Kaito Electronics Inc. KAIR168 Wireless WiFi Internet Radio

• Wirelessly stream over 10,000 radio stations from the world using your home WiFi network
• Has 255 memories
• Solid wood cabinet provides rich and clear sound
• SD/MMC card slot available + earphone jack + RJ45 ethernet jack
• Before you can use your Internet radio

I have one if these that I purchased on ebay and I also have an RCA RIR200. This radio seems to have better wifi connectivity than the RCA since it has an external antenna but I had to buy a new wireless router with 802.11G to get the RCA working so that might be the reason it works well. If you still have an old 802.11B wireless router plan on getting a new G router for best performance. The IR-168 can play not only internet stations but also MP3's from an SD card plugged into the front, sort of like a big amplified iPod. They also claim it's a media player that can play files such as MP3's stored on your local computer using Upnp but I couldn't get that to work at all with Windows XP Pro or Vista. Even thought Upnp was enabled and the file folder was shared the radio said it couldn't find any Upnp devices or shared files even though the PC's could see the radio and access it's webpage to program in favorite stations. It worked great using Windows 7 though and all I had to do was put the files to be played in My Documents in the Music folder and make sure it was shared. I didn't need to use Windows Media Player 11 like they say and don't see any need for that at all.

The IR-168 only has one speaker but it's large and gives good sound whereas the RCA has two smaller speakers for stereo but the RCA is not as loud. The IR-168 can play stereo using amplified speakers plugged into the back or with headphones and Kaito has a second optional speaker available. The sound is much better using the second speaker but it's expensive at $30 but any 8 ohm speaker similar in size to the first one will work. The IR-168 comes with a tiny credit card size remote that's nearly useless but all the functions can be accessed using the front panel buttons. It uses a website called iradio168 dot com to find the 10,000 or 11,000 radio stations from around the world while most other internet radios use Vtuner or Reciva. Vtuner and Reciva let you go to the website to find stations and try playing them to see how they work but iradio168 does not although they claim to be working on that. The RCA can also play music from Slacker Radio and get weather forecasts but the IR-168 does not do that, only plays internet stations. Although I haven't found one there might be some stations out there streaming weather since there are some stations streaming police and airport radio scanners. You can log on to the iradio168 dot com forum and have stations added if you want but you can also store favorites right into the radio's memory using a web browser so you don't have to browse through thousands of stations on the website to find them, which is a lot easier. There is also a list of 500 Top stations stored in the radio's memory but that seems to be just a bunch of random stations with names like Top40 or Golden Oldies so it's impossible to tell what they really are and there doesn't seem to be any way to edit them to add more or fix ones that don't work. There are a lot of different kinds of stations out there streaming different kinds of formats but this radio can play most of them. It does have trouble with some Clear Channel stations in the US such as KFI 640 AM that want to open a webpage for ads and send down an .asx file that only plays in Windows Media Player but it can play BBC stations that are hard to play on a PC unless you install the Real player then you might still get an error saying you can't play it because you aren't in the U.K. but that doesn't bother the IR-168. I found the gray on blue text hard to read so I replaced the blue LEDs that light the front panel with white ones to make the display clearer and easier to read then when the white ones got dim I replaced them with bright green ones.

They don't list many specs here so I have them below:

Specifications:

* Audio Streaming Formats Supported : MP3, WMA, Real Audio and OGG

* Firmware upgradeable through Internet without PC

* Support for ID3 & WMA tags (Album, Song and Artist)

* 4 line display, (128 x 64 pixels) for radio data with auto off backlight

* Automatic WiFi network scanning

* Support WiFi Security standard (WEP, WPA, WPA2)

* Speaker Power 3W RMS 4 ohm

* Supports Summer Time adjustment

* Display cities along GMT timings

* Auto-upgrade with the use of PC

* Compatible to 54Mbps IEEE 802.11 b/g

* Fireware upgradable via WLAN / Ethernet

* 3.5mm Headphone Jack / Audio Line out

* Power 110v 240V, 9V, 1.3A DC input

* AC Adapter with CUL approved

The IR168 forum seems to be getting overrun with spam so I've started a new ir168 group without spam on Google Groups called iradio168-internet-radio-group. All messages are moderated. I'm going to have all the fimware on file, links to BBC station work-arounds, internal photos, lists of stations in the ir168 file, etc.

iradio168-internet-radio-group at googlegroups dot com

Update, they have been out of production for about 3 years now so there's no support or updates anymore. They still work OK for most stations but new codecs are coming out and there won't be any support for them. Also the iradio168 dot com web site that was provided by the radio manufacturer is now down so the radio is not able to get the big file with the list of all the world wide stations when it's turned on. That's not really a big loss but it means that stations have to be added manually now by browsing to the radio's web page and entering the station URL by hand like they say to do in the manual for adding Favorites.

Buy Kaito Electronics Inc. KAIR168 Wireless WiFi Internet Radio Now

For many years I have followed two different paths to listening to radio broadcasts from other countries: (1) short wave radio, which is inherently complex and variable in reception and, for me at least, quite difficult to figure out, and (2) listening to the radio over the internet via computer. While listening to, e.g., the BBC (a spectacular source of internet listening) over the internet, I often fantasized about a small radio-like unit that I could place next to my bed to listen to at night and in the morning. This wonderful Kaito radio is exactly what I had in mind. I am not a techie, nor can I say anything about how the Kaito internet radio compares to other internet radios; all I can say is that it seems to me to be absolutely excellent and I am delighted with it. I have been using it for about a month and have "tuned in" radio stations from around the world, which come in with absolute clarity, just the way they would if I accessed them on a computer, and in a way that is indistinguisable from listening to local FM stations in sound quality and clarity. The difference, obviously, is that I no longer need the computer. The speaker that is built in to this small, attractive unit is very respectable and would be adequate on its own, but Kaito has thoughtfully included an external speaker jack on the back so I have added a Sony mini-speaker to the system, which fits neatly on top of the radio and greatly enhances the sound. Once again, I know that there are other internet radios out there, so I don't want to make extravagant claims of superiority for this one, but I can say that I would recommend it very highly to anyone, like me, who loves listening to radio stations of all kinds from all over the world, but who never quite got the hang of short wave radio.

UPDATE August 5, 2011

As my birthday is just around the corner and I'm taking stock of what really matters to me in life, I thought I would include a note on this Kaito Internet radio which I purchased on amazon well over two years ago. It's no exaggeration to say that it has consistently made me happier than any other (discretionary) purchase I have ever made, and it and I have become inseparable. (Yes, my children are more important to me, but this radio provides NOTHING but pleasure.) I listen to it constantly, aided by the fact that it has a "last played" feature which makes it easy to connect to stations to which you become addicted. (For me, they are Radio Canada, various iterations of the BBC, Radio France, and a station in Belgium called Clara.) I have one of these in my kitchen, which I listen to in the morning, and one in my living room next to my desk and armchair that I listen to at all other hours. In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I much prefer high-quality radio broadcasts to any kind of TV. This little gem has opened up wonderful new worlds to me and, best of all, has kept them open to visit and revisit whenever I choose. Thank you, Kaito.

Read Best Reviews of Kaito Electronics Inc. KAIR168 Wireless WiFi Internet Radio Here

I selected this internet radio for only one reason: the product is not tied to any commercial portal such as reciva or vtuner. If those portals should go out of business, this radio would work just fine. The device has a built-in web interface so you can cut-paste up to 255 URL links to radio stations of your choice and no any third party inserts itself between you and the broadcaster. The web interface look rather dull, however (ugly fonts, no any bitmaps). URL-s can be assigned to several predefined groups such us: "my favorite", news, music, info, sports, finance. It would be nice to change the names and the number of those groups too. Another missing feature is a backup option for all URL links.

The radio has good audio quality. This is not a surprise because the company manufactures traditional transistor radios too. Before this radio, I bought VTech IS9181 with much more modern feel and a really nice color screen but I had to return it because IS9181 did not play any low (20 kbps) and high (128 kbps) bitrate Windows Media Audio 9 (WMA9) streams that I tried. Moreover, bass on IS9181 was too overwhelming for talk shows and thin California walls. KAIR168 can tune to those stations but it has tons of other annoyances. Similarly to VTech IS9181, KAITO KAIR168 cannot play WMA10 Pro streams. I am a bit fuzzy on streaming protocols but for me MMS and HTTP (e.g. with OGG) worked fine while RTSP did not (KAITO claims that the RTSP protocol should work as well).

I almost discarded the KAITO device as a possible candidate for a purchase after watching the company "instructional" video on YouTube. A person demonstrating the radio had hard time tuning to stations and "signal errors" were popping up a few times. Well, I can confirm that bogus connection errors "work" as advertised, for example when trying to tune to Chinese stations from California. Sometimes 10 or even more attempts are required to establish a connection. Clearly, this is a firmware issue because the wireless signal is strong and once the radio starts playing, problems rarely occur. When the internal buffer underflows, the radio does not attempt to reconnect but goes back to the main menu. Interestingly, tuning to Polish radio stations is smooth most of the time (1-3 attempts are typically sufficient).

This device uses shady iradio168 service to download the list of URL feeds but the connection to the service is equally unreliable (initially, I thought that this feature was broken). Apparently, the links are downloaded to the same buffer that is later used for processing the audio stream. After selecting a station, the links disappear from memory and they have to be downloaded again. I tried this cumbersome procedure a few times before giving up completely. Without a reliable connection the claim about accessing 10,000+ stations is only a theory. I was able to add a station to "my favorite" list from iradio168 but I noticed that URL-s added this way cannot be read in the web browser interface -they are displayed with large black dots, like in a password box. Hmmm, those URL links are considered top secret by KAITO. This is pathetic.

The LCD display in KAIR168 resembles a hobby electronic project. The user interface is as boring as in a thermostat or in a programmable sprinkler controller. Even the power button is confusing you need to hold it for a few seconds to turn on the radio. Why not to use a simpler approach: pressing the button momentarily turns on/off the device; holding the button is used to completely shut it down. I agree with other customers that the bright, blue LCD background makes the display very hard to read. You have to look straight at the display from ~2 feet. Staring from top or side and you cannot see a thing. I wonder what is the purpose of the remote control as you need to be close to the radio to see what is going on and deal with "signal errors".

The VTech IS9181 radio that I owned for two days had a nice feature of immediately connecting to the last station after turning it on. With forward/backward buttons it was also possible to quickly switch radio stations going to the next station in my favorite list. The KAITO device has no such feature. You need to maneuver through several menus to select a radio station. The buffering time is also rather long, especially for low bitrate channels. It appears that the radio insists on filling up the entire internal buffer and then surprise -after reaching 99% capacity it waits for a while muted.

The Wi-Fi connection in KAIR168 is solid if we trust the bars that indicate RF signal strength. The hostname of the device cannot be changed. To be fair, other internet radios have similar limitations. Sadly, there is no AM/FM tuner built-in despite a rather steep price of $150. So KAIR168 cannot replace your existing FM radio in the kitchen.

I give this radio 4 stars because the user can directly enter URL links to radio stations without any intermediate, commercial portal. Amazingly, such a basic feature is so hard to find. Moreover, the radio has decent audio quality, especially good for news and the wireless reception is reliable. The device has also 3.5 mm jack for headphones. Unfortunately, it is located on the rear panel. I hope the company will deliver a more stylish design in the future, eliminate pesky "signal errors", automatically reconnect when the stream is temporarily lost, and improve the user interface.

UPDATE (Aug 7, 2010): Certainly, KAITO teaches you to be persistent... After fruitless searches on the Internet for a new firmware release and several failed attempts to connect to the upgrade server (Menu->Setup->Firmware Upgrade), success at last! The device downloaded and replaced the old firmware w/o erasing my URL links. The best outcome of the upgrade is that "signal errors" are greatly reduced (on good days they are almost gone). It is also possible to reduce LCD backlight brightness so screen visibility slightly improves. You can specify buffering size (three options) but only globally, not per URL link. There is a new menu item "Last Played" that somewhat speeds up tuning to the most frequently listened to radio stations. Moreover, if you turn on the radio but do not press any other buttons for while, the device will connect to the last radio station (does not work on cold boot). Forward/backward buttons still do not work; you cannot quickly switch stations within the current play list. The lack of this feature is particularly painful with the remote control. In summary, after the firmware upgrade, this product fully deserves 4 stars for its basic features but lacks refinement.

Want Kaito Electronics Inc. KAIR168 Wireless WiFi Internet Radio Discount?

This is the 3rd wifi radio that I have bought and find that it does not measure up. It is more awkward to use (none that I have seen are as easy as a plain old AM/FM tabletop) and slow(er) to capture a signal whether on cable or WIFI. Also, the station reference website, iradio168.com, doesn't seem to be on top of new subscription requests. It has been four days since I applied and as a result I have not been able to acquire access to a few of my favorite Talk/News AM sites. Sound quality is poorer than a set that sells for less (i.e. Kaito IR-168 Wi-Fi Internet RadioILUV-INT170). I am returning the radio for an alternative (not yet chosen). I give it 2 stars.

I'm pleased with this product. One of the most important features for me is the ability to do configuration with the embedded web server. With simple URL copy/paste I've added my own favorite radio stations. There is a master database website at with thousands of stations, but the ability to set up my own choices was important. For instance, the WM stream of KVNO, Omaha, NE is in the database and readily connects. However, this stream has chronic technical problems at their server. KVNO also has a Real Audio stream that does play properly so I programmed that one in myself. Another factor is that for philosophical reasons I've chosen lower rate streams to avoid unnecessary bandwidth use. The pre-programmed stream for KUAT, Tucson, AZ is at 128Kbps, and it sounds great. However, I programmed in the 48K stream instead, which sounds perfectly fine for background music purposes. On my desktop with its fancy speakers and subwoofer, I use the 128K KUAT stream.

I found the setup to be easy, but persons who are novice with computers may have to do some head scratching.

The miniature remote control may not be so useful. Others have mentioned. I need my glasses to use it for one thing.

I told a couple of friends about the radio. They bought it and are happy.

The radio is sold internationally, and the website has a users forum with many members. That's one way they preen the database. The radio has an active following with this forum. You can also dialogue with the radio's developers if you choose.

Kaito posts the full instruction manual. I own two Kaito KA-1102 portable radios, and these things were so good that I figured the IR-168 would also be a good product.

Sept 2011 update: Discovered today that the radio's WiFi doesn't work with AES encryption, only TKIP. The latter is being deprecated and will not be available in new devices after 2013. Many routers now default to AES, so this can be a big head-scratching issue as to why the radio's WiFi doesn't work. The 802.1n specification does not support TKIP.