Technology

Not long ago I decided to buy a radio just for emergencies. I guess having it in my smartphone would be better yes.

Considering when I use the radio in the car I might get 2 songs before 5 minus of commercials, no thanks. Audiobooks, podcasts, and PlexAmp all the way

from what i recall almost every QCOM chipset has the circuitry baked in, it's just disabled. https://www.wired.com/2016/07/phones-fm-chips-radio-smartphone/

Certain phones have it, but use your wired headphones as an antenna while leveraging your Bluetooth.. In Japan they had phones with TV tuners

only time i ever used phone FM was camping. not often lately. car has fm but radio commercials assault my nerves, use mp3s on a stick or streaming w/$10/mo

Mobile carriers are worried about "congested mobile broadband" right? Surely they'd want something like this implemented if it could cut down on peak usage and not have to force their hand to do that awful throttling they must hate so much?

In 2017, Mexico passed regulation that required all smartphones with FM chips to enable them

Now I've got in my head "I'm on a Mexican, radio..."

Phones still do. Xiaomi phones for example.

Coming late to this part but Umidigi phones still do FM radio and don't even require headphones to be plugged in any more.

With all the blackouts I had these past 2 years, YEA PLEASE. Hell, I was a out to relearn how to make a homemade AM radio. Haven't done it in 28 years.

The last couple major power failures we've had in my area, information was by far the most difficult thing to come by.

The power goes out, and shortly thereafter so does cable internet. My UPS usually keeps my cable box up longer than the service itself lasts. That puts everyone on the cell network, which is immediately overloaded. So the internet is essentially worthless during most hours.

FM radio stations are similarly worthless. I remember a power outage last winter where there was going to be a press conference, I think the governor was going to talk about something...couldn't get coverage. The local FM station was up and running, they were broadcasting just fine, but they were trying to patch into the press conference via Facebook, and the internet wasn't up to it. They apparently don't have their own radio uplinks anymore.

The local television station would have been more help...if I could get an antenna high enough to hear it.

And during normal business hours most broadcast FM stations are IHeartRadio transmitting the same 20 songs intercut with the same 90,000 advertisements. Or broadcasting The Two Retards Named Chris show three times a day.

Fun fact: almost every phone on the market has the hardware. It's just drivers/software that are missing (and, more recently, the antenna's been unavailable with the removal of the audio jack. The radio chip is still in there though)

Even most cheapo mp3 players have this functionality built in

I'm sad that my Asus Zenfone 9 (it has a headphone jack) can't get FM radio. The app I use (NextRadio) can't detect a FM tuner on the phone.