Our joint and mutual Christmas present between me and MrsDrG was a Squeezebox. It lets you stream your MP3 collection (and Internet radio) to your hifi. Easy peasy. This isn't a product review, so I'll leave you with the nugget version:
"9/10. Superb, although not completely flawless."
What's interesting to me is that the device itself has no buttons whatsoever. There's a remote, which does a good job. But I find myself tapping away at the laptop keyboard and using the Web interface (which runs on whatever machine is doing the music file serving) to navigate and browse my music collection.
My hifi also has a big-screen touch remote control. (I got a bit overexcited selling my bubble Oracle shares in 1999 and and still listening to the results...) -- but is only good for controlling Sony kit of that vintage.
It's been assumed that control of the home hub or set-top box will be the key battleground for the home. But I wonder... Maybe as casual couch web surfing takes off, "remotes" will all come to have web interfaces, and the hundred-button remote control will go away. Maybe Nokia is really the one thinking ahead as to who controls the user experience? Although they seem to have forgotten to include an infra-red interface. Maybe the next version?
PS - If you scan the Internet on port 9000, I bet you'll find a lot of Squeezebox-powered music collection to listen to...
Posted by Martin Geddes at 8:45 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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