Web-based favourite station function back on with Frontier-based Internet radios

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Airable by TuneIn (different from the TuneIn Radio app)

http://airablenow.com/its-available-the-all-new-frontier-smart-radio-podcast-portal/

Frontier Smart (Frontier Silicon)

Frontier Nuvola Smart Radio portal

Favourites (Knowledge-base page)

My Comments

The Web-based favourites portal returns to Frontier-based Internet radios like these Ruark sets

Frontier Smart have revised their Web-based Internet-radio-management portal to work with the Airable by TuneIn Internet-radio directory. This is after Frontier Smart, formerly Frontier Silicon, jumped from vTuner to Airable after it was recently found that vTuner recently “lost it” with Internet-radio service quality.

This account-driven portal offers Web-based favourites management which also supports the ability to create personalised station groups like “Favourite European Stations”. As well it brings back the ability to upload the Web address of an audio stream for your Internet radio to pick up, which can be useful if you are dealing with a station not on the Airable directory.

At the moment, you can have a favourites list available to a particular Internet radio or have them across all of the compatible devices you have bound to your account.

… including the Ruark R7 Radiogram

You need to create an account with the Frontier Nuvola Smart Radio portal for this feature to work. This supports social sign-on with Google and Facebook as credential repositories for both signing up and logging in.

As well, you have to enrol each Frontier-based device (Internet radio, wireless speaker, etc) with your Frontier Nuvola account for this function to work. You would then log in to the above-mentioned portal then select the “Connect New Device” option on the “Devices” screen to bind your device to your account.

You would need to bring up the device’s access code by using its control surface or companion app to select “Stations” then “Help” while it is in Internet Radio mode. Then you transcribe this number from the device’s display or companion app in to the “Connect New Device” web form. This number has a validity time of 10 minutes.

As well, you have the option to name the device with an easy-to-remember name so you know what it is. I would recommend the use of its make and, perhaps, model name or number plus its location in your home like “Kitchen Sangean DDR-66BT” for a Sangean DDR-66BT stereo Internet radio / CD player installed in the kitchen  as an easy way to identify it.

How could Airable and Frontier Smart improve on this feature?

Airable could improve on the Web-based favourites functionality so that your favourites aren’t confined to devices based on a particular platform or offered by a particular make. This is because some manufacturers; especially those who provide “big sets” like hi-fi tuners and receivers, or those offering to the automotive market whether line-fit, dealer-fit or aftermarket, will create their own highly-branded user interfaces to this directory.

As well, Airable could then be in a position to offer an Internet-radio / podcast app for mobile and desktop computing platforms so you can benefit from its resources with your smartphone, 2-in-1 laptop or desktop computer. It can extend to smart-TV and set-top-box platforms where an Internet-radio app is considered to be a desirable function. This could then compete with established app-based Internet-radio providers like TuneIn Radio and give a boost for European IT in the consumer space.

They could also provide the ability for a user to create preset-list and personal-stream groups that are available to a subset of Internet radios or other devices bound to your account. It could suit a situation such as to have one favourites list for in-car use or the office and another for the home.

Similarly, it could be feasible for a device to support multiple users such as to cater for larger households or the hospitality industry where different people have their own favourites lists or streams but want to use their accounts with the same devices.

The Airable effort is still being seen as a way to keep the essence of Internet radio – the “new shortwave radio” alive as a medium when it comes to standalone devices.

Leave a Reply