- The Grace Digital Innovator X GDI-IR2600 streams over 17,000 radio stations and on demand contact included Pandora, SiriusXM, iHeartRadio, Live365, NPR, NOAA weather, WeatherBug.
- Connectivy includes built in 802.11n Wi-Fi, Headphone, and Aux-in.Built in Battery Backup and Real-Time clock ( RTC) kept accurate via the Internet.
- Large 4-line display with 30 backlight micro settings. Set your radio to automatically dim when turned off in the night time and stay bright during day time listening.
- Compatible with the free Grace remote control App for iPhone/iTouch/ iPad and Android phones. Listen to all of your digital music anywhere in your home or office, with Grace.
- Includes 5 alarms to buzz or play your favorite radio station. Each alarm settable for one time, a day of the week, weekends, weekdays, or 7 day alarm
For me, setup was without issue. I have the Innovator X in my living room. The router in my home is upstairs in an office about 25 feet away as the Cockatiel flies. There is actually a "WiFi Strength" indicator in the Settings of the radio and as I write my review it is indicating 73% but is actually bouncing all over the place ranging from 60% to 100%. Nobody is in the house except for me and I"m not moving... well my fingers are moving on the keyboard but that's about it. I do not know why there is such fluctuation in the signal. It is not dropping or continually buffering the connection though and that's what counts.
Once I plugged in the radio for the first time it locacted several WiFi signals. I chose my SSID and then entered my passphrase for my network. The method used to enter the passphrase as well as any other input such as search phrases, is to twist the rotary dial to the letter or number you need, then push the same dial to select and "enter" it. It's tedious but easy to do. In a minute or so, the Innovator X connected to my network and I was taken to the main menu.
I won't go into excruciating detail about every menu choice and option but will address a few things of importance.
The Innovator X has a chunky, old school LED display. When text, such as Song Title, is scrolling across the display it is somewhat difficult to read since the letters sort of flash on and off as they change position. I would prefer a display more current with the state of the art. On the plus side, it is possible to independently set the display backlight brightness for each of it's three modes; active, inactive and standby. Active mode is when you are actually doing something with the radio involving the dials or buttons. Inactive is when you are listening to the radio but not actively doing anything with the controls. Standby is when the radio is "off". It's really nice to be able to adjust the backlight levels especially if you are using this in a bedroom and would prefer little or no light coming from the display during sleep.
The radio has alarms and a sleep timer. Regarding alarms, there is the option to set up to 5 alarms. Each alarm can be one time only or repeating. You have the option to set a buzzer as the alarm, a station or even something hooked up to the auxiliary jack. You also have the ability to set a unique volume level for each alarm. Having an indication on the display during radio listening, that an alarm is set, would be helpful, unfortunately the display does not have such an indication during radio listening. Only when the radio is in standby mode does the radio indicate that an alarm has been set.
If you have a Pandora account the radio can access your stations on Pandora once you register your radio with an account on the Grace Radio website. There is a "Register" setting in the radio menu that provides you with a key that you enter on the Grace website to connect your Pandora account to the radio. It works well and you can then use the remote to give thumbs up and thumbs down ratings to songs just as are accustomed to doing.
The sound of the Innovator X is quite nice. The "wood" cabinet lends a warmth to the sound that is lacking in plastic cases. The case is actually a particle board rather than a solid wood but in any case, it does add a reassuring heft to the radio and lends to the nice sound produced by the mono speaker.
You have the ability to set 10 presets for stations. Setting a preset is as simple as holding the appropriate preset button a few seconds while the station you want to set is playing.
I've very pleased with this radio. I have experienced some "initializing network" connection issues as others have reported. Some of those issues may have been due to the problem that Grace Digital has acknowledged and presumably fixed. But apparently there remain some issues. In my home network with a multitude of other connected devices of various types, the Grace radio seems to be the only one that has these issues.
The radio sounds great and looks quite nice. There is some room for improvement though... I would like to see a better quality display such as what the Grace Mondo has. The remote is not the most reassuring thing I've ever used either. It gets the job done but does not feel very durable. Of course there is a GraceRemote iPhone app that also lets you control Grace radios on a local network, but it would not identify my Innovator X and I attempted for over an hour to get it working. I'll update my review should I learn anything further about why GraceRemote app won't "see" the radio. UPDATE: Nov 1, 2012 I'm happy to report that based on my comments about the iPhone app not working properly, Grace discovered a problem with the app not recognizing the Innovator X and has subsuquently fixed the app. It works now and is fantastic. Makes operation of the radio by using the iPhone possible. Love the convenience.
I think all but the most technically dis-advantaged would be able to easily set this up and begin enjoying all that Internet Radio has to offer.
Grace Digital provided me a sample for review.I got my first internet radio about 5 or 6 years ago; primarily because I could get no AM reception in my aluminum sided suburban home. This newer Innovator X is a real advancement in ease of use and features. Connection to your wi-fi is a straight forward process.
Things I like about the new radio:
AUX input for my XM receiver
Headphone jack for wife's nighttime privacy
Pandora
Internet corrected time
Media player connection to your computer music files
Solid construction and excellent sound
Podcast .xml streams
Great integration with Reciva website for finding and storing content
Good alarms and sleep timers
Amazon has a better price than the Grace website, but I had a $30 coupon so I bought it from Grace.
Internet radios are a strange niche, since all the content can already be accessed from your computer, but I like having it bed-side in an easy to use traditional form.
Once you get used to utilizing it, having instant access to any radio station across the globe is a great feature. This is particularly true for time shifting news talk radio and listening to non local pro and college sports broadcasts.This Grace Digital Innovator X Internet Radio has earned a spot on my desk within easy reach. I have never had an internet radio before but it took less than an hour to read through the manual, set it up, and connect to the internet through my router wirelessly; register online for advanced services; set the time, date, and alarm; and sample, select, and preset channels.
I have really enjoyed being able to choose from thousands of channels, opera from Russia and Bollywood from India, news from NPR and local weather. It's not clear to me how there can be so many free stations without advertisements but there they are and they don't seem to be asking listeners to send rupees or rubles to support their broadcasts. It will stream my own music from the computer and there is an audio input plug in the back to connect an MP3 player or other device but it's nice to have the variety that radio offers and especially nice to not have to worry about deciding exactly which music to listen to. There are five preset buttons with a shift button to instantly access a total of ten favorite stations.
It has a very attractive appearance that is instantly identifiable as a classic table-top single-speaker radio yet it is very modern at the same time. There is excellent attention to detail in the design and the quality of manufacture is very sturdy and precise. The buttons and knobs and even the menus are very intuitive.
I was skeptical about the single speaker at first but the monophonic output truly captures that feeling of listening to a high-quality radio, something that I hadn't realize I missed. Sometimes I use headphones through the plug on front but for background music, the single speaker is very expressive and pleasant to listen to. The speaker is open in the back and I think that keeping it a few inches from the wall makes the sound richer.
The alarm clock can have separate setting for the weekdays and the weekends which is very handy. There is also a sleep timer but I prefer to use the little remote control to turn it off when I'm finished reading and ready to go to sleep. The different settings for the brightness of the display when in active use and at rest address one of my pet peeves, lights on electronics that are too bright at night.
The Grace Digital Innovator X actually actually has many, many more features than I use, like remote control apps for cell phones, WeatherBug on the LCD display, music queue, on-demand stations, and My Stations for 99 favorite channels. It is fun to play around with them but mostly I keep it simple and just listen to music plus news in the morning.
The only thing I don't like is that scrolling through the menus and alphabet is a bit quirky as the knob is very sensitive. Until I got used to it, I would turn it and would get stuck at the end of the current selections on display and reverse and start scrolling in the other direction. It takes just the right touch and a certain amount of pressure to make it do exactly what you want it to do.
A few tips:
* Set the wireless connection to be maintained even when the radio is turned off so that music will start playing faster when you turn it on by choosing: Settings > Network Config[uration] >Wireless Stand[by] > Yes. This is especially important if you want to use a broadcast as an alarm rather than the buzzer because it will default to the buzzer after a few seconds.
* Once, after using it for several days, it lost the wireless connection for no apparent reason and couldn't get it back. Everything seemed to be fine with the router. Turning it off and on didn't fix that but unplugging the electricity and then plugging it back in took care of it.
* Choose the the higher-quality transmission rates for radio stations that offer them and if you plan to use a headset or external speakers, don't forget to set stereo output by choosing Settings > Stereo Mode > Headset/Speake[r Stereo].
A sample was provided for unbiased review.I was hoping this would prove a good tabletop Internet Radio for standalone (no computer required) use. Although it's a monaural unit, the sound quality was surprisingly good for its modest size. The radio connected easily to the house wi-fi network, but even with a 20Mbps Internet connection, it would stall and buffer on nearly every station tried. This was a real disappointment, since I had good Internet radio reception with any computer in the house. So I returned this item but did subsequently purchase the Grace MatchStick, which uses Amazon's Kindle Fire as a receiver and does play in stereo! The Kindle has never had a problem with streaming music, and the MatchStick, although with not quite as good low-end response as the item reviewed, sounds good for a bedroom music source.
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Imagine listening to Reggae music while drinking a Jamaican Rum Punch out on the deck. Or, what about the sound of Bollywood while feasting on Tandoori Chicken? With this WiFi internet radio you can listen to thousands of music, podcasts and talk radio stations from all over the world. I listen to a classic rock station from Australia, an easy jazz station from Brazil and I practice my French listening skills with a news station from France. You can even listen to your Pandora station on it. It has kind of a retro look, but with a clean modern face. The combination of knobs, buttons and remote make it easy to navigate, after I looked up in the manual exactly what combinations to use the first time. It took less than 10 minutes to be up and running. It has 5 preset buttons and a shift key that can be pressed to access channels 6 to 10. It comes with a remote control but if you own and IOS or Android device, you can download an app that allows you to use your device as a remote control. It has a lot more options than the little remote that comes with the radio.Set up was simple and the manual was easy to follow. After starting up it found my home network right away and I was able to put in my password and it connected. I've had the radio for a couple weeks and it only lost the connection once, in the beginning, I'm not sure why. I was able to reconnect by turning off the radio, unplugging it from the wall, replugging it and restarting again. When the radio started it connected right away without me having to do anything further. Since that time it's been turned on and off hundreds of times and it has worked perfectly ever since. I'm using it with a Linksys E3200 router, on a different floor and opposite end of the house.
Connecting to our Pandora station was as easy as getting the registration code from the radio by going into "setup" and pushing some buttons, registering the radio at grace.reciva.com and entering the email I used to open my Pandora account and Pandora password. Following the instructions I then unplugged my radio for one minute and fired it up again and was able to listen to music from Pandora on my radio. It even has "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" buttons on the remote. I find that we listen to Pandora a lot on this radio. It's like having your own private radio station.
The sound on this radio is very good given its small size. I can turn it up loud enough to hear it in a sometimes noisy household without any problem. You can tweak the sound profile in the settings menu as far as the bass and treble controls. The sound is crisp and clear with a good amount of bass.
The radio has alarms and a sleep timer where you can set up to 5 alarms. Each alarm can be one time only or repeating. You can wake up to a buzzer or the radio. (Be sure to set the wireless connection to be maintained even when the radio is turned off in the "Settings" menu.) There is an auxiliary input jack in the rear of the radio that you can use to connect the Innovator X and use its speaker for your smart phone, mp3 player or other device.
Grace Digital has a very good reputation with audio devices and this one is no exception. It feels solid and well put together. It comes with a good manual with easy to follow instructions and it has lots of great features. It would be a fun gift for anyone who likes music and I feel good about recommending to friends. Grace Digital provided me a sample for review.
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