HTC Rezound: No FM Radio App .... :)

[humpagardengnome]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

I really wish there was some headway here. The SpiritFM dev dropped support for even trying to get this phone working.

Sent from my HTC Rezound via Tapatalk
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Can't blame him for it, not sure why but I read in another forum that HTC threw in an fm radio chip, that is only set to work on european and asian bands. It makes no cotton pickin' sense to put the Sensation XE fm radio chip in the Rezound.

 

[Ruvort]

Can't blame him for it, not sure why but I read in another forum that HTC threw in an fm radio chip, that is only set to work on european and asian bands. It makes no cotton pickin' sense to put the Sensation XE fm radio chip in the Rezound.

Oh I know. I wasn't blaming him at all just really would love to see working FM on this phone.... It seems like such a simple thing. Lol.

Sent from my HTC Rezound via Tapatalk

 

[humpagardengnome]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Oh I know. I wasn't blaming him at all just really would love to see working FM on this phone.... It seems like such a simple thing. Lol.

Seeing it working on Captivate w/ a custom ICS rom, no less. Makes me both red from , green with envy and feeling alot like this guy b/c they pull they strings....

 

[donlow]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

TuneIn Radio works fine. You got Local, By location, news,sports.

 

[Ruvort]

TuneIn Radio works fine. You got Local, By location, news,sports.

But it requires data making it not a true FM radio :-\

Sent from my HTC Rezound via Tapatalk

 

[Umass021]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Use tunein radio app

 

[Wanda]

Tune in is all well and fine but its not a true FM tuner. Might not be a big deal to most but I would love to have my FM radio back if only so I could hear the TV at the gym while I'm sweating my self to death.

 

[goose8]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Funny you mention the gym scenario. I was shopping for a new gym to join and one of them only had the FM option to listen to the TVs. Ended up choosing the gym with TVs built into the cardio equipment accessed via headphones. Although, have found the Beats earbuds don't work great with them, but at least I can tune in if there's something on the tv I really want to hear.

 

[humpagardengnome]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Tune in is all well and fine but its not a true FM tuner. Might not be a big deal to most but I would love to have my FM radio back if only so I could hear the TV at the gym while I'm sweating my self to death.

I was wonering how you kept your girlish figure.

 

[Wanda]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

I was wonering how you kept your girlish figure.

Lol, it's not easy man...treadmills and the like are pretty boring...especially now that I have to READ the closed captioning on SportCenter...I hate reading

 

[Touchpaddle]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Lol, it's not easy man...treadmills and the like are pretty boring...especially now that I have to READ the closed captioning on SportCenter...I hate reading

I was at a Hyatt hotel gym the other day. The treadmilll had a TV built in... unfortunately some moron hotel employee left on the Cartoon Network and nobody could change it. I ran on their treadmills several times during the 2-week stay. Ended up covering up the TV screen with a towel.


Back to the FM Radio.... still no good news for having it on the Rezound? Even with the leaked ICS?

Thanks!

 

[Wanda]

None I'm aware of. In fact I was reading up on the Sense 4.0 ROM on XDA and that was one of the things mentioned that did not yet work.

 

[twolastnames]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

The app is on the sense4 roms, but not working.

 

[mikereidis]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

I'm the dev of Spirit FM and I'd LOVE to see it working on the Rezound, but I'm holding out little hope. I've recently added code to the "HTC" audio method that has the app working on stock HTC ICS ROMs, so who knows if that might have any impact for the Rezound.

Here's the email response I sent to the last person who asked about the Rezound:

Google search "HTC Rezound FM" and it seems like just about every phone spec site and comparison site says is has FM. Even this hands on review here says it in text and verbally in the video, but the app or icon is never seen: Verizond HTC Rezound Hardware Review (Video)

Hands on reviews usually don't make this mistake. But every thread I found indicates nobody has seen FM working.

And this is weird because very few HTC phones (excluding tablets) have no FM. Only 3 besides the Rezound are in my incompatible list and they are all 2 years old or older.

It's as if,... Verizon asked them to cut a PCB trace or zap the FM portion of the combo chip and they did. My impression is that HTC almost refuses to release phones with no FM, despite carrier requests.

I check my email and see 5 different people asked about the Rezound and nobody got it working with Spirit. It appears nobody sent me a debug log either, or mentioned RSSI readings, so I'm not sure if the antenna is connected. There are audio clicks selecting speaker/headset but no FM sound.

 

[twolastnames]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Would anything from the sense4 roms help? I could care less if it's working, but if I can help someone else, I'm cool with that.

The Sense4 app can tell when there is no headset plugged in. Plugging it in just yields it telling me it's turning FM on, doesn't stop. Tried with the iBeats and some crappy $5 pair laying around. But this could just be that the dev doesn't have it working in the RIL (and it's stated in the devs post as not working).

 

[SurfingJerry]

Mike, I can't even find Spirit in the app store. I recall visiting your website before and not being able toget the app because the rezound wasn't supported. If you can help me get it, I'll send you log files.

Also, you're totally right about the specs being different on 3rd party reviews compared to Verizon and htc sites. Somewhere I also posted my conversation with htc about it and then how they stonewalled me that they don't comment on unsupported features.

I'm the dev of Spirit FM and I'd LOVE to see it working on the Rezound, but I'm holding out little hope. I've recently added code to the "HTC" audio method that has the app working on stock HTC ICS ROMs, so who knows if that might have any impact for the Rezound.

Here's the email response I sent to the last person who asked about the Rezound:

Google search "HTC Rezound FM" and it seems like just about every phone spec site and comparison site says is has FM. Even this hands on review here says it in text and verbally in the video, but the app or icon is never seen: Verizond HTC Rezound Hardware Review (Video)

Hands on reviews usually don't make this mistake. But every thread I found indicates nobody has seen FM working.

And this is weird because very few HTC phones (excluding tablets) have no FM. Only 3 besides the Rezound are in my incompatible list and they are all 2 years old or older.

It's as if,... Verizon asked them to cut a PCB trace or zap the FM portion of the combo chip and they did. My impression is that HTC almost refuses to release phones with no FM, despite carrier requests.

I check my email and see 5 different people asked about the Rezound and nobody got it working with Spirit. It appears nobody sent me a debug log either, or mentioned RSSI readings, so I'm not sure if the antenna is connected. There are audio clicks selecting speaker/headset but no FM sound.

 

[mikereidis]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Mike, I can't even find Spirit in the app store. I recall visiting your website before and not being able toget the app because the rezound wasn't supported. If you can help me get it, I'll send you log files.

Also, you're totally right about the specs being different on 3rd party reviews compared to Verizon and htc sites. Somewhere I also posted my conversation with htc about it and then how they stonewalled me that they don't comment on unsupported features.

Yes, it's weird to see an HTC phone without FM. Some OEMs just don't include an FM app lately, but one can be added. Eg. HTC Rhyme or Motorola Bionic.

I removed the Spirit Free version from Google Play, but a download link for April 15 Free is available at the top of my XDA thread here: [APP] Spirit FM Radio: For Broadcom,Texas Instruments & Samsung Silicon Labs FM chips - xda-developers

Free doesn't do as much as it used to, but has other pluses like better ICS / Theme support. The "EMail Logs" function is hidden on the Free version:

Hit the Frequency button, enter 7 and OK, and after a few seconds. enter "Rezound" in the email text and press send.

Now I think I "mis-spoke" myself because I found one log from someone with a stock un-rooted ROM around Feb 28. I look at that log, and it appears that the Broadcom FM API is working, and even the HTC FM audio stuff, when using Audio Method "HTC".

But RSSI was showing around -12 or so, which indicates the antenna may not be connected.

You can deny SU to Spirit, and the Broadcom API will be used and Audio Method silently set to HTC on an HTC device.

You can then give SU, restart the app, and if Bluetooth is off, the direct UART mode will be used. If BT is on, it will use HCI sockets, if you have a custom ROM like CM using Bluez, but the stock ROM will just cause it to use the OEM API.

There are different options for audio when it has SU, including the qdsp5v2* ones. There's also an ALSA driver I might provide commands for, but there's nothing there for that now.

But that's just audio. It's possible hiss might be heard, or very weak signals, assuming you see the same thing with RSSI in the negative numbers.

 

[SurfingJerry]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Thanks, Mike. I dl'd and installed. No work yet, but I do hear the hiss. Will try your recs from above when I have some time. I don't yet see how to send you logs/debugging.
Btw, stock Rom, not rooted, ota updated.

 

[mikereidis]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Mentioned earlier in this thread, but was anyone able to find the FM APK for the HTC Rhyme ? The Verizon variant (which I now see is a distinct CDMA hardware version) does not have an FM app, but the non Verizon versions do.

My app appears to work, as does the HTC Amaze app, but only static is heard, and RSSI values are low. BTW, the Rhyme/Bliss and Amaze both have TI FM/combo chips, so those apps aren't interchange-able with the more common Broadcom devices such as the Rezound.

I'm sensing a pattern here. Recent HTC devices on Verizon don't have FM. (Except Thunderbolt ?) On every other carrier they do have FM.

 

[mikereidis]

Re: No FM Radio App ....

Thanks, Mike. I dl'd and installed. No work yet, but I do hear the hiss. Will try your recs from above when I have some time. I don't yet see how to send you logs/debugging.
Btw, stock Rom, not rooted, ota updated.

And is RSSI near 0 or negative ? See my post above.

Here's my guess. Verizon (the customer) tells HTC to disable FM and they do.

And the Rezound is exclusive to Verizon ? No International version with FM ?

I can imagine a small possibility that there is a jumper missing (or a grounding jumper present) on the PCB with the FM/combo chip. A missing jumper would connect the chip FM antenna pin(s) to the earphone jack, or a present jumper would ground the pin.

If so, then it's possible that a bit of soldering might enable FM.

Also, there's always the remote possibility of a software controlled antenna switch somewhere. But I've been looking for this magic switch on various Motorola devices for the past year and haven't found it yet.


All in all, I'm very doubtful about the prospects for Verizon HTC devices with no stock FM app to be FM enable-able. I'd love it since my app would have a new market, but the Verizon/HTC FM disabling story seems pretty likely IMO.