Clients nightmare

[Channel Hopper]

I got called out to a job earlier (major roof leak meaning taking down the aerials and dish from the chimney whilst scaffold goes up) .
Waiting for the rain to subside I was asked by the client to look into the setting up of one of these - A Roberts Stream 94 - possibly 94i radio that they had bought in the interim, knowing they might be without television for a fortnight apart from streaming.

Hells Bells ! Whilst I can understand it is good to have everything in a small package, this was a nightmare.

Once past the opening screen I was presented with a requirement to acknowledge and accept terms and conditions of use, before I could connect to the router.

Then the radio went into an update which took about 20 minutes, before I could begin to tune in stations.

Two hours later I had some DAB stations scanned and preset onto the five front panel buttons, before turning to the streaming section........

Whilst it was interesting to look through the sheer number of available services, they are catalogued in really odd ways, not as I would have thought by genre or language. Lastly after finding three that might be of interest for the client, I found these could not be added to the DAB 'favourites', but the client is expected to go back into the rotary menu from the tuning button, select the right protocol that is illuminated as a picture, then press select to gain entry.

Hardly user friendly when one is well past their three score and fifteen.

With luck FrontierSmart / Nuvola will see this and note the error of their ways, Roberts used to be a marque I could promote, this is one direction that has stopped that.

 

[william-1]

I have 3 Roberts Dab / Internet Radio's all work OK with updates via the Dab Scan
Stream 83i
Stream 93i
Stream 217
The Stream 217 some of these have had problems & when requesting help Roberts can be very offish stating that their products are perfect
One of my relations was having non of it & sent it back to Roberts after a few weeks they admitted that it had a fault & sent out a new Stream 217 that is still working OK after 2 years ,

The same cannot be said of the Roberts 94i sounds like a total disaster & should never have gone into production
Here are some replies:-

Absolute disaster. Not fit for purpose.
I suppose I should have read the reviews before buying this.
Spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to connect it to the internet. Once connected it kept losing the connection even though we have ultra fast broadband and no dead zones.

Unit reboots without warning
Well featured and no doubt a good purchase for many but not for me. I have 2 of these radios, and neither work properly in internet mode. Internet radio keeps freezing and on many occasions the unit simply switches itself off.

This makes no sense
My newish Stream 94i now wakes with a message asking if I want to download an update. If I select 'Yes' it switches into Sleep mode (?) and goes silent for five minutes (not ideal if you want the news). Next morning - the same. I wish my old Pure ..

Loads of reviews like this on the internet why don't they just send the faulty Roberts Radio's back,

The main problem is keeping software writers that know what they are doing from moving on leaving Roberts with a load of clowns writing faulty software,
We have seen this in the past with Satellite receivers.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Thanks. I was on the verge of walking out of the house. It's two hours I would love to have back.

I will be very surprised if the clients keep it, they wanted a radio they could use as a radio.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Stream 94L

www.robertsradio.com

How much ??????????

 

[william-1]

Had an FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis) been carried out on the 94i it would never have gone into production with the current software/hardware issues,

Roberts has certainly gone down hill over the last few years,

Any positive 5 stars reviews for the 94i has to be viewed with suspicion that this is not an honest review from an owner of the 94i.

 

[Topper]

Any positive 5 stars reviews for the 94i has to be viewed with suspicion that this is not an honest review from an owner of the 94i.

I am not saying this is the case here however I would not be surprised if companies tip a tax free bonus to employees to get them to give a good on-line review to a load of junk

 

[jeallen01]

Or they might just have employed one of those "I'll give it a 5 star review if you pay enough!" companies!

Personally, I usually read the 1 & 2 star reviews first - some are obviously spoilers posted by competitors, but a few do highlight "real" issues with a product.

 

[Dggrr]

Apologies to anyone offended by thread necromancy but even after reading the above, I recently bought an Roberts 94i and am fairly happy with it.

My use cases may not be typical though.

1. I needed a new radio for my shed/man cave
2. The power supply is off grid 12v and I really don't want 240v in my log cabin
3. Possibility to connect an external antenna as DAB and FM reception is bad in the house
4. At least the World Service but streaming radio would be nice

The 94i ticked all of the above. Overall. I'm pretty happy even if the bank balance is a bit lighter.

In reality, the external aerial is not needed and the telescopic is fine for DAB from Crystal Palace 32 miles away, which is in contrast to my 2 previous DAB receivers in the brick house. There do not seem to be many choices like the older Pure sets where the telescopic aerial can be removed to reveal an F connector but the 94i does this, if I change my mind.

The Undok streaming config app is horrible, but I suppose no worse than configuring IP radio streams on any Enigma2 box.

Only remaining problem is wifi connectivity which is patchy to a router 30m away though 3 brick walls.

 

[ozumo]

Regarding better reception, the switch mode power supplies that come with anything electronic these days tend to pump out interference that affects DAB & FM.

My old Pure DAB/FM receiver gets better reception when using batteries or an older linear power supply (much larger than modern types & get very warm) than with the adapter it came with. Being in the same room as one of the offending power supplies is enough to affect reception.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Most amateur radio equipment from the 80s/90s is better running from an external 12vlinear supply than the internal mains circuit.