Nokia Home Music HD-1

Best known today for its mobile phones, Nokia has released a connected jukebox at a knock down price. Nokia Home Music is an unusual beast: essentially it's a radio – primarily an Internet radio – built around a giant mono 10W speaker, but there's a Swiss Army knife selection of I/O options for getting music in and out of the …

[Anonymous Coward]

Backend support

A persistent issue I have with internet radio devices is their reliance on a web server somewhere to keep running and providing the routing information for each channel. Does this radio need to talk to Nokia to work properly? I guess they should be around for many years to come, but who knows if this service will be something they continue to value? Looks interesting though...

[Dan 55]

Title

It probably shares the same shoutcast/podcast and FM radio directories as the phones use so I shouldn't worry about it.

I might have got one if I knew about them a year or two ago, but circumstances don't allow me to now...

[Anonymous Coward]

"it can compliment a home hi-fi system from its phono and optical S/PDIF ports"

Cue speak-and-spell voice: "nice pair of tweeters..."

[RichyS]

iPod/iPhone

You could have mentioned at the outset that the device doesn't work properly with iDevices, I could have saved the time it took to read a couple of pages.

I have no idea in this day and age how any sort of music centre cannot fully support iPods. And I'm not sure why you would expect Nokia not to. After all, some of the best (well, some) iPod docks are made by Sony, who compete even more directly with Apple in the iPod space.

[dboy]

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

You have no idea why a device released in 2008 by Nokia doesn't support apple. Umm, are you sure you have no idea? Just a little one?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cult of "i"

What a nightmare having to spend all that time reading an article when you could have been fiddling with your "i" devices which have a reputation for *hite sound quality.

[Anonymous Coward]

£100 too much

So, no built in storage and it's basically just one of their £20 phones with a mono speaker, a few ports and no phone or battery. No iPod support is inexcusable at that price point (though it wouldn't be a major selling point for the device) and NO storage for podcasts or DAB (or even MW/LW)? No wonder it was buried alive.

That thing must cost practically nothing to make. Sell it for £30-£40 and they'd have a winner. They could even build some kind of marketplace around music sales to the device.... oh wait....

My coat's the one with the iPhone and N95 in the pockets. :-)

[Rob Davis]

Indeed, timed SD card recording, alarm clock and portability with rechargeable battery would be nice

Not a bad start for diversification into home listening for Nokia, but absence of features in title means it's not for me.

[David Beck]

Agreed

I agree with this view. Too expensive for the actual features given that it has at it's heart some S40/S60 chip without the mobile radio (or maybe with, could the next version have a speakerphone built-in). Btw, does it include an alarm? I didn't see this in Andrew's review.

Regarding iPod support, does the iPod support DNLA? I know the N95 in your pocket does so it can supply music for the thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Rob & David

Open your eyes guys. First screen shot on page 1 - 'Alarm' in large letters.

[Steve X]

competitors?

What aboiut some comparison reviews, for example with the Pure Swift Flow, which seems (on paper) to offer the same as this, *plus* DAB/DAB+, for less money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Networking

Humm UPnP and DLNA supported...are these two protocols OS supported by the nowadays Apple products? No!? So, why blaming Nokia for not supporting Apple products and not blaming Apple for lack of support for two widespread protocols, uh Mr Orlowski?

[John 62]

what happens at switch on?

I ask because I got my dad a DAB radio (which ended up being used for FM). Problem was, the power button wasn't the easiest to use (little tiny button on the face of the set) and for use in the kitchen it would have been desirable to have it above the upper cupboards out of harm's way. Unfortunately switching back on at the nice, big easy to use switch beside the power outlet only led to the radio going into standby and you had to press the little button on the face of it to turn it on properly. It would be nice if all radios just turned on and off without the standby nonsense

[Studley]

Digital input, mono output.

Lovely stuff! I'll put it next to my two-inch HDTV and single-speaker surround-sound system!

[carlos.danger]

no wfmu? I'll take a pass.

really glad the article mentioned wfmu specifically, as I wanted a dedicated device for streaming that very station, it's playing on one computer or another constantly in my house. Almost had me.

[Anonymous Coward]

@no wfmu?

You ought to try reading the article a bit more closely. It clearly states that if a station isn't in the list you can hear it by entering the address. It also says that stations can be added to the favourites list.

[Steve Evans]

Hmmm

Given the UK Govt headlong push (can't help but think of kickbacks etc) to remove all analogue broadcasts from the spectrum, the lack of DAB/DAB+ seems like a serious oversight.

[BadwolfBracken]

Abort / Retry / Fail - in Finnish

Would have been really neat about 5 years ago and at 1/3 the price

[Anna Logg]

anyone poked about inside one?

I'm wondering if they've used one of the usual WiFi Radiochipsets/web portals from Reciva or Frontier Silicon in here, or is it all home grown? For sure the UI doesn't look like a Reciva product.

My cheapo Logik IR100 Reciva based radio/streamer is by far my best gadget buy of the last few years, but these devices still don't seem quite ready for the consumer mainstream, whilst they're reasonably easy to set up, particularly as a web radio, streaming via uPnP isn't quite as reliable as I'd expect.

A nice try but a tad expensive for what it does maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay, no iTurd port - excellent

That is all.

[Henry Wertz 1]

No stereo? No problem

Frankly, I don't see the lack of stereo speakers as a big deal, so long as the headphone jack itself has stereo output. Honestly, a lot of small stereos have the speakers like 6 inches apart anyway, meaning no actual stereo effect unless you're an ant.

Anyway, *shrug*, for a few of my friends, their smartphone now effectively replaces the functionality of playing streaming radio.

[Hayden Clark]

Reciva?

Good this it isn't Reciva internals. That would kill it utterly.

It might be OK for internet radio, but it's completely pants as a network media player. What would you think of a player that barfs if there's more than a few hundred tracks on your media server?

[MattyB]

Sales team are Rubbish

Just tried to order one on their website, came up with an error on all three of my cards, so I rang the sales team who:

1) Had a go at me because obviously I'm not smart enough to enter my card details correctly.

2) Told me it was my banks fault (three different banks?)

3) Told me I would have to wait 5 days and then ring them again to place an order as I'd "confused their system by calling".

I will never be giving Nokia any of my money after my experience just now.

[Bill Coleman]

mono?

mono. really? mono? in 2008? wtf?