XM to Launch Satellite Radio Handheld?

g00set writes "Reuters is reporting 'XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc next week is expected to unveil a "wearable" device, marking the satellite radio industry leader's latest effort to woo audiences to the nascent format, analysts said.' In adddition, 'A radio industry executive said the device was believed to be a satellite-radio receiver with headphones that also had a hard drive enabling users to download XM content.'" There have been other rumors of this as well.

XM Adapter for iPod

[Power Everywhere]

I'm calling it here and now.

Re:Wearable != handheld.

[phobos13013]

And dont forget if you pass under bridges, go indoors, or a plane flys by right thru the feed. You lose signal... Sounds good to me.

Nice

[igzat]

This has some serious potential. But I have an ipod now, if there was only some way to intergrate this into the ipods body, it would make an awesome combo. 40 Gigs of MP3's and satelite radio, I would pay $400 for that!

But while driving?

[Trolling4Columbine]

If you mean assembling playlists and such before a trip, then fine. But I'd rather people weren't searching through menus trying to find a song while they're doing 90 down the freeway.

Re:Wearable != handheld.

[phobos13013]

XM doesnt work in large hulking structures made of concrete or thick metal. Passing under bridges loses the signal, driving inside a concrete parking garage also, and if you live in a brownstone or large scale apartment complex, its useless unless the antenna is outside on the roof at least. If yr home is a wooden/vinyl siding or balloon frame or such, yr fine. XM has tons of great options and the features or great, but i dont see it making a huge impact in the personal audio department, more of a car audio system imo.

Re:Cool Device

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Paragraphs should be your friend. You aren't making any sense.

Personally, I'd rather a small subscription for a lot of stations, long playlists and no ads versus "free" radio's obnoxious ads, repetitious programming and only a few stations. As it is, there used to be some ads on some channels of satellite radio but they've both gone [i]away[/i] from it. I can't imagine the satellite radio companies making money charging subscriptions AND selling ads, because the no-ads is a major selling point.

I try to avoid "free" radio because of their stupid short playlists too. Die terrestrial radio, die.

Getting hot and heavy on the radio.

[schiefaw]

I have the Audiovox portable tuner for Sirius with the boombox accessory. This thing drains enough juice that it may as well be a portable pizza oven. Eight D cell batteries last around six hours! The tuner itself gets very hot. Unless you plan on wearing a car battery around your neck, they will need to change some things.

Perhaps this push for wearable units will force the manufacturers to update the technology. I don't understand why the tuner cannot be the size of a Palm Pilot and run cool. I have to imagine that much of the power drain is lost in heat.

Re:XM Adapter for iPod

[JawFunk]

Two major devices linked is a lot more than peple want to carry around. More likely we'll see Apple partnering with XM to design an iPod with integrated XM. The feasibility of such a device can be judged once we see the specs of the wearable XM.

Re:Sirius...

[jokach]

I don't necessarily agree that he is a sellout. He did what was required to stay on the air and keep his $100 million a year paycheck.

The way that censorship is cutting away at his radio empire, what other choice does he have? Satellite radio will become the cable TV of radio, I think everyone knows that, and Stern made the move at the right time.