It is brilliant because I can’t really be bothered to switch on my computer to listen to the radio, it’s just too much hassle even with a neat radioplayer thingy, and it’s not that easy to take my computer into the kitchen. It has a better sound than my computer and I believe that I can set an alarm in it so I can be woken up by my own breakfast show.

Setting it up was really beyond my technical grasp, although to be honest I didn’t try that hard before calling Matt in. And I didn’t even have to cook dinner, I got my flatmate to do it.

Actually the bit about setting up wi-fi is relevant to this story because I only bought the wireless router in order to be able to get the wireless radio to work, I was quite happy plugging a cable in up until now. That actually means that this has been quite expensive (over £150) and if I didn’t currently live outside of the TSA of where I work, I wouldn’t have bothered with it. I can’t quite see why a regular person would get one, whereas I know lots of normal people who have embraced digital radios because they’re so easy and user friendly.

Because of the amount of international listening I have to do, I’ve found a wifi radio pretty handy and have used one daily for around 18 months now. It works most of the time and the listen again functionality you mention is wonderful.

But there are some very rough edges, both inherent limitations to the technology and poor design.

The first thing I noticed when plugging it in was that the Logik exhibited a loud hum. I assumed was the product of a poorly regulated power supply, so I took the back off to see whether I could improve matters with a little rudimentary electronics.

The reality was worse: Logik had decided to put the mains transformer directly behind the loudspeaker so the coil in the speaker was resonating in sympathy with the electromagnetic field around the transformer.

My Dad always told me never to buy anything with a low serial number and now I know why.

I think the main problem with it is that it reduces one of the key benefits for stations doing internet radio – the new types of money it can bring in.

You’ll notice that most of the UK’s stations have pop-up players that run with pre-roll ads, have ad banners and deep link into other radio station content. I think it’s shocking that none of this runs in the industry’s own player. Plus you guys run an ad-banner in it. In other words you package up a load of content that you don’t own or pay for, strip away the ways it can make money and then shove your own ad banners on it.

Crazy.

The easiest way for Helen to keep an ear and eye on her station (and others of interest) is with the RadioCentrePlayer: http://www.radiocentre.org. It’s quick, free and easy. From any Internet access point, with a standard browser. Preferenced for UK radio. See what she thinks about that.

You are absolutely right that leading with a new Wi-Fi connection all but guarantees a horrible experience–but it is not necessary for Internet Radio.

However, both the installation of the WiFi and the installation of the WiFi Radio was not an easy process. This is one (of many things) that the device will scare people.

Listeners have an incredibly low expectation of ‘radio’ which partly means they don’t want it to be an hassle to listen to. When asked why they haven’t bought a DAB radio one of the biggest responses is “I don’t need one” – that’s because people are very happy with their FM sets (when they’ve played with a DAB radio (or i’m sure something like this) their viewpoint changes.

Lots of people are now buying a new radio/boombox/hifi/ipod dock that happens to have DAB in it. When they go to the radio bit, that’s what they’re then consuming as radio – the autotuning just sorts them out. Radio devices are starting to come out with WiFi bits, unfortunately the rigmarole with hooking it up means people will not discover it in the same way. Well at least at the moment.

I actually decided to post a comment before getting that far, however. I can’t help but notice you unfavourably compared the operating costs of internet broadcasting to those of DAB. I’d suggest that you’re very unlikely to spend anywhere near as much on t’interpipes, and nothing so heavily front-loaded, until you had a lot of listening. And the more speech you have, the better that comparison gets.

Tip: if you don’t have one yet, the very lovely Logik IR-100 I got from PC World at Xmas has just been dropped to £45. Same software as the AE box.

But my, would you look how much more quickly it got south of fifty quid than DAB did?

I’ve been on the other side from you on this one for a very long time now, but I’m still confident that in the long game, DAB’s toast.

Here’s an question: have you considered that these Wifi things might start swallowing at-home listening very quickly? Ignoring the place-shifting and the massive choice for a moment, I was over in Edinburgh just before Xmas where I bought this thing. The internet radio also actually had better reception than the DAB radio, which couldn’t pick up a thing through the thick walls.

Before internet radio goes mobile, I can see a mid-point where it does very well in the far-from-unimportant non-car section of listening.