[bb10adopter111]

O.e of my favorite feature on my KEYone is the FM radio. Sure I can stream Internet radio for some things, and I do, but there are also broadcasts that aren't available in real time over the Internet, such as live MLB games.

I've heard the Pixel phones don't enable FM radio. Is that true? Does Samsung? What other major Android OEMs enable FM radio on their devices?

Posted with my trusty Z10

[thurask]

For Samsungs, if I remember correctly, any Snapdragon Sx/Note x from the Note 8 on has FM radio available. I've seen it on a Note 9 and Note 8 but not a S8+ (all Canada models; the USA S8 has FM I believe).

It's using this app, which also has a list of supported devices.

[chain13]

I believe all 2019 A series come with FM radio..

[Emaderton3]

Doesn't the carrier have control of whether this is on or not?

[the_boon]

My question is why do we need to plug in headphones that have a mic in order to listen to the FM radio??

[thurask]

Doesn't the carrier have control of whether this is on or not?

And the OEM, although I think the FCC has been prodding everyone involved to turn it on.

My question is why do we need to plug in headphones that have a mic in order to listen to the FM radio??

It acts as the antenna.

[the_boon]

It acts as the antenna.

But how so? All wired headphones have an antenna? Does it have to do with the mic?

[howarmat]

But how so? All wired headphones have an antenna? Does it have to do with the mic?

because in its most simple term an antenna is any conductive wire which headphones are. The jack i believe has to be correctly made to use them but I think its standard to design, which is why there is/was a push to have it enabled on all devices

[the_boon]

because in its most simple term an antenna is any conductive wire which headphones are. The jack i believe has to be correctly made to use them but I think its standard to design, which is why there is/was a push to have it enabled on all devices

So a phone that doesn't have a 3.5mm jack cannot have an FM radio?

[thurask]

So a phone that doesn't have a 3.5mm jack cannot have an FM radio?

Unless it's possible for USB-C cabling to work that way, no.

[Troy Tiscareno]

So a phone that doesn't have a 3.5mm jack cannot have an FM radio?

That is correct. The shield/ground/common wire in standard wired headphones is what acts as the FM antenna. Nothing inside the phone could be nearly large enough to function as an FM antenna (to say nothing of AM), so only phones with a headphone jack can even have FM as a possibility, and it will only actually WORK with headphones (or an AUX line or whatever) plugged into the headphone jack. And, no, it won't work with the USB connector, so USB adapters will not work.

[Invictus0]

For 2019 flagships that you can buy in North America I think only Samsung and LG provide them but it's rumored that the Note 10 will lose the headphone jack so that may not be the case for much longer.

It's ridiculous that more OEM's don't include them considering many SOC's support it and streaming radio can use upto 5 times more battery than FM radio by some estimates.

It's using this app, which also has a list of supported devices.

That app only works with whitelisted devices for some reason. My Nokia 6 has an FM Radio but the app doesn't work. The list is also missing devices like the S10 which I believe are supported.

[the_boon]

It's ridiculous that more OEM's don't include them considering many SOC's support it

Because they're too busy making space for ridiculous pop-up cameras and added camera lenses that no one needs

[anon(10562251)]

For 2019 flagships that you can buy in North America I think only Samsung and LG provide them but it's rumored that the Note 10 will lose the headphone jack so that may not be the case for much longer.

It's ridiculous that more OEM's don't include them considering many SOC's support it and streaming radio can use upto 5 times more battery than FM radio by some estimates.



That app only works with whitelisted devices for some reason. My Nokia 6 has an FM Radio but the app doesn't work. The list is also missing devices like the S10 which I believe are supported.

My S10+ (Canadian model / Snapdragon) has FM radio but you need to install a third party app (I use NextRadio) in order access it. I believe it's the same for the US version. Apparently the Exnyos S10 (international version) comes with a stock FM radio app installed.

[TgeekB]

Because they're too busy making space for ridiculous pop-up cameras and added camera lenses that no one needs

Selfie hater!

[bb10adopter111]

That is correct. The shield/ground/common wire in standard wired headphones is what acts as the FM antenna. Nothing inside the phone could be nearly large enough to function as an FM antenna (to say nothing of AM), so only phones with a headphone jack can even have FM as a possibility, and it will only actually WORK with headphones (or an AUX line or whatever) plugged into the headphone jack. And, no, it won't work with the USB connector, so USB adapters will not work.

If Troy tells us something about analogue signals, we can pretty much take it to the bank.

Thanks, Troy!

Posted with my trusty Z10

[bbfanfan]

If Troy tells us something about analogue signals, we can pretty much take it to the bank.

Thanks, Troy!

Posted with my trusty Z10

Not exactly






Start at 3:40

Edit:
I'm guessing is cheaper for phones manufacturers use headphones wires as a antenna instead adding extra hardware inside the phone.

[Troy Tiscareno]

That might work if you live 1 mile from the broadcast tower (for example, it might work in many areas of San Francisco, because a lot of radio comes from the Sutro tower), but at any realistic distance away, you're going to need those headphones.

[BBuso77]

My question is why do we need to plug in headphones that have a mic in order to listen to the FM radio??

I used to use a splitter plugged in to the headphone jack (no microphone) to activate the antenna on my Passport.

[bbfanfan]

That might work if you live 1 mile from the broadcast tower (for example, it might work in many areas of San Francisco, because a lot of radio comes from the Sutro tower), but at any realistic distance away, you're going to need those headphones.

Free-space loss for FM is not as critical as other telecommunication services such as cellular communications.


Study shows that.

“ The measurements demonstrate that the power received by the internal FM Chip Hilbert antenna is 20 dB lower than the power received by the external wire antenna under the same measurement conditions. Despite the reduction of the power level, the evaluation criterion reveals that, owing to the threshold effect in FM receivers, the signal quality indicator is similar for internal and external antennas independently of the measurement condition and scenario.
When using the internal FM Chip Hilbert antenna, the values of the signal quality indicator guarantee to listen to the FM radio channels clearly without noise nuisance and without interferences for the FracMan and SiteMan conditions.”


“ In [13], it was demonstrated that a high received power does not mean necessarily a better signal quality. In some cases, a low received power offers satisfactory audio reception, whereas a high received power presents low SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) leading to a decrement of the quality audio reception. For this reason, a subjective procedure [19] for evaluating the demodulated signal quality has been carried out regarding the PIFA, the 75 cm length monopole, as well as the previous fractal-inspired Hilbert-based monopole [20, 21].”








https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijap/2013/838364/

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41771804.pdf

[joeldf]

I connected a set of regular headphones (no mic) to a Galaxy S8 and ran the downloaded radio app, NextRadio, and it worked fine.

I had never heard that the headset needed a mic.

I mean, isn't the common ground the same common ground with the speakers too?

[megafan2000]

I connected a set of regular headphones (no mic) to a Galaxy S8 and ran the downloaded radio app, NextRadio, and it worked fine.

I had never heard that the headset needed a mic.

I mean, isn't the common ground the same common ground with the speakers too?

It has never needed a mic. Up until maybe a couple years ago, my headphones ALWAYS had no mic and the on board radio app worked - Curve 9360, T-Mobile myTouch, Classic, KEYone and KEY2. As long as it's a 3.5 headphone, it should work.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Free-space loss for FM is not as critical as other telecommunication services such as cellular communications.

Your article is talking about reception with special internal antennas, but smartphones don't have these antennas. There may be feature phones that have them, but feature phones have a lot less inside the phone so there's room for such an antenna.

[BergerKing]

For Samsungs, if I remember correctly, any Snapdragon Sx/Note x from the Note 8 on has FM radio available. I've seen it on a Note 9 and Note 8 but not a S8+ (all Canada models; the USA S8 has FM I believe).

It's using this app, which also has a list of supported devices.

My S8+ had it enabled.

[My BlackBerry-10]

I don't need a cell phone with FM radio, all i need is this dongle (rtl2832u) don't buy the black one, buy the blue color according to the picture. And this application https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...arto.androsdr2