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Ships from and sold by Beach Camera
42 new or used
Average customer review:
(34 customer reviews)
Product Description
The Grace Digital Innovator III (GDI-IR2500) Wi-Fi radio is the newest in the line of Grace's tabletop radios. The Innovator III is a combination Internet radio and audio media streaming device that brings all the audio content of the Internet and Pandora within listening distance, wherever you are. With it users can listen to 16,000+ radio stations from NPR, FOX news, CNN, BBC, CBS to KROQ, over 35,000 podcast, 20,000+ On-Demand subscription streams or your personal Pandora radio stations. Additional features include a stereo headset jack for personal listening enjoyment, the ability to stream files from local computer networks, compatibility with the free Grace remote control App for iPhone/iTouch, and 5 separate alarms with sleep mode and a high contrast 4 line adjustable backlight display.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2306 in Consumer Electronics
- Brand: Grace Digital
- Model: GDI-IR2500
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 4.92" h x 9.45" w x 6.29" l, 3.00 pounds
Features
- Listen to over 16,000 internet radio stations including Pandora, iheartradio, NPR on-demand, BBC, ESPN, Live 365, Sirius
- Includes a full range rear ported 4" speaker for great highs, midrange, and bass to listen to your favorite Pandora, Live365, SIRIUS, AM/FM
- Large 4-line display with 30 backlight micro settings. Set your radio to automatically dim when turned off in the night time and stay bright during day time listening.
- Includes 5 alarms to buzz or play your favorite radio station. Each alarm settable for one time, a day of the week, weekends, weekdays, or 7 day alarm
- Even plays your music files from your PC or MAC.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews 47 of 51 people found the following review helpful.
Innavator III
By Ed
This is my first experience with an Internet radio, so I cannot
compare it to anything else except regular radio and the Sirius radio
that is in my car. I was around before TV, the technology today never
ceases to amaze me. I just remember when I was a kid listening to
Superman on a small radio by my bed---that was a good as radio was.
I had very little problem setting this with my wireless router, I
have a secure network and it took me several attempts to get the WEP key
entered correctly as I was using the entire key-phrase on my Actiontec
PK5000. I since changed it to something more simple on the ISP
website---instead of 25 characters I now have 8. That was the only
hiccup!
The radio scanned for available Internet connections and found
several then found and recognized mine. I am now getting radio! I was
overwhelmed by the number of stations available. You can select the
genre; sports, talk radio, news, music type etc. and then check out the
stations that are available in that category (more than I would want to
count). After you find a station that you like you can enter it into
memory, so that you can instantly go to that station, there are ten
presets available. It will display the song title and performer or
artist. The display is easy to read, the brightness is adjustable and
it displays the time when the unit is off. This will also function as
an alarm clock. The remote control is rather small and very easy to use,
very helpful if you listen to the radio while in bed.
I am still exploring stations to find the ones that I like the most,
just too many to chose from. I will not be using Sirius as I get that
on Directv, but it is available. Pandora and Live 365 are also
available, I have not been there yet as I have spent most of my time
exploring stations that are already available. I live in the Phoenix
area and I find the local radio stations on the dial too. I'm having a
lot of fun with this radio checking out all that is available----do I
have too much time on my hands? I am retired and am finding this a
great source of entertainment.
I would like to mention the sound. The speaker is adequate,
certainly a lot better than what I listened to when I was a kid. It is
ported through the back with the 5" speaker facing the front. I hooked
up a pair of my wife's ear-buds---now I get the full stereo and a much
richer and full sound. I intend to next attach it to our home sound
system---I am just thinking that will be some kick-butt audio.
I would recommend this unit to anyone who really is into a music
library and wants unlimited choices in radio and does not want to be
concerned about reception problems.
Hope this will be some help to those who hesitate getting more
involved in the Internet related field. It was really easy to set up
and is providing much enjoyment--I have very limited computer/Internet
experience compared to my grand-kids.
92 of 106 people found the following review helpful.
Would make a fine $49 tabletop radio in a couple of years
By Bob
I have owned the Grace GDI-IR2500 now for a couple of months, and I
will try to be as brief as I can with my thoughts and comments.
Build quality: Fair - not terrible, but not great. The black vinyl
or plastic wrap used over the wood housing is attractive but not
assembled very well, with very noticable imperfections/large wrinkles on
both the top front right corner and the top back right corner. The
controls are of comperable quality to those of a $10 clock radio, and
will probably start wearing out after a couple of years of heavy use.
The 4-line LCD display is relatively easy to read.
Setup: If you have ever setup any other wireless devices such as a
laptop, smartphone or other wi-fi enabled device, it is not much
different and pretty straight forward. The only area that can be
somewhat cumbersome is the same issue I have in other areas of
operation: the poorly functioning and designed remote control. The
remote basically offers up and down keys for entering a security key,
scrolling through each number and letter of the alphabet, locating the
character you need, then selecting, then scrolling... you get the
picture. A remote offering a numeric/ABC type of entry would be
preferred, and for $130 to $150, should be included.
Station selection: Good - but not nearly as good as some of the
applications offered on iPhone, Android, and Blackberry smartphones such
as WunderRadio and RadioTime. Searching for stations is also poorly
thoughtout. Other than Clear Channel Communication's "iHeartRadio"
offering, you can't even search stations by state, let alone city - and
searching by call letters is again an entry where you have to scroll
through every letter of the alphabet and enter each character, which is a
pain.
Connectivity: No complaints, it starts up relatively quick once you
have your wireless settings configured. Regarding connecting to a
station url, it depends on the stream format... most .AAC streams begin
playing quickly, .mp3 streams fairly quick, .WMA streams a few seconds
longer, but none are frustratingly slow. It also played all streams
consistantly for hours at a time without interruption.
Sound quality: Fair at best. I guess for $150 I expected this radio
to sound at least as good as some of the $50 Sony or Panasonic tabletop
radios from the past. There is no reason it couldn't on most
mid-to-higher kbps streams - but Grace chose to cut costs on one of the
most important aspects of any radio - the speaker - and the speaker
quality is about on par with that of a $20 GE table radio. That would be
OK if the radio cost $50, but for what these relatively cheap to build
radios cost the consumer, I expect the materials and components used to
be of higher quality.
Remote Control: Poor quality, poor layout, and many times you have
to hit keys two or three times to get a response. I thought the included
battery might have been old, but the Duracell replacement battery I
bought did not improve the remote's performance.
The bottom line: If you want an internet radio that somewhat gives
you the look and feel of your old tabletop radio, and you use the
presets a good part of the time, it's an OK radio. I don't hate it, and
have actually had some fun with it, but in reality it is worth about $79
tops. I would however look at the Logitech Squeezebox before this or
any other internet radio. I played with one at Best Buy a couple weeks
back and the build and sound quality is light-years better, and it also
offers an optional battery pack.
If the old-time feel of a tabletop radio isn't important and you are
wanting to just tune in stations from around the world and have decent
sound quality, and if you own an iPhone, Blackberry or Android
smartphone with 3G and/or a wi-fi connection, I recommend one of the
many decent wireless bluetooth speaker systems (I own the Altec Lansing
inMotion SoundBlade Bluetooth A2DP Speaker/Speakerphone, which sounds
better than this Grace unit, operates on either the supplied AC power
adapter or batteries, and cost me around $50) and install some free to
very cheap apps on your smartphone such as Pandora, Slacker, Sirius/XM,
iHeartRadio, Yahoo Music, WunderRadio and RadioTime. The beauty of
smartphone apps is you can also use them with many new car audio systems
(wirelessly via bluetooth or wired via an auxiliary in jack), at the
office, at the beach, and pretty much anywhere you have either 3G data
or a wi-fi connection.
February 20, 2011 note: I find it interesting that in one day my
post went from "27 of 29 people found the following review helpful" to
"27 of 37 people found the following review helpful"... yes, in one day,
and over 4 months after the review was posted. Seems as though some
Grace employees or dealers might not have appreciated my honesty.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Easy to use, great sound and nice looking
By R.Suarez
Prior to this unit I used a Philips NP2500/37 WiFi Internet Radio
Network Music Player with Rhapsody (Black). It proved to be a very easy
to configure and use internet radio player, the downside? It had no
speakers in it so it had to be placed next to either the home theater
system or the stereo so it could be connected and used.
With the Grace Digital GDI-IR2500 that is no longer a problem. The
main feature that got me into getting this unit was precisely that: the
integrated speakers. While I do agree with other reviewers in the fact
that the sound that comes from the speaker may not be the best available
but it is pretty good and there is no distortion when volume is set too
high; I think it would be naïve to expect such a thing from a 4"
speaker. The unit has an output so you can connect it to a sound system
if you wish to have better audio quality, the cables needed for this are
included in the box, which is a plus.
One of the things I liked the most about the GDI-IR2500 is its
look, it looks elegant and sophisticated (love the way it looks on my
bedroom); while it is lighter to carry than what it may look like, it
looks very well made and of quality. Important to note now that we speak
of the weight is that if you are using the controls in the front side
of the GDI-IR2500 you will need to hold the unit so it does not move,
so I guess there's room for improvement there, perhaps more weight could
be added to the bottom part so it does not move so easily or something
can be done to the base so it stays in place.
Set up was quite simple, the GDI-IR2500 will look for Wi-Fi
connections available for you to choose and setup one, whole setup did
not take more than 5 minutes and I had no issues whatsoever. Once it
connected to the internet I started listening to my music with no
problems. The navigation is very similar to other devices of the kind
(like my previous NP2500) you can browse by country, genre, year, etc.
Once you have identified a radio station you like you can also add it to
your favorites so you don't have to browse for it again. Keep in mind
there are about 16000+ internet radio stations available, plenty of
options out there. However for those who have a SIRIUS account, this
unit supports it and you can listen to it here, no satellite dish is
needed as this comes directly from the web.
The main use this unit will have will be to listen to radio in my
bedroom and also as an alarm clock, so it is pretty neat that 5 alarms
can be configured. One small complaint I had was the time it takes for
the GDI-IR2500 to connect to the web once it turns on, but in reading
the comments left by someone from Grace Digital in another review I
found how to workaround the problem, which is great, apparently you can
configure the internet connection to be left on stand by so when you
turn it on, it does not have to go through the connection process every
time.
I highly recommend this unit if you are searching for a device like
this, price is similar to other brands but in my opinion and based on
experience, I like the extra features on this one.
See all 34 customer reviews...
