Droid Includes FM Receiver and Transmitter

[pmmartin]

When did Pandora start broadcasting local news, sports, and other talk radio?

Use A Online Radio as it has all of that.

 

[Watashi]

Right now i listen to my music playing through the speaker with the phone on the passenger seat....FM Transmission would be very nice.

 

[bigbill25]

Is this confirmed actual real hardware that's in the DROID?

It's confirmed that the Droid has a chip that supports FM radio in/out. Here's what we don't know:

• Does the droid have a filter network and antenna to support FM?
• Does the kernel have support for this part of the chip (it does for the WiFi and Bluetooth part...)
• If the kernel has support, does the Android OS offer any way to use it?

--Bill

 

[davewoodson]

All I want to do is listen to my FM radio at the gym. My gym has 4 tvs set to FM signals that I can't listen to since I do not have not a FM in my ipod touch or storm. This is my 1 hang up on the Droid. I would buy today if it had FM

D

 

[Fadelight]

All I want to do is listen to my FM radio at the gym. My gym has 4 tvs set to FM signals that I can't listen to since I do not have not a FM in my ipod touch or storm. This is my 1 hang up on the Droid. I would buy today if it had FM

D

How can that be a hangup of yours? I don't know of any other phones that have built in FM. In order to be "hung up" on something like that, you'd have to be used to one capable of it and thus are now missing it since you've switched.

Otherwise, your statement would make as much sense as if I were to make a post saying "My only hangup with this droid is that I can't remotely drive my car from my living room with it. Otherwise, it is a nice phone." See what I'm saying?

 

[allanlaw]

All I want to do is listen to my FM radio at the gym. My gym has 4 tvs set to FM signals that I can't listen to since I do not have not a FM in my ipod touch or storm. This is my 1 hang up on the Droid. I would buy today if it had FM

D

My Sansa mp3 player, which was cheaper than spit at Costco sometime back, can receive FM and might be a dandy device for you to use at your gym.

 

[davewoodson]

It is a hang up whether I buy it now or wait for some HTC phone that may or may not come in the next 15 to 30 days.

 

[nateo200]

When did Pandora start broadcasting local news, sports, and other talk radio?

Exactly pandora is a piece of crap! I always here about how people love it, I finally tried it and it was the lamest thing ever, first app I ever UNISTALLED from pure dissapointment. If it was location based local radio over cellular that would be great.

But, on the subject at hand...I'm no hardware expert, maybe things like this are discovered often..but what reason could there be for having hardware mysteriously included like this with no attention brought to it by Motorola or Verizon?

Apple did it with the iPod touch second gen and iPhone 3G....they had bluetooth in the specs and decided to only utilize it months later. Though that was most likely for money reasons I can't really see why Moto did this. Verizon really has nothing to do with it either seeing as there not the device manufacturer and as much as they would like to think otherwise by branding there name on my already ugly droid (no hate I love it dearly but its not pretty by any means), forcing v-cast on there dump phones and charging for there native GPS there just a regular old dump pipe.

I've wondering that myself. Maybe they didn't want to connect the FM antenna, or couldn't get decent reception/transmission within the case. FM signals, operating at much lower frequencies than the cell signal, require a much longer antenna.

If you check out this PDF diagram, our processor also can support composite and HDMI output:

http://omapzoom.com/OMAPzoom2-system_block_diagram.pdf

Not only could the Droid challenge the iPhone, it could have trumped the Zune HD with 720p HDMI out

--Bill

Eh...you don't really need a crazy long antenna. This was always a concern with even devices like cellphones operating on the 450Mhz band, people claimed that the device would need a antenna 2 times the length exactly of a regular 900Mhz handset but thats theoretical, you can always increase output/recieve sensetivity.

If you are using the phone for tethering, then the 3G modem is already the bottleneck, so you won't see any speed gain there. Even when just using WiFi on the phone, most people broadband connection is slower than 802.11g, so going to n doesn't add much. You are correct that it could add range, depending on how the WiFi radio is implemented.

--Bill

True but if you haven't noticed theoretical data rates always help. For example I doubt everyday with a UMTS handset your getting the theoretical 7.2MB/s data rates but if they hadn't upgrated you would be lucky to get 1MB/s. Plus it makes it so one less variable is bottlenecked, imagine if that thinking was always kept, we would still be at 22MB/s because "Most broadband internet doesn't exceed that". Trust me you'll see speed increases with a wireless N router over a wireless G router regardless of whether you make your broadband faster, nothing to write home about but still. Obviously don't go crazy with it look at AT&T for example neglecting there backhaul.

 

[rothenbj]

Using the FM transmission to send the music to my receiver in my car is what I want. Would love to not to have to buy a bluetooth receiver just to do this if the phone's hardware supports it.

FM transmission works fine, as long as you find a good station. There is a great station in South Carolina that I use for most of my travel around the state.

Am I missing something here? I can understand the usefulness of an FM receiver for somewhere you don't have a radio. Hooking up an FM transmitter to your radio (unless you only have AM) doesn't appear to make any sense. Wouldn't you car radio and antenna give you better reception?

 

[nateo200]

Am I missing something here? I can understand the usefulness of an FM receiver for somewhere you don't have a radio. Hooking up an FM transmitter to your radio (unless you only have AM) doesn't appear to make any sense. Wouldn't you car radio and antenna give you better reception?

You are missing something major here. What the use of a transmitter is to broadcast your music, active call onto the radio in your car so you can listen to it over the speakers in your car. Haven't you heard of the jupiter jack ?

 

[rothenbj]

You are missing something major here. What the use of a transmitter is to broadcast your music, active call onto the radio in your car so you can listen to it over the speakers in your car. Haven't you heard of the jupiter jack ?

That was on of the first things I thought about when I saw FM transmission. I was fascinated when I saw the ad on TV. I waited until opinions of it started showing up on the net and quickly wrote it off as another of those "TV marketing scams".

Anyone actually using one here? I'm also not sure I want to broadcast phone conversations, but that's just me.

 

[superdesi]

one word: motorokr t505

ok well tahts more than one word. More like a word and 4 characters

 

[meekrab]

That was on of the first things I thought about when I saw FM transmission. I was fascinated when I saw the ad on TV. I waited until opinions of it started showing up on the net and quickly wrote it off as another of those "TV marketing scams".

Anyone actually using one here? I'm also not sure I want to broadcast phone conversations, but that's just me.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean about a tv scam, but fm transmitters have been around for years. They broadcast at a very low power over a single frequency, so your phone calls and music are safe, they can only reach a small radius around the transmitter.

Any FM transmitter with a 3.5 mm Jack will work with the Droid.

However, this thread is concerning the potential fm capabilities of the droid itself, just to be clear.

 

[nateo200]

That was on of the first things I thought about when I saw FM transmission. I was fascinated when I saw the ad on TV. I waited until opinions of it started showing up on the net and quickly wrote it off as another of those "TV marketing scams".

Anyone actually using one here? I'm also not sure I want to broadcast phone conversations, but that's just me.

Like the above poster stasted these have been around for years, I'm blatently surprised as to why no one seams to have heard about them there so popular among ipod users its crazy.

 

[Tierlifer]

Using the FM transmission to send the music to my receiver in my car is what I want. Would love to not to have to buy a bluetooth receiver just to do this if the phone's hardware supports it.

FM transmission works fine, as long as you find a good station. There is a great station in South Carolina that I use for most of my travel around the state.

What eclipsed said. Nail on the head.

 

[Tierlifer]

Again, it's not always a choice. Of course, no one would choose the lowest quality method if they had all the options in the world, no one is trying to say FM transmission is better than wired, that would be idiotic. I think most people here are familiar with FM transmitters and what they sound like and find it acceptable, and are commenting in this thread because they think it would be nice to have one less piece of equipment in your car to fuss with.

Exactly. Some of us just want to listen to our Pandora and other music with our daily work commutes through our vehicles radios without having to go through alot of hoops and dishing out alot of coin to do so.

Also, many of us, myself included DON'T have an AUX input and have zero intentions of getting a car stereo that has one just to listen to our Droids.

And as far as sound quality goes, I used my iPod touch with via a FM transmitter and the sound quality if fine, especially for what it's purpose is. It's not like most of us our expecting to hear The Boston Pops in a symphony hall when we listen.

 

[rothenbj]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean about a tv scam, but fm transmitters have been around for years. They broadcast at a very low power over a single frequency, so your phone calls and music are safe, they can only reach a small radius around the transmitter.

Any FM transmitter with a 3.5 mm Jack will work with the Droid.

However, this thread is concerning the potential fm capabilities of the droid itself, just to be clear.

I was referring to the Jupiter Jackson as the TV scam.

If you want to transmit FM, why not just buy a 3.5 mm transmission Jack for the Droid?

Some of the posts here make it sound like it's important to have in the phone. I suppose I just don't personally see the need.

 

[meandmydroid]

How can that be a hangup of yours? I don't know of any other phones that have built in FM. In order to be "hung up" on something like that, you'd have to be used to one capable of it and thus are now missing it since you've switched.

Otherwise, your statement would make as much sense as if I were to make a post saying "My only hangup with this droid is that I can't remotely drive my car from my living room with it. Otherwise, it is a nice phone." See what I'm saying?

Wow...I hope I am just mis-interpreting your response, but are you actually saying you don't know of any other phones that have built in FM? There are cell phones that have built-in FM radio that are much cheaper than the Droid that is supposed to "do everything"!!! I'm on Verizon, so just to give you an example...my parents LG Chocolate Touch has FM radio built-in...

 

[meandmydroid]

All I want to do is listen to my FM radio at the gym. My gym has 4 tvs set to FM signals that I can't listen to since I do not have not a FM in my ipod touch or storm. This is my 1 hang up on the Droid. I would buy today if it had FM

D

Hi Dave...I have the Droid, and am using an app you can download for free called "DroidLive"...it is an app that lets you listen to real live radio stations....and you can even program in your local radio stations link and save it as a favorite station...as long as it is a radio station that is broadcasting online that you would be able to listen to on your computer...just pull up your local radio station's website and see if they have a "listen live" link on the website (most do now...) and if so, then you can listen to it on "DroidLive"....hope this works for you if you choose the Droid....

 

[meekrab]

I was referring to the Jupiter Jackson as the TV scam.

If you want to transmit FM, why not just buy a 3.5 mm transmission Jack for the Droid?

Some of the posts here make it sound like it's important to have in the phone. I suppose I just don't personally see the need.

Its a matter of consolidation and simplicity, the same reason why bluetooth, gps, and wifi are all utilized on the chip rather than plug in accessories (I used an external gps receiver with my previous phone). Granted, the demand for these features is presumably much higher than fm reception and transmission, but the droids potential fm radio capabilities are personally intriguing. If the potential is there, why not exploit it?

I'm not so much interested in fm transmission, though on occasion it would certainly come in handy. I would personally like to be able to receive fm signals, as fm broadcasts are heavily utilized at my school's library and gym (where I spend most of my waking life).

 

[davewoodson]

meandmydroid that would work, but when I am in the gym, I want to listen to the FM transmission from the TVs not an actual radio station. I know I need to do something soon as my screen is dying on my Storm.

 

[lbailey45]

Its a matter of consolidation and simplicity.. If the potential is there, why not exploit it?

I'm not so much interested in fm transmission, though on occasion it would certainly come in handy. I would personally like to be able to receive fm signals, as fm broadcasts are heavily utilized at my school's library and gym (where I spend most of my waking life).

Me too!!

Lack of FM receiver was one of the reasons I didn't get an iPhone, and I was so happy to hear the Droid would have it. But now, apparently not?? I'm in Canada, so I'll have to wait anyway, but if FM was supported I'd love to hear about it!

I suspect Verizon wanted it disabled so they could charge for radio streaming (even though we can get apps like "DroidLive", not everyone is smart enough to realize this).

 

[AdamTr]

the station i like is on flycast but it's not working on the droid yet so till then FM would be nice.

Try DroidLive, very similar to Flycast.

 

[rvonder]

I don't know of any other phones that have built in FM.

My Samsung Omnia had a built-in FM receiver -- as well as the video out capabilities we also didn't get on the Droid. Samsung uses the headphone cable as an antenna, so the FM only works via wired headphones. (AFAIK, it cannot transmit FM but only receive it.)

 

[meekrab]

Me too!!

Lack of FM receiver was one of the reasons I didn't get an iPhone, and I was so happy to hear the Droid would have it. But now, apparently not?? I'm in Canada, so I'll have to wait anyway, but if FM was supported I'd love to hear about it!

I suspect Verizon wanted it disabled so they could charge for radio streaming (even though we can get apps like "DroidLive", not everyone is smart enough to realize this).

Per their contractual agreement with google/moto, verizon is really not allowed to limit the featureset of this phone (hence google maps nav instead of VZnav). That said, obviously there are some features that may or may not have been tapped into. Given enough time, we may be able to figure out how to utilize such capabilities. But, as of right now, no FM.