C. Crane CC WiFi 3 Internet Radio with Skytune, Bluetooth Receiver, Clock and Alarm with Remote Control, Access to Thousands of Radio Stations Worldwide

I’ve wanted to purchase an internet radio for quite some time. After doing a lot of research, I opted to buy this terrific radio. So far, it hasn’t disappointed me. Although this was my first internet radio, setup was extremely easy, and I was up and running in minutes. Skytune has plenty of stations, and I had no problems going from station to station. The radio was very responsive, and the sound is the best I’ve heard from a radio this size with a single speaker, which is excellent. It really is a lot of fun playing with this radio just to hear what people in other countries are listening to! I also tried the Bluetooth feature with iHeartRadio, TuneIn Radio, and Radio Garden; it worked perfectly with TuneIn Radio and Radio Garden, but iHeartRadio inexplicably didn’t stream over everything. Not really a big deal, and I suspect it had something to do with the iHeartRadio app not playing nice with the radio.Setting up Skytune presets in the radio is very easy, but I was more interested in setting up presets that were not dependent on having Skytune service. After all, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared should the service suddenly not be available! Well, that proved to be quite challenging, because the radio stream url information for most radio stations is very difficult, if not impossible, to find. Nevertheless, I kept at it, and eventually was able to successfully locate this information for many stations and add several preset stations. Patience and persistence are the keys, and you’ll be able to easily do the same thing with no difficulty for a lot of radio stations.Are there areas for improvement? In a word, yes. For example, the radio does not come with a built-in rechargeable battery, nor can you add batteries to the radio. Not a big deal, but if you want the radio to be a truly portable radio you’ll have to get a power bank. If you don’t have one already, a good one will set you back about $20.00. Additionally, having another aggregator service besides Skytune, and/or having iHeartRadio, Spotify, Pandora, etc., available in the radio itself, would also be nice. Don’t get me wrong, Skytune seems to provide an excellent service. But if Skytune shuts down, most of the functionality of the radio for the majority of users goes away, leaving you with a pretty black box. The remote control is functional, but the buttons feel a bit “mushy”, and overall is not up to the same build quality as the radio itself. Finally, it would be great if the radio incorporated an “old school” radio to listen to local AM and FM radio without the need for WiFi connectivity. Not only would this give users an additional option if Skytune was unavailable, but it would also be useful during emergencies when power was unavailable.So, even though I have a “wish list” of improvements for the radio, at the end of the day it is a great radio. It works flawlessly, my list of improvements are relatively minor, and I can get nearly all of my suggested improvements from other radios and equipment I’ve purchased over the years. Maybe the next generation of the radio (WiFi4?) will have some of these additions, but as it stands this is a great radio that’s easy to use and will put a smile on your face. [...]