Pure Evoke Flow – what it means for radio
Posted on Sunday, December 7th, 2008 at 3:50pm. #
So, a long while ago, I excitedly blogged about the Pure Evoke Flow: showing you how the thing worked, and letting you know a few initial thoughts about the unit. It’s a wifi/DAB/FM radio, in case you’ve missed out so far: for more about the spec and what it does, check out that original post.
Now I’ve had the unit for rather longer, I thought it was worthwhile a proper review.
But i’m not going to harp on about the unit itself. Its user-interface is mostly sensible and understandable, but a little confusing to get to the menu you want. “The Lounge”, Pure’s portal, does the job but it’s a bit clunky. It doesn’t appear to notice new podcasts appearing in RSS feeds for rather a while, which is sad. And the requirement to switch the unit off by pressing two different buttons which you need to look at rather than feel for (since they’re touch-sensitive and dead flat) is a real irritation. Though it does sound surprisingly good; its firmware updates work well; it appears to be reliable and its screen is bright and clear; and whatever metal they made the antenna and handle from appears to have changed from bright silver to murky grey.
That’s minor stuff. Because, ladies and gentlemen, this unit is a real game-changer for radio.
For the last two and a half hours, I’ve been tapping away, while listening to 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles (where, incidentally, every single song is a cracker, and every single ident makes me smile inwardly). For the last two and a half hours, therefore, I’ve been one of the 20% of internet users who listen to the radio while they surf.
The difference between having a computer and a dedicated internet radio is something that I didn’t fully appreciate. After all, it’s the same platform – the internet – and the same choice. But the benefits of having a separate internet radio are immense.
To turn on a web radio station on this little PC, I need to find the PC, turn it on, log in, open Firefox, type in the name of the radio station website, get there, find the listen-now button, etc. However, to listen on the Evoke Flow is as easy as “turn it on”. It connects to the wifi, connects to the stream, and just plays. Because it’s just so simple, I’ve listened to considerably more internet radio as a result.
In the age of hyper-personalisation, we forget the tremendous benefits of “press the button and noise comes out”. While this radio’s capable of iPlayer “listen-again” functionality, and listening to podcasts, I’ve done that comparatively rarely. The radio sits in the kitchen, and I use it when cooking or enjoying a long lazy breakfast.
Internet listening might have a famously low listening share – less than 3% of the whole amount of live radio listening is done via the internet, compared with 13% for DAB – but this unit, and others like it, has the capability to dramatically change the way we listen to radio. I know it’s changed my listening habits.
So, questions you might want to ask yourself:
- Is your stream playable through one of these radios?
- Is your radio station listed in the big-four internet radio portals (Pure, Reciva, VTuner, iTunes)?
- What are you doing to make users choose your streams, rather than anyone else’s?
- How will your streams cope with a large increase of visitors in 2009?
- Is the audio quality of your streams too low (so it sounds rubbish) or too high (so it buffers all the time)? I’m certainly hearing some buffering on Jack FM’s low-bitrate-sounding service, particularly when surfing.
- If 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles plays much better music than anything over here, what does that mean for Jack FM’s streaming bills, Jack’s advertisers, for the UK record industry, and for your station?
Incidentally, while it’s not an official Pure website, flowusers.com has had surprisingly high levels of support from listeners and Pure themselves. It’s a good example of a website which works well, precisely because there’s a few hundred people there helping each other out, and because the manufacturer is engaged enough to take part. Well done, Pure.
Additional disclosure: I was given the Evoke Flow; I run flowusers.com.
