View Full Version : The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet has FM Radio Built-in!
As just discussed on maemo-users, there's an FM radio in the N800 - and a new Nokia application under development to use it:
http://www.maemopeople.org/index.php/jaffa/2007/02/07/n800_fm_radio
Who should I curse, Nokia or myself?
I promised myself that no N800 till it gets a good case to be portable (worry free), plus serious stability issues are resolved.
Then, everyday, something is coming up, which make keeping that promise harder and more painful...
But, I won't give in, just yet; so damn it; damn Nokia, and yeah, damn me... :D :D
WTF?
Are you kidding me?
I read somewhere in the www that it was a sensation when somebody found a hidden microphone in the n770...people where not expecting to find such a surprise on the n800. But, a whole FM Unit!??!? Again...WTF!?!? :D
A quicklook on my calender tells me, it is not the first of april... Hmm nice try, you are so funny, man :eek:
Wow, this is hilarious, considering our recent conversation about the N800 and convergence; see the "How many radios do you have?" thread, in which I jokingly commented, "ironically, the Nokia 770/n800 doesn't have an AM/FM radio." Boy was I way off! Well, half off, since it's only an FM radio?
Seriously, though, I don't see myself wanting to listen to FM on my Internet Tablet. Internet Radio is acceptable, but my online music collection is even better.
It works! Now I only need a way of starting the radio from the calendar, and I can abandon my fruitless search for a replacement for my old broken LCD travel clock radio.
(The volume is a bit low though? I have all volumes at full..)
lbattraw
2007-02-07, 16:08
In regards to streaming internet radio, it's a great idea but it seems to be limited a great deal by the 770/n800 battery life. I get a very limited listening time when using internet radio (maybe my battery is too old). However... With a built-in FM radio I can simply plug in a FM transmitter to my computer and stream away for a long, long time. Granted, you can do the same thing with a FM radio but this way there's one device to read books, surf the net, check your email-- and listen to whatever on the radio. I like it! Listening to my computer right now and it's very nice.
Larry
Milhouse
2007-02-07, 16:12
Wierd... FM radio? I listen to internet radio stations on the N800 and I haven't listened to an FM station in about 6 years. I suppose it may be useful when out & about (assuming you don't have SD cards full of audio or an unlimited mobile phone data connection), though not for me as most FM stations in London are rubbish!
I like it as well... i won't use it all the time, but every once in a while I'll find this REALLY useful when I'm stranded in a hotel with nothing good on tv, and no radio and I can listen to NPR... awesome
Looks like the earlier speculation here was spot-on.
EDIT: can't pick up a single station here at work. :(
The app sure could use a means of manually entering station numbers. Scanning and incrementally clicking don't quite cut it...
I've always used an FM clock radio when travelling (I can't stand alarm tones for wakeup). You can't expect to find free wi-fi Internet in all hotels all over the world.. it's a quite rare find in fact. So I welcome this! (In particular if some additional coding can make this a clock radio, not just a radio..)
thats cool.
dont forget to plug the headphones in, otherwise you just get fuzz
D'oh! Stupid me. Plugged in earphones, and George Thorogood is coming in loud and clear. :D
For me this is great, with the N800 all i need is the device and my fold up keyboard.... No more Laptop, fm travel alarm clock, ipod, etc
Karel Jansens
2007-02-07, 16:41
thats cool.
dont forget to plug the headphones in, otherwise you just get fuzz
Does it only work with Nokia's headbuds, or will any cable plugged in the 3.5 jack do? I happen to have a set of battery-powered speakers that will get rid of the low volume problem.
Now all we need is a snoozing app (there is one for the Zaurus/Archos) to be able to fall asleep on our favourite static. :cool:
Should work with any headset and possibly external speakers. The receiver just uses the wire as an antenna.
I didn't have my Nokia headbuds with me (I can't use those things so I always leave them in the box), so I plugged in a set that came with the office Sony-Ericsson phone. Seems to work fine. (Obviously I selected the N800 speakers for sound though)
Should work with any headset and possibly external speakers. The receiver just uses the wire as an antenna.
Does this mean that you can't listen to the radio over the N800 speakers?
As I said, there are toolbar buttons to select whether or not the output goes to the headphones or the speakers.
andymulhearn
2007-02-07, 17:05
As I said, there are toolbar buttons to select whether or not the output goes to the headphones or the speakers.
So ramming the end of a wire coat-hanger into the earphone jack should have the same effect? :p
Bu seriously,with all the new software coming out this device just keeps getting better,
Andy
Does this mean that you can't listen to the radio over the N800 speakers?
No. There is an option to toggle between headset and speakers.
EDIT: oops, didn't see Andrew's post.
Karel Jansens
2007-02-07, 17:41
External, battery-powered speakers work as an antenna. They seem to work really well, as reception is a lot better than with my standalone radio ("standalone radio"! Hah!!). This is not a bad radio, people. It's just that Belgium doesn't have any good radio stations...
TA-13
install alarmtool
from xterm
alarmtool -a -t 1170876645 -R 86400 -C -1 -d -o -e /usr/bin/fmradio
would start it every day at 7:30 pm but from the command line it hust dispays the interface with no sound
Karel Jansens
2007-02-07, 17:58
TA-13
install alarmtool
from xterm
alarmtool -a -t 1170876645 -R 86400 -C -1 -d -o -e /usr/bin/fmradio
would start it every day at 7:30 pm but from the command line it hust dispays the interface with no sound
(dumb question) Earphones plugged in allright?
Yes fmradio works fine. Its just if you start it from xterm there doesn't seem to be any way of choosing the station. The interface apears and allows station selection and all works OK. But not ideal as an alarm.
Ah, I was hoping that someone will find the radio soon! I tried hard for Thoughtfix to look at all the chips (but were covered) when he opened the N800.
So, what else does the N800 has in store for us... ;)
TTgowings
2007-02-07, 18:16
Wow, all I can say is friggin kick a%! I'm enjoying my N800 more and more every day,and just as an experiment (and not knowing the further implications and all the ins and outs of this machine) I had a shortwave antenna w/1/8" mini jack laying around (from Radio Shack) and it worked perfectly..
Andrew Barr has unearthed a quite interesting hidden feature on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet -- it has an FM radio chip built-in! The Maemo Repository even has on its certified folder an app to run it via XTerm (fmradio_1.2.0_armel.deb). It is unknown yet why Nokia did not create a radio app when the N800 was launched but we can infer that it must either a time issue or there might be problems with licensing its drivers. So, when will Canola create an interface for this? Â* As for Nokia, any other 'hidden' features we don't know about? Thanks to Jaffa and Andrew.Read the full article. (http://www.internettablettalk.com/2007/02/07/the-nokia-n800-internet-tablet-has-fm-radio-built-in/)
mwiktowy
2007-02-07, 20:32
So, what else does the N800 has in store for us... ;)
I found a toaster in there but I don't have bread small enough ... oh wait ... maybe that is the external memory slot ...
Seriously ... Nokia is just bizarre. Typically you want to advertise as much about the features of a product as you can ... did anyone check if there might be one hiding in the 770 too? Maybe there was a camera in there that we missed also.
mwiktowy
2007-02-07, 20:33
So ramming the end of a wire coat-hanger into the earphone jack should have the same effect? :p
As long as you wrap it in aluminum foil and stand on one leg.
OK ... before you do this ... I'm just joking ;)
I thought that existence of the fm radio chip was common knowledge from the beginning, it's great that the software has arrived. :D
Did anyone notice it's an applet? You can install it to your desktop without starting it via xterm
It's weird, fm radio is not buffering ;)
It doesn't sound much quieter than the online radio to me. They can be on together.
If you're wondering where the radio freq and a few parameters are stored:
gconftool-2 -R /apps/maemo/fmradio
Also I noted an increase in volume when launching from applet than xterm + command line.
Still missing: a record function (with a bit of buffer), but otherwise works great!
Also I noted an increase in volume when launching from applet than xterm + command line.
I can confirm: I've noticed this too :)
What would be interesting is to find out if the FM Tuner hardware can decode the data carried on the sideband of a FM broadcast. Then you could pull down the song/station/genre info, but even better yet, you could pull down real time traffic info, news, weather info, etc that some stations are putting out on RDS for free...that would make the GPS package really cool if you could overlay real time traffic info.
Even a static display like www.trafficguage.com would be pretty cool.
An additional feature is piping the audio into a MP3 encoder and then buffering up some FM audio so you can skip around or pause ala TiVO. That would be really cool.
Dave
@rcull: Thanks for the tip about alarmtool!
I haven't tried it yet, and there's a lot of other experimenting I'm not done with (had to sleep a bit too..), but one thing I noticed is that it appears to be always starting up in earbud mode.. for it to work as a clock radio it should start in speaker mode, or, to be precise, it should always start in the mode it was last set to. At least it seems to switch to earbud mode when I put in the antenna, haven't yet tried to leave it in and stop/start.
As for the sound level, it seems ok if I listen to the earbuds, but the speakers sound much lower to me than the internet radio, at the same volume settings. Strong stations are louder than weak stations, but still not very loud.
Wow, this is hilarious, considering our recent conversation about the N800 and convergence; see the "How many radios do you have?" thread, in which I jokingly commented, "ironically, the Nokia 770/n800 doesn't have an AM/FM radio." Boy was I way off! Well, half off, since it's only an FM radio?
Well, someone at Nokia probably had a laugh reading that! :D
You could always edit the posting to "doesn't have a TV tuner".. :p
and why not.. anyone looked? I mean, the N800 isn't that much smaller than my 15 year old tiny-LCD portable TV.. then there's always the USB-stick TV tuners, host mode + a powered mini-USB to USB cable should do it, no?
With the FM radio application installed there's suddenly an issue with the Internet radio application that didn't exist before:
I have the N800 rigged up with earbuds as antenna (nicely stretched out for best reception), listening to the radio on the speakers. I have the FM radio applet sitting right below the Internet applet, they look very similar, and I can easily switch between them.
The problem is that the Internet radio automatically uses the earbuds because they are plugged in as an antenna for the FM radio! So when I switch from an FM channel to an Internet channel the speaker sound disappears.. and I have to remove the antenna, and then I have to plug it back in when I change back to FM radio (and then that one tends to switch to earbuds instead of remembering the setting, but that's for another problem report).
In short: Now I need a configurable earbuds/speaker selection in the Internet radio application too..! :o
Milhouse
2007-02-08, 16:29
In short: Now I need a configurable earbuds/speaker selection in the Internet radio application too..! :o
The Volume status bar icon should include a control to select speaker or earbud output in addition to the mute and master volume slider controls. Selecting where sound is directed - speakers or earbuds - shouldn't be an application-specific setting.
Agreed! I was thinking the same.
james.bottomtooth
2007-05-12, 06:27
why did Nokia hide the FM radio feature originally?
and still doesn't list it as part of functionality....
Karel Jansens
2007-05-12, 13:19
why did Nokia hide the FM radio feature originally?
and still doesn't list it as part of functionality....
To come over as a non-evil corporation that gives stuff away to its customers/users.
Duh... :D
I'm betting that the FM radio was one of those "if we get it working, great, if not, it isn't a core feature" and was given low priority. If development on a nonessential feature lags, ship the device and surprise the buyers later. Note that this is NOT an official statement. I was surprised, too. ;)
Keeping the FM function "unofficial" could also suggest that the external antenna requirement is recognized as a usability issue in terms of customer expectations. People are used to small portable radios working as-is (even if extending a built-in antenna improves reception) and won't necessarily be happy about this constraint, even if they look far enough to find the explanation. Leaving it off the feature list means one less source of "bug" reports. Better to deliver more than you promise, than to promise something you can only partially deliver.
FWIW, in my experience it's fairly standard for small, portable FM tuners to use (require) the headphones for an antenna (AM is a different matter).
WestEdge
2007-07-11, 00:15
@rcull: Thanks for the tip about alarmtool!
I haven't tried it yet, and there's a lot of other experimenting I'm not done with (had to sleep a bit too..), but one thing I noticed is that it appears to be always starting up in earbud mode.. for it to work as a clock radio it should start in speaker mode, or, to be precise, it should always start in the mode it was last set to. At least it seems to switch to earbud mode when I put in the antenna, haven't yet tried to leave it in and stop/start.
As for the sound level, it seems ok if I listen to the earbuds, but the speakers sound much lower to me than the internet radio, at the same volume settings. Strong stations are louder than weak stations, but still not very loud.
Has anyone figured out how to have the FM radio either start up with an alarm or even better for me, automatically record an FM program for later listening, i.e., time-shifting. (Sometimes there is no internet radio version; sometimes there is a long delay before a podcast is available.)
Thanks.
If the source for these apps. were made available we could just fix all these user requirements ourselves instead of sitting on our butts and wait for Nokia. Sigh. Beating a half-dead horse, I know..
(I anyone knows something about source repositories that has passed me by, please let me know :))
elwood grain
2007-08-09, 19:21
here is a thought, does anybody know if this is possible?
the n800 is equipped with an fm radio. this is cool and all, but i just installed ukmp and in my opinion browsing through cd's is way better than listening to commercialized music. Is there a way to utilize the FM radio and write software to turn it into a FM transmitter. It would be really slick to be cruisin in the car and wirelessly jam out to my mp3's
I dont know how any of the electronics for a transmitter works, but i thought i would just throw my idea out there
Karel Jansens
2007-08-09, 19:39
here is a thought, does anybody know if this is possible?
the n800 is equipped with an fm radio. this is cool and all, but i just installed ukmp and in my opinion browsing through cd's is way better than listening to commercialized music. Is there a way to utilize the FM radio and write software to turn it into a FM transmitter. It would be really slick to be cruisin in the car and wirelessly jam out to my mp3's
I dont know how any of the electronics for a transmitter works, but i thought i would just throw my idea out there
I don't think it's possible to turn an FM receiver into a transmitter with software.
OTOH, there a quite a lot of FM gizmos on the market that will plug into the N800's 3.5 mm jack and transmit stuff to your radio. Some of them cost less than a moderate quality pair of earphones.
Unfortunately the earphone volume on the n800 is really weak, and would be very difficult to hear on a typical city street. I may try noise-cancelling earphones, but I'm wondering if it's possible to get much more volume out of higher quality earphones?
lbattraw
2007-09-17, 18:03
Unfortunately the earphone volume on the n800 is really weak, and would be very difficult to hear on a typical city street. I may try noise-cancelling earphones, but I'm wondering if it's possible to get much more volume out of higher quality earphones?
In a word, YES. Particularly the in-ear earphones that seal out background noise. Sometimes even some of quietest music can be pretty loud with the volume down low. The headphones don't need to be something really expensive ($30 - $40 is fine) to really sound nice and be very loud. I've tried Audio-Technica, Denon, Panasonic RP-55, and some of the more expensive ones-- they all generally sound good, though the more expensive ones may not that as nice, honestly. If you're in the US I'd suggest a $7 in-line volume adjuster (from Radio Shack) so you can get the volume as quiet as you want without any "hiss" or noise since the headphones are really sensitive.
Larry
james.bottomtooth
2007-09-17, 22:13
Unfortunately the earphone volume on the n800 is really weak
in my experience if you tweak volume control up-down in both FM-Radio application and "system status bar widget" you can get it do a decent volume.
i think this bug has been reported before?
Is it actually a bug? Seems to me it's just master volume and application volume... like on a PC...
Anyway, no problems with earphone sounds for me. Obviously phones make the difference?
Unfortunately the earphone volume on the n800 is really weak, and would be very difficult to hear on a typical city street. I may try noise-cancelling earphones, but I'm wondering if it's possible to get much more volume out of higher quality earphones?
I use the earphones from the N770 with the N800. They are much louder and do sound better than the N800 originals. No mic, of course...
james.bottomtooth
2007-09-17, 23:27
Is it actually a bug?
i take it you are right. i just didn't expect 2 different volume controls, but it makes sense with one being master.
I'm using the earbuds that come with the n800. They're barely audible in a moving car with all the volume controls cranked up. Add a little bit of FM static and it's very frustrating. Tomorrow maybe I'll try some earmuffs over them. :)
I always use 3rd party buds. Much better fit and sound.
Yes, there are 2 volume controls: Master, and the "local" FM Radio volume. One thing to be aware of though is that the FM Radio volume depends on the signal strength: Hi-signal stations are both loud and clear, low-signal stations may need both volume controls cranked to full (and it may drop down to mono too).
Can the radio be launched without the desktop applet? I need the screen realestate for other items.
james.bottomtooth
2007-09-20, 00:52
Is it actually a bug?
actually i remember there was something buggy about it! (not that i like being negative about N800 bugs, but i knew i remember something goofy about it)
using FM radio 1.4.6 from the application window:
1) set radio volume at about 50% and master volume at about 50%.
2) turn the radio volume to 100%
3) turn the master volume to 100%
4) go back radio application and tweak volume down a bit and up to 100% - now the volume is even louder.
at least that's what i have noticed on my set up. repeatable every time. the reason why i noticed it is because i don't keep N800 volume all the way up all the time, and those times i want to increase the volume to max i need to do that juggle.
james.bottomtooth
2007-09-20, 00:57
Can the radio be launched without the desktop applet? I need the screen realestate for other items.
you can start it from the terminal with 'fmradio' command or Graph Plugin for the status bar, which is pretty nifty.
however desktop applet is also an alternative to tune/change station without launching a new application window
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