine.
...which frequencies? Presumably everything from 88MHz-108MHz, but maybe also NOAA weather broadcasts? (~160MHz)
Finding God in a Dog
Yes, it's Radionomy now,
but it still get a mention, just out of respect.
It brought each and everyone of us through the 00s.
And all Nokia I did, right when they invented the smartphone. Before the iPhone even existed, let alone had 3G and a camera ... or a fucking file manager, for fuck's sake. ^^
All of the Nokia devices that I've ever owned, along with and including the Sony Xperia z5 compact that I'm writing this reply on has a built in fm radio and tuner that uses the headphone wires as an antenna?! This seems so weird to be reading about this.. And no, none of them have ever used data to get information, because that's already embedded in the fm stream!! I just wish that hd-radio was available some how!!!
is that they are turning on the analog FM for people just when countries are turning it off and switching to digital FM. /s
But the followup questions are:
1) Analog, digital, or both?
2) And if not also digital, why not?
Video killed radio.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Oh, you mean the dead technology I haven't used in years? Yes, years. I don't use a radio you say? Actually, all the time; it's just paired to my phone or my GPS system.
Radio is dead; let it stay dead.
Will be interesting to see what Apple does. Will they follow in the footsteps of LG & Samsung? Apple has always been reluctant to include a radio in their iPhone that would compete with Apple Music and Store.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Disaster messages are usually broadcast. The tower can't oversaturate on them, and since they are higher prioritized (remember: real-time OSes make guarantees), normal traffic can't ever drown them.
It would take a huge catastrophe for everything but FM to die.
Providing FM radio chip is a good thing. No one seems to complain the phone OS comes with a calculator and that rarely gets used either.
Broadcast radio is a highly efficient distribution medium.
It's localized, direct and not subject to delay or blocking (ok, interference, not same). Proven tech that works.
In the event of a natural disaster, what's going to be faster: repair the entire telecom infrastructure (1000s or antennas) or repair a handful or radio broadcast antennas? Remember, each tower and telco Central Office needs power and connectivity too. Same for wi-fi.
Norway stopped analog FM radio. But switched to DAB - Digital Audio Broadcasting. It's still broadcast over the air on the same FM frequencies, just more efficiently. But you need a compatible digital receiver. Do the FM chips support that? If not, I'm sure there will be multiple generations of chips before N.A. moves to DAB to incorporate it.
Small problem regarding an antenna for new phones Is there a USB solution forthcoming? Another sol'n?
You can't normally be tracked listening to a radio brodacst. The ads are planned and limited, so you don't need an adblocker. Malware free!
Seems to have a lot of upside. Who knows, you might even discover some new music you'll like (new to you 'cos it's all 70s 80s 90s here but ...)!
I live in an area where FM stations are closing in droves. No one listens to Radio anymore, heck my kids have NEVER listened to radio, they have Bluetooth in their cars and play MP3 or Spotify from their phones. They have NEVER turned the radio on. We are down to about 3 FM stations and they are always saying on TV support us, support us, support us, we cannot pay the bills and will be off the air soon. So how is turning on FM going to work in areas where FM is fading FAST! Is NextRadio installing FM sites or taking over these stations that are closing. I have watched contractors take the towers down or sell them to the cell companies which strip them so there is no much to buy. So how is this going to work in rural areas, where I am sure FM is going away even faster???
I was thinking the same. I've had Samsung, LG, Wiko, Archos, HTC and other cell phones and all of them have had a working FM radio. I use it daily and find it is one of the required selling points.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
(that is what my ancient Nokia does. The radio only works when you connect a headphone)
This is technology that basically has been around since the steam age. In terms of "feasible and mature" it's way off the carts compared to anything else. I remember building battery-less radio receivers as an 8 year old. Adding radio receivers to modern smartphones is trivial and I personally wouldn't mind if lawmakers made it mandatory for vendors to do this. For people in distress and desaster zones we can only hope that vendors come to some sort of gentleman's agreement to build radios in by default. That would be cool.
My 2 eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
With FM being phased out, albeit very slowly, whouldn't they be better including DAB or long-wave AM (which is used for things like world service and reaches valleys, etc. that other broadcasts don't)?
And it worked very well, but for receiver you need headphones. I know people that are using data (more $) to listen to FM radio, maybe this is the reason it was disabled in some phones.
For less than 80 New Zealand dollars I can listen to FM radio on these two feature phones without using headphones as antennas. https://www.thewarehouse.co.nz... https://www.thewarehouse.co.nz...
I think my last 5 phones have had FM receivers, but I don't use it because I don't like any of the stations here. I basically stopped listening to FM radio years ago when I had had enough of the narcissistic hosts. Plus I lost my taste in pop music.
The music station I do listen to now is available on DAB, though. But that hasn't taken off as a smartphone trick yet. It doesn't help that DAB coverage is way worse than FM. Especially in things like building penetration or train tunnels (where it completely fails). And leave the big city and there's _no_ DAB.
So I stream audio over data. Meh.
About 6 years ago, a lot of candy bar style phones had a built-in FM radio tuner. Normally you had to plug in a set of headphones to act as an antenna. And that begs the question how they intend to get adequate reception if they remove the earphone jack.
Wait, what non-Apple phone produced within the past fifteen years doesn't come with an FM radio?
Of course many need a headphone plugged in to act as an antenna but a few, such as the Alcatel Pop, don't.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
They actually took time to make an announcement? What a joke.
Got the app. It worked. Scanned the NYC dial, listened to ESPN talk radio. After listening to Mike and Mike talking about saban 11m per year , and grudens 10m / year, I remembered that it was the content that had me not listening to FM to begin with.
- I've got a streaming service for music, and ...
- talk radio is over
So ubiquity for FM, when the content isnt there? Meh
My Galaxy S2 had an FM chip and a free FM application built in, made by Samsung itself. My Moto G2 has FM too, my Zenfone2 too. What's the big deal? It's because people who buy $1000 phone will be happy to pay for data and stream music, while people who buy (unlocked) mid range phone, like me, sometimes does not have data plan so the FM is free to use, it's marketing?
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
My HTC M7 had an unlocked FM chip. So did the M8.
I did know of some carriers that locked the chip in various phones. Oh yea, my Sensation 4G did also.
But My U11 doesn't have an FM chip, which is in the middle of the list of reasons why I probably have purchased my last HTC phone. Time to move on to another manufacturer, with different annoyances, just to break an 8 year streak of HTC highs and lows.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Remember the handheld ones in the 70s? No three meter antenna in them. They worked fine.
Cellphone reception is spotty even in normal situations and often doesn't work in shelters.
FM radio has better reception (note I didn't say quality) and range. AM is actually best for disasters (Clear reception, penetrates everywhere, long range so only a few towers need be active), but FM is reasonable enough compromise for a backup system.
Same thing with my wife's Moto G1, and my ASUS ZenFone 2. Why is this locked when I have this feature in low-end phones?
Come on guys, add DAB. Or is that on the same slow track as IPv6?
There's no demand? You mean there's no device to use the technology and create the market demand - or it costs crazy amounts, making nobody any money because nobody is buying it until patents expire.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
Cool. Now can we get a regular TV tuner in them as well to watch broadcast HDTV when we're out and about?
Cause, ya know... phones have these nice big screens and can do video now.
I thought it was Apples thing to introduce a 5 year old feature and take credit for advancing technology? I dunno, my old Lumias had an FM chip with app. Plug in the headphones and everything worked well. It raises the question, why was the chip locked? As for antennas, cars have moved to 'sharkfin' units mounted on the roof; those are pretty small and catch AM/FM. Seems an antenna can be in a physically small space and still be effective. Also, considering the multitude of wires a USB-C cable contains, could one/some of those be setup to act as an antenna? especially when just charging, not doing data transmission.
Per FCC regulations, HD Radio runs at a lower power than regular radio. Therefore, HD signals don't go as far as the main signal. Some radio stations have added HD to their signals, some have not. The antenna requirements are the same for both, though; that's not the problem.
the issue for HD in cell phones is that the HD signal is a patented process/mechanism owned by Ibiquity. Therefore...every cell phone would have to pay the license fee... therefore it isn't gonna happen.
(Source: I'm a radio station engineer)
Many Nokia phones do like the N72 and even the first N-Gage in 2003.
I even have an attachment that plays FM radio that plugs into the side of a Game Boy Color into the EXT port from the 90s. You plugged the headphones directly to it and worked as the antenna. It only had one button and that would seek forward to the next strong signal.
The tech has been around for a long time.
Video killed radio.
No, US carriers killed radio.Calling Verizon to ask for their ROM to not block the FM chip in early Notes was met with "all you have to do is subscribe to our radio streaming service if you want radio!"
When I was in Seoul a few years ago I was surprised to learn that almost all smartphones in Korea include an integrated TV tuner, complete with antenna.
This wasn't packet data carried over their data plans - This was OTA broadcast-TV.
You could see all these people commuting on the train watching broadcast TV - Even on flip-phones.
Picture:
http://modernseoul.files.wordp...
Learn how to spell, fuckwit.
I mean I still get FM and AM here in the old jalopy USA.
Now if they would just level the hills around here so I can get a better signal we'd be all good!
I woke up the morning after the fires in Northern California not noticing I had no cell service, not receiving any SMS about the situation, no being able to receive email to alert me.
It was just another quiet day, until I stepped outside. The red sky at 10am was the only indication I had.
Either that or NK had gone ballistic :)
said that they were very happy with this development.
SDR on my rooted phone. That's awesomer than just about anything else I can think of at the moment. People, that means your phone can soon be a "walkie talkie" or scanner on all kinds of radio systems. Uniden will be out of business.
The first Nokia phone with a built-in FM radio is Nokia 8310, which was released back in 2001. That was 17 years ago.
And so in 2017, when a natural distasters struck the U.S. and Puerto Rico, I learned, that FM radios in mobile phones in the U.S. were almost non-existent. I was like, 'Whaaa...'
Most people I know never listen to AM or FM. The entire country of Norway eliminated FM broadcasting. Other nations are following suit.