Myine Electronics IR001 WiFi Internet Radio Adaptor
5November 9, 2009 by Atila
- Do you have wireless Internet? Do you want to get FREE music, sports, and news from around the world?
- Meet Ira; Our Internet Radio Adaptor that connects automatically to any wireless internet network in about 3 minutes without the need of a computer.
- Ira features over 11,000 stations from just about every country in the world. Filter by location or genre to find new stations in under 30 seconds.
- Includes On Demand Podcast programming for many stations so you can listen to your favorite shows when you want.
- Includes a one-touch STAR button to store up to 40 of your favorite stations. Remembers your favorites even if it is unplugged.
Product Description
Do you have wireless Internet? Do you want to get FREE music, sports, and news from around the world? Tired of confusing terminology and confusing features? Meet Ira – Our Internet Radio Adaptor that connects automatically to any wireless internet network. Extra features were intentionally removed so you can quickly listen to free music, sports, and news, without the extra hassles. Just take it out of the box, plug it in, connect it to your home stereo or boombox … More >>
Category News | Tags: Adaptor, Electronics, Internet, IR001, Myine, Radio, wifi
“Ira” is a fun guy. He’s small and light-weight, thus somewhat portable. He can’t snack on batteries so you’ll need to make sure you have an AC outlet handy to give him the juice he craves and a WiFi signal. He’s also a worldwide receiver of all things audio.
Pro’s:
+Small footprint; will fit pretty much anywhere.
+Thousands of international music and talk radio stations are at your disposal, as well as podcasts.
+EASY, FAST SETUP, if you have your WiFi network security settings handy to punch into the device.
+No computer needed, just the WiFi signal.
+Scans quickly for new stations and you can pre-set up to 40 favorites.
+Simple plugs make it virtually impossible not to get it hooked up in seconds to any home or portable stereo.
++No subscription fees like XM Radio or Sirus.
Con’s:
- Expensive toy
- If you have a computer, you can get free Internet radio without this device.
- The VERY small remote controls a lot, so losing it would mean ‘panic’ to this user!
-Sound quality is good, but not great. May depend upon the speed of your WiFi connection…
-Durability may become an issue if moved around a great deal; plastic housing is adequate, but not sturdy.
-Won’t accept batteries.
-Can’t use it in the car.
-Must have access to WiFi signal.
If you’re sold on the idea of Internet radio, you’ll probably really enjoy this device. I liked it once I got the WiFi settings from my home network entered. It immediately connected and the signal strength was low (about 30′ from the wireless router), but it still found all kinds of stations and played well through my home theater setup.
I’ve owned an XM radio and it reminds me of that device, but no monthly fees have ‘Ira’ the winner in that race. I wish it it took batteries and had an auto adaptor, but with the dependence upon WiFi, it would have to be more like the Amazon Kindle 2 and use cell technology which would undoubtedly mess with the reception and sound quality due to a slower stream of information.
Final thoughts…
I already get radio stations through my cable company on my TV, but ‘Ira’ picks up many, many more stations and I can see where I probably will use it through a portable stereo when I’m working in my yard this spring and summer. The problems I’d expect to encounter would be WiFi signal and AC availability related.
I also think that if you have a computer that’s already hooked up to the Internet, thus receiving free Internet radio through iTunes or a similar program, you may see this as a redundant device.
Rating: 4 / 5
- Note the “Internet Radio Adaptor” – you will need speakers to hear anything.
- Don’t loose the control, or you’ll be unable to use the product.
- The internet connection has to be a *very* solid one (some parts of the house has spottier connection that most) in order to function properly.
Rating: 4 / 5
The Ira is small, but does its job quite well. Once I took it out of the box, it took no longer than 4 minutes (including reading the instructions as I went along) to get it hooked up and playing. There was an initial issue thinking that it was designed to hook up to speakers only – once that was figured out, then the rest was easy. It should be noted that this is NOT a standalone radio – it needs something for amplification. We currently have it hooked up to a small stereo, and then we upgraded the separate speakers for better sound. It came preloaded with several radio stations, including our favorites. It has a very small footprint, and is a nice-looking addition to our living room.
The only issue I have, and I’m not sure if it is our wi-fi or the ira, but the signal seems to have to be fairly strong (close to the source) for the ira to keep it. We had ours close to the area where our wii is, and while the ira would lose connection on a regular basis, the wii was not having the same issue. Once I moved ira to a different location closer to the source, then the signal was no longer an issue. Again – I’m not sure if that is just our signal, or ira, but where you plan on placing ira is certainly something to keep in mind when purchasing.
Other than the signal issue, I really like ira. It plays well, it’s incredibly easy to set up (really – it would be hard to screw it up), and it does it’s job quite well. It is an excellent value for the price!
Rating: 4 / 5
This thing is GREAT! And it came right in the nick of time for us too, because recently a great local radio station changed its format, so we don’t have any good stations with reception at our house. We do have ipods and CDs and computers, but the “randomness” of the radio is nice sometimes – you want to hear a song you don’t already have! So this gets that back for us.
The whole thing took about 5 mins to set up. The longest part of the process was me trying to fit the cords through the right slots in our entertainment center. If your wireless connection needs a WEP password, you’ll need to enter that (it’s usually near the barcode on your modem), and you’re pretty much set up after that.
There are a ton of stations to browse, and I believe you can add your own as well. They’re broken down by genre and by area. It was kind of cool to browse stations from around the world, but the ones from those lists I was picking kept giving me some kind of format error. No biggie though, there’s plenty to choose from. A lot of the stations also have a music option and a podcast option. Haven’t checked this out yet, but sounds cool. There is a little info given in a summary for each station and favoriting stations or viewing recent stations is easy.
No wireless reception problems here, and it sounds great! Note that if you don’t have an in/out audio on the stereo you want to connect to, they do provide a little headphone jack adapter – a nice touch. Volume works fine too – often with these things you have to turn the volume all the way up on both devices to hear, but there’s a nice balance here and no problems.
Negatives – does seem a bit pricey. If I were paying for this, I’d expect a price point of no more than $80 or so. Also, there are NO buttons on the device itself (not even power). So keep track of that little remote, bc if you lose it, you’re SOL! I gave it minus one star for these 2 reasons. [NOTE: In October, the battery on the remote died, and lo and behold, I couldn't use the thing because it was stuck on a country station my husband picked. Fine again after we purchased new batteries.]
All in all, I’m thrilled with this and I’ll definitely use it a ton!
Rating: 4 / 5
I was very excited when Ira arrived; I was sure I was going to love it, but it didn’t live up to expectations.
The first thing I noticed, was that it doesn’t have an internal speaker – inconvenient, but not a problem. It only took a few seconds to connect Ira to my stereo via the included RCA cables.
The WiFi set up was fast and simple – even on my encrypted network. In just minutes, Ira was online and ready to go. I quickly favorited some radio stations and podcasts, and that’s when the experience started to lose it’s shine.
The audio quality is on par with AM radio – not very good for music at all. I tried dozens of stations, and while some were worse than others, none sounded good. Another annoying thing was that favoriting a podcast, replays the specific episode, not the feed (which can be tricky to find again).
After about 30 minutes of trying to regain my initial enthusiasm, I gave up. My Ira will be donated to the high school’s annual yard sale fundraiser this summer. I won’t be using it again.
Rating: 3 / 5