Duet Use and Remote
After the setup process, using the Squeezebox Duet is very intuitive. The wheel on the remote flows smoothly and the center button has just the right amount of feedback. When you hit the bottom of the menu, it takes about double the amount of turns to get it to wrap to the top (which actually makes using it easier). The menus are all pretty intuitive and you won't need much direction. I would like to point out a few of the more important menus:
- Music Library will be listed all the time though it will only have your content if you are connected up to your SqueezeCenter on a computer on your network. Otherwise, you'll have to sign up for Rhapsody or MP3tunes Music Library.
- There are plenty of Music Services you can sign up for and many offer a free trial but in the end, it'll be a monthly charge if you want to use the service. The only free one during the time of the review was Live Music Archive.
- Under Settings, the Screen menu will let adjust the brightness, dimming time, wallpaper and screensaver. Under screensaver, you can choose from a number of clock types, display what is now playing, or access your Flickr account for pictures. Very cool. It would be nice if they included a way of setting the background to a Flickr picture as well. As it is, you are forced to choose between one of the very cell-phone-ish type backgrounds.
- Under Settings, the Music Source menu lets you choose between accessing the SqueezeNetwork (essentially the Internet) or SqueezeCenter (your computer).
- ·Under Settings, the Advanced menu has a number of important functions including setting up a receiver, updating the software, and factor reset.
- Under Extras there are a number of menus that allow you to access stock sounds such as rain or traffic for those that need such things to fall asleep. You can also access Podcast Alley's top 50 Podcasts (and listen to AV Rant which is consistently in the top 50). Under this menu you can also access news from a number of different sources but only the title and synopsis of the story - not the full text or pictures.
The Internet Radio menu is one of the places
where you'll spend most of your time on the Squeezebox Duet trying to find the
perfect stations for you. You have access to Staff Picks, Radio IO, RadioTime,
Live 365, SHOUTcast, and Sirius Internet Radio. Sirius Radio requires both a
valid SqueezeNetwork password (entered online) and a Sirius subscription. The
key thing to remember about the Internet Radio menu is that after you start
listening to a station, let the Squeezebox remote stay on the screen for a bit
until you are sure you don't want to add it to your favorites. If you start
surfing around, there is no other screen to use to add it to your favorites -
not even the "Now Playing" screen. Which is annoying.
The most important thing you'll be doing with the remote is setting and changing favorites. This was a joy… at first. Because I am who I am, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Problems connecting… Check. Once connected, problems accessing computers on the network… Check. Now that everything was up and working, the all of a sudden the Favorites list started acting up. Now, while I was partially connected at the beginning of the review process, it worked. But by the time I was nearly done with tech support, I found out that while connected to the SqueezeNetwork, any additions or subtractions to the favorite's list (of podcasts or internet radio stations) did not show up on the remote. They did show up on the SqueezeNetwork web interface however. I confirmed this issue with tech support and they promised that it was a bug in the new version of their software that would soon be fixed.
Now, when you are connected to the SqueezeCenter (and therefore your stored content), the favorites list was also buggy. Nothing that I added to the favorites list would be playable or playable for long. Occasionally I'd get something to add to it and play it but after stopping and starting a few times, it would give me a 404 or "File Not Found" error. On top of that, the Album and Artists lists were completely different from the lists on the Windows Media Center and the SqueezeCenter web interface. By "different" I mean incomplete. Lots of albums and artists were just not listed that were actually there. I could get to their music from the "Music Folders" option but that was it. I could also search for an artist and find an album that wasn't on the album list! Do I think these problems will be permanent? No. If I were a betting man I'd say that by the time this review gets published, they will be fixed. There have probably been 5-7 updates during the course of this review - but this is indicative of the sorts of things that you might experience in the future. Sure, it works now but each update brings the possibilities of breaking new things while adding new and much needed functionality.
There are some additional functionalities that I'd like to see. The skip buttons on the remote are definitely needed but there is no way to scan through a track. It seems like if you would hold down the skip buttons it should scan but it doesn't. Also, if you are listening to a podcast and switch off of it, there is no memory for where you left off. Also, there is often a delay as the remote syncs up with the receiver and/or computer. So when you go to the "Music Source" menu, computers may or may not be listed that are on the network. There is usually this moment of, "Oh my God, what happened?!" before it suddenly appears on the list. While I understand that it takes a moment to find these things, if the remote told you it was scanning for additional sources (and more importantly, when it was done), it would be helpful. Lastly, the receiver has a tendency to stop sending audio to your receiver at the slightest power fluctuation. It wasn't so bad that it did it every time the AC kicked on, but it did happen if there was a lightning strike within 50 square miles of the house. It wouldn't lose connection with the network or anything, just stop sending audio. All I had to do was reselect the source and hit "Play" and it would kick back on but it seemed a little sensitive to me.
Remote
The remote is
black, rectangular, and a bit thick. The screen is gorgeous with tons of colors
and very fine resolution. All the buttons are fairly well laid out and responsive
and the control is intuitive. It has a good weight to it which conveys a sense
of quality without being too heavy. The screen takes up a third of the top face
of the remote. The control wheel moves smoothly and intuitively. There are
buttons for a number of functions including your normal Forward/Pause/Fast
Forward at the bottom and volume up and down above that. Around the control
wheel we have (starting on the top left and going clockwise) a "plus"
button for adding songs to your playlist, play button, a house to return to the
main menu, and left arrow to back up one menu screen. There is a jack on the
front side of the remote (where the IR emitter would be) that looks like a headphone jack but isn't.
It also isn't listed anywhere in the manual or the website so… maybe my remote
was female? There is a removable battery cover on the back of the remote along
with a small speaker.
While the remote is heavier than it looks, it isn't overly so and feels good in the hand. The keypad has a matte finish while the rest of the remote is gloss black. This has two disadvantages in that first it picks up fingerprint marks easily and second it can make removing the battery cover an exercise in futility - especially if your hands are the least bit sweaty. Overall, I really like this remote. My only real qualm is with the layout of the menu items. The top menu items tend to be things like blank and blank while the Now Playing and Music Library. While those are important items, I tended to be most interested in Favorites and Settings. The Settings issue could have been avoided by taking out the Music Source and putting that on the front page. Favorites was consistently number four on the list which pretty much put is smack dab in the middle. While there was a Choose Player option on the front that allows you to select between multiple Squeezeboxes, the Music Source which allows you to switch between the SqueezeNetwork (Internet) and SqueezeCenter (your computer) was buried. On top of all that, the Music Library item was available on the SqueezeNetwork in the second slot with nothing in it but pay services that I didn't want nor did I sign up for the trial period! Perhaps doing a little research with the most accessed options would better inform SlimDevices and Logitech of the proper menu layout.
