Grace DigitalMondo Elite Smart Internet Radio, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 7-Day Alarm – Microphone-Free (Black)

Its great, I can listen to Sirius in my office and I can even plug it into my stereo system and play it thru the speakers. I can also listen to other stations not in my area via the internet. I already have a couple of sirius subscriptions, so listening online is already included and thats where this radio works, no sirius doc or antenna needed. FM radio here in the washington DC area is completely unlistenable being I-heart owns most everything and has 20 song repetitive playlists that are horrible. There are stations I like but from other areas not here that dont come in locally, but I can listen to them here via the internet on this little gem. If you do like I-heart you can listen to any of their stations on this, you can do spotify, podcasts....... I bought this on the suggestion of a reviewer. I was going to buy this same radio in the sirius version but it only plays sirius, the reviewer suggested this on as its the same but will get internet stations and others as mentioned. Its $40 more than the sirius only unit but well worth it. Set up is easy, I never looked at the manual as its pretty self explanitory. For Sirius you must already have a sirius acct and be able to stream from the internet. Other internet radio stations you can just tune in. Love it and highly recommend this radio.

As broadcast radio declines in both quality and quantity, I wanted to improve on my last-century clock radio. This is it! It's compatible with dozens of streaming services. Although there's no provision for receiving broadcast radio, I've found that most broadcast stations also stream their content. I can, if I want, hear the classical subchannel of the local public radio station. This model is also equipped for SiriusXM, so I can wake up to the same programs I hear in my car or listen to one of the extra streams from SiriusXM not available by satellite.The radio looks good and sounds good. It comes with something very rare in the 21st century: a printed manual of almost 50 pages! Setup is not quite as intuitive as I'd like, but the manual makes it easy.Something not mentioned in the description or the manual is that there's a Grace Digital app that will let you adjust settings, including things like alarms. That's a good thing. The radio is on a night table, so about waist height. Changing settings at the radio itself wold break your back! With the app, I can do that using my phone. (There are two apps; the one needed for this GDI-WHA8001 radio is "Grace Elite Remote." Neither app works with older Grace Digital radios.) There's an included remote control, but the app makes it unnecessary.Another reviewer was unhappy with the sound quality. C'mon, man... it's a table radio with one speaker. It's just fine for a clock radio or for casual listening. Someone else was unhappy that the screen was too bright for a dark bedroom at night. That may have been an older model. This one allows you to set brightness for daytime and has another setting for night. You can set the time that the radio switches between day and night. I've set mine to go into night mode at 8:00 PM and return to day mode at 6:00 AM, which is about dawn here. However, it looks like the backlight is always full-on and the brightness is controlled using the liquid crystal layer of the display. There's a fair amount of light leakage. Hey Grace Digital engineers! How about some pulse-width modulation on the backlight to set brightness, and some high-contrast color choices for us geezers?The radio has built-in soothing "sleep sounds" like waves, surf, or rain. The sleep sounds are in the Music Services menu section. The alarm mode will override those soothing sounds, so you can go to sleep with distant surf and wake to Phil Phlash in the morning.Once you set the time zone, the radio gets, and keeps, the correct time over the Internet using something called Network Time Protocol, or NTP. Time zones are represented as continent and city, so U. S. Eastern is "America/New York."Of course this radio won't play CDs, but you can rip your CDs to one of those mini "plug and stay" USB drives. The radio will play all files in a directory, although you must pick one file to start. So, you can organize your playlists into directories on the USB drive. Very cool! The USB socket in my radio is upside-down; it could be a manufacturing defect, or maybe they're all that way. You have to tilt the USB drive down about 20 degrees to insert it. It should really be right-side-up and exactly horizontal. :-(It's not perfect in a few other ways. One gripe is that you can't use the "built-in" Chromecast to SEND music from the radio to other devices. I almost went down to four stars because of that. It does have a headphone jack that could be connected to line-in on an amplifier... uh, if the amplifier were close by. The package includes a 3.5mm to RCA cable kit.You can send the output to a Bluetooth headphone or speaker. I've used the Anker Soundsync A3352 Bluetooth receiver that's on Amazon to send the output to my 20th century under-cabinet radio in the kitchen, with two difficulties. The radio speaker is silenced when a Bluetooth device is connected, so no multi-room. Grace Digital could fix that with a "Silence speaker when Bluetooth is connected" check box in settings that could be unchecked for multi-room playing. Also, the app won't control Bluetooth, so pairing a device in another room takes some running back and forth. GDI could fix that, too, by adding Bluetooth to the app. You might be able to get multi-room over Bluetooth with some Bluetooth mesh speakers. That's above my paygrade.My last gripe is that there are built-in alarm sounds for those who don't want radio in the morning. I've found no way to preview those sounds other than to set an alarm for "a minute from now" and See What Happens.I'd buy another if I needed one someplace else.

I love this radoi! The sound quality is amazing, The screen is customizable to icons and brightness. You need to know two things and don't let the app discourage you! The radio is excellent!1). Spotify Connect Sleep Timer with Podcasts will absolutely NOT WORK with WiFi by design...BUT it works with Bluetooth!2). If you adjust the FONTS under Display Settings - the Bluetooth icon and options DISAPPEAR! Uncheck 'Small Fonts' and the other option to make Bluetooth devices and options reappear. (Who coded this?!!)3). With the app, Google is your friend!

For at least 5 years I have been enjoying internet radio on a Squeezebox radio. Since Logitech shut down their online media server using the SZBX has become more difficult. The Mondo Elite radio was an easy & substantial upgrade from the SZBX. It even offers the ability to receive Audacy owned radio stations, something the SZBX did not offer. In exploring the features of the Mondo Elite I discovered what I considered to be a small flaw. The Bluetooth transmission range was very limited. I contacted Grace Digital support & they were very helpful. Part of the 5-star rating I gave this radio is due to their helpfulness.

The radio I purchased stopped playing Sirius XM internet stations only after only a week of use. Amazon promptly refunded my purchase (I had this same problem with the Sirius XM Wifi sound station). I used the refund to purchase an Amazon tablet with wireless docking station. I can now get all the Sirius XM internet stations and other internet stations reliability; the Amazon tablet audio is adequate, but really sounds great when utilizing the stereo jack with ear buds, headphones, etc.