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Phones should have FM radio again (www.spacebar.news)

submitted 1 year ago by corbin@infosec.pub to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] thejml@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is something I currently have, but there’s a few benefits of having it built into the phone:

everyone has a phone
people are on it all the time so they know it works (when was the last time you tried that emergency radio shoved in the cabinet to make sure it still works)
Phone chargers with large batteries are available everywhere. Keep one charged up and you can charge your phone many times over. Better yet, Solar ones should be on your list if you’re in a hurricane zone. I have one and test it regularly. You can get a crank one if you want as well.
most people keep their phones on them in an emergency. Now they have an emergency radio on them as well.

[–] thehatfox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One problem with relying on a phone to receive emergency FM broadcasts is that the phone usually needed wired headphones to be connected to use as the FM antenna.

Most smartphones today don’t even have a headphone jack. Even if they did bring them back, many people have embraced wireless headphones/earbuds and so wouldn’t have any wired ones to hand during an emergency.

There are possible ways to have an integrated FM antenna but it would have greatly reduced range - so not great in an emergency either.

[–] thejml@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I am fully aware that we would be requiring a headphone jack. I (and many people on this thread) find that to be a bonus and make lots of people happy. I know I use my wired headphones daily and I feel like a good number of people only went wireless because of the jack’s disappearance. A wired headphone Jack with a decent amp might actually get me to replace my 4yo phone that’s otherwise fine.

If you could just make it work marginally with an internal antenna and switch to the external when a wired headset was attached, that would likely work. We’re picking up fairly near by FM, not SW or anything crazy.