Roberts Stream 83i - Quick Review

I am a fan of gadgets. I guess it comes with the territory.

For the last few years I’ve been using a pretty awful alarm clock radio. Sure it works – most of the time, but the audio quality is pretty dire and it lacked a few features that I wanted – like the ability to have alarms only on working days. If you forget to turn off your alarm on a Friday night being rudely awakened on a Saturday morning is more than a little annoying.

A couple of months ago I decided it was time to get a better alarm clock radio, but I ended up opting for a completely over-speced solution instead – a Roberts Stream 83i.
As a bit of a geek the Roberts’ radio is probably just what the doctor ordered!

The device looks pretty slick:

In terms of features it’s got so many that it’s hard to even begin to list them, but here we go.. with the official specification:

WiFi/DAB/FM RDS
USB socket
Intuitive menu system
Listen to over 10,000 radio stations from around the world
Listen to previous broadcast material using Listen Again
Listen to Podcasts
Stream your music collection from your PC
Wired or wireless connection
10 station presets
Clock with 2 multi function alarms
Audio formats: MP3/WMA/Real/FLAC/AAC playback
Auxiliary input socket for iPod or MP3 play playback
USB socket for audio playback
Headphone socket
AC Adaptor (included)
Remote control (included)
Size (mm) 248w x 210h x 135d
Weight 1.8Kg

Hooking it up to my home network over wifi was incredibly easy, as it the Fritzbox was able to “pair” itself with it using WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup), which means you don’t have to try typing in long passwords into a device that doesn’t have an actual keyboard.

Unfortunately I can’t access any DAB channels where I live.. though I assume that they’ll become available eventually ..

The feature that I really love is the integration with my last.fm account, as it means I can listen to the kind of music I like in any room of the house, ie. without having to use a computer.

I had problems getting the media streaming working initially, but the latest version of EyeConnect works very well, so I can now listen to music stored on my home office desktop machine in my bedroom if I want. The user interface for browsing it isn’t exactly amazing, but it is quite functional 🙂

I have to admit that I haven’t used a lot of the features, such as the iPod connection etc., as I haven’t had any need to.

All in all it’s a lovely device and I’m happy to have made the investment.