Hybrid FM/Internet Radio on

Mobile Devices

In February 2011, we announced the release of our FM TwoO (pronounced "two o", like in Web 2.0) radio and RDS application for Android. This app is the first independent FM-RDS application for Android mobile phones available through the Android Market. No rooting or hacking required! FM TwoO currently runs on the very popular Samsung Galaxy S mobile phone and similar models.

FM TwoO plays FM radio, RDS, RT+ and RadioDNS/RadioVIS on the Samsung Galaxy S.

FM TwoO does not consume any costly 3G bandwidth. For listeners, this is a much more attractive proposition than listening to local radio through Internet streaming.

FM TwoO implements hybrid radio standards like RadioDNS which allow the presentation of multimedia enhancements delivered via mobile Internet while FM audio continues to play.

And that's not all! At the same time, we released our CRC FM-RDS Android Library used in FM TwoO. Our goal is to enable 3rd party development of new and innovative applications like RadioDNS , Open Data Applications (ODA) and others. In its first released version, the  library provided live access to PI, PS and Radio Text content.

We think that FM-RDS is great and should be available on all mobile phones and be accessible through open and accessible APIs. We like to think that our FM TwoO app and CRC FM-RDS Android Library are a step in that direction.

Why only the Samsung Galaxy S?

Many smartphones have embedded FM receivers. To receive FM, smartphones rely on chipsets made by various companies. The Samsung Galaxy S uses the Silicon Lab Si4709FM-RDS receiver chipset. Until now, we could only figure out (thanks to great supporters!) how to access the FM radio chipset on that specific device. 

We developed with success our application on the Galaxy S Vibrant provided by Bell in Canada. Based on information found on the xda developers wiki, here is a compatibility list for some devices. If you own one of these devices please tell us if you were able to receive live FM radio with FM TwoO:

The results marked with a (*) were provided by users of the application. If you have tried the application on your own device for which the information is not available in the table (?), please report your results so we can add them.

Please take note that FM TwoO offers a "test mode" that allows reception of raw RDS data over TCP/IP or UDP/IP when configured as such in the settings section. This mode was used solely for our internal use but a section on the mmbTools forum will be used to discuss and reply to questions about the "test mode".