New Squeezebox Radio

[mherger]

>> > Will there be a UE Touch?
>>
>> Not the Touch as we know it.
>
> Can you give any more info on this? Thanks.

I'm sorry, no.

--

Michael

[autopilot]

hi all-

Before I say anything I want to thank Michael for his openness and candor on this thread. You rock Michael. But you should rename the thread to "New Not Squeezebox Radio"

It's been ages since I've posted here. I had to reset my password because it was 297 days old. When I left Logitech in June 2011 I had benevolent plans of doing 3rd party development, particularly on the Squeezeplay side, but it turned out I couldn't do it. The honest truth is because it was too painful after what I'd gone through with Squeezebox.

The beginning of the end for Squeezebox happened in Fall 2009. We had released Squeezebox Radio after what I can only describe as a grueling march. It was the hardest I've ever worked on a tech project. I was willing to put in that effort because I believed very strongly in the squeezebox line, and that Radio was going to be the first product to really seriously put us on the map, with Touch soon to follow. Unbeknownst to all of us doing that work in the trenches though, there was a plan already in the works that summer to shut everything down, and poach everyone for work on what eventually became Logitech Revue, the Google TV boat anchor that Logitech over-invested in.

So, Radio gets released, and sure enough a month or so later we get called into a meeting and told that the Mountain View office was being closed. Squeezebox was going to be pushed over to another business unit along with some of the employees, but a very high percentage of the software team was being redirected to work on Google TV. After about 10 days of being part of this GoogleTV team, the numbers started rolling in for Squeezebox Radio and it was selling far beyond expectations. Scrambling, they sent several of us back to working on Squeezebox. I was one of them, and was really relieved because from the get-go I didn't believe in Google TV (this doesn't make me Nostradamus; this was the general consensus of every engineer from the old Squeezebox team). However, it was difficult to imagine how things were going to move forward in the absence of people like Richard (squeezeplay/squeezeos architect), Tom (low level squeezeplay UI and monkey wrench programmer), and Caleb (acoustic genius), who stayed with GoogleTV.

But, as former SlimDevices CTO Dean liked to quote "the graveyards are full of people the world could not live without", so I thought hey, maybe we find a way to move things forward. Michael and Felix will fill in some gaps, Andy's still here, and maybe we'll get a quality hire or two.

Sadly, we moved into a business unit that could not have been more the polar opposite of how we did things in Mountain View. Incredible politics and bureaucracy ruled there, and thus began the long trend downward for Squeezebox. I'm sure the paper pushers from that period would speak of how they "turned squeezebox around", but the principal reason the dollars went from red to black during that time was because of the market validation (with practically zero actual marketing, I might add) of Squeezebox Radio, and to a lesser extent Squeezebox Touch (still IMO the best Squeezebox ever, but more of a niche product compared to Radio; nevertheless, it also blew expectations out the window and they had to scramble to make more). In that time with that group, we brought to market exactly zero new hardware products. We'd work on something for months, then get it unceremoniously cancelled. Lather, rinse, repeat. Some of these products were clearly wrong turns. Others were clearly going to sell like crazy. Not one thing made it to the point of building a prototype. The only significant contribution from that 1.5-2 year period was the squeezebox mobile app, which Michael (and to a lesser extent, Felix and I) did a really nice job with.

After Squeezebox was wiped from the roadmap for about the Nth time in 2011, I got out. Logitech was why I got to work full-time on Squeezebox in the first place, but (for me) they'd destroyed everything that was there that made me want to be there in the first place. Worse (for me) yet, they didn't destroy it quickly, but slowly and painfully. As I would tell Steven (another ex-Squeezebox employee), "it's like they shot my dog but then made me live with it for two years. It's like, yes that's my dog, but EWW".

After my departure, there was a brief light of hope when the almost-no-heartbeat Squeezebox product line was shifted to another business group, run mostly by the Ultimate Ears folks (headphone company, another Logitech acquisition). Squeezebox alive again?? Turns out, not so much.

So, after almost exactly 3 years since Squeezebox Radio was released, we have the Ultimate Ears Smart Radio by Logitech (catchy, huh? good god). I view this product as:
1. First and foremost, a rebranding project and little more
2. UX changes to fit whatever the marketing department of the month thinks is important
3. An explicit severing of ties from the "legacy" squeezeboxes

The product itself...man, it's so notable in how not notable it is. There isn't one new "wow" thing this has over the 3-year-old SB Radio. And it's hitting the market at US$179 MSRP. Ouch. Good luck with that, UE.

I write all of this history here because, again for me, this is the final chapter where I can close the book. At times, working on squeezebox was the best job I ever had. It was certainly the one I was most passionate about. In the later stages, it became impossibly frustrating and untenable.

I continue to extend good wishes to my past co-workers who are still doing their best to deliver innovative products. Maybe something good will eventually be released (because this isn't it). It just won't be a squeezebox.

Squeezebox is dead, long live Squeezebox.

cheers,
#!/ben

Thank you Ben, and everyone else who helped make the best audio entertainment system ever. You guys are legends. I wish you all the best for the future in whatever you do.

[dasmueller]

I first looked at this early morning today. I am just sad. I only have 2 SB Touch units but I love em. I guess time will tell what UE Touch will be like. Michael thanks so much for your openness on thie situation it is appreciated-probably by all who visit this forum. And thanks again to all of you who have helped me w the issues or questions I had over the last 3 years. I hope we can somehow keep this forum going.

I bought my 1st Touch a few years back before I retired. I had off and on looked for a method to have all of my music in one place and easily accessible. The Touch supplied the means to accomplish that. I also knew going in that there would be a lot of work w ripping/tagging/correcting etc. It made that 1st winter of not working much easier to deal with.

The other thought I just had is how important it is to have your own hard copy backups. Just like most everything else the current interest in cloud-based storage will probably pass as well. Where would one be at that point if it was ones sole source of backup ?

Pax

[vw195]

UE Logitech radio? I'm afraid they've jumped the shark.

Logitech Smart Radio is semicatchy . Hopefully for $179, msrp it will include battery, but it really needs to be no more than $120 or so.

They are leaving their installed customer base and developer base behind, pissing them off and not even offering them an upgrade path. All while having an incomplete new product offering that has no value proposition as it is now. This way, the product will be dead soon.

Im afraid you are correct. I am amazed at Logi's lack of vision here. Well heres hopin I can catch some SBRs on a firesale soon

Android to be released shortly.

New and old devices that update to the UE firmware will work with the new mobile apps.

Its actually already here https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ech.smartradio

I created a username on the website to check it out, and went to the website, and to be honest it looks like a rebranded mysqueezebox site, except amazon, facebook, and flicker are missing. It does look cleaner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ANR5Q7ZYA0 shows the interface and it looks identical to the SBR.

The windows app is 45 megs as opposed to the 56MB that LMS is

[castalla]

Logitech Smart Radio is semicatchy . Hopefully for $179, msrp it will include battery, but it really needs to be no more than $120 or so.




Im afraid you are correct. I am amazed at Logi's lack of vision here. Well heres hopin I can catch some SBRs on a firesale soon

As I read it, the firmware will be available to turn an SB Radio into a so-called Smart Radio.

In any event, the name is daft - what's 'smart' about it?

[Philip Meyer]

Nice to hear from you again Ben. I trust you've found a better company to work for, having left Logitech.

I have to admit that I am not sold at all on this UE direction. And what a naff name. It sounds like a noise that is made when sniffing a rather smelly sock.

I fail to see how this is going to become a mass-market device. It looks the same as a SB Radio, but has a lot less functionality, and a total reliance on a permanent internet connection to function.

If it is marketed as an internet radio device (and there's plenty of competition with other internet radios and DAB radios), why bother with local music playback at all? It will be pretty rubbish if it can't even do BASIC things like random play, smart playlists, ratings, etc, that most people these days come to expect.

Where's the killer feature that will entice people to pick this. What things will this product do that competitors products don't do?

Radio has/had a useful niche use, as part of a family of devices. On its own, it is less appealing. What did the SB Radio retail at, compared to the UE? It seems UE is more expensive than a product that is 3 years old.

I dread the day that my SB2 fails, as it's perfect for me in the bedroom. I dread the day that my Transporter fails, as it's perfect in the HiFi rack in the lounge. Likewise for my Booms and Touch in their respective rooms. I don't really use by SB Radio much (I should do more washing up, I guess!) but it's good in the kitchen.

Anyway, I won't be going down this route. I suspect most people round here with SB kit won't be either. Why buy new kit that has less functionality? People who have SB equipment and have figured out how to install it and use it I suspect will continue to until the devices fail. People who found the devices too hard to use will have moved on by now to alternatives from other companies.

[garym]

People who have SB equipment and have figured out how to install it and use it I suspect will continue to until the devices fail. People who found the devices too hard to use will have moved on by now to alternatives from other companies.

+1

[castalla]

I agree. It's a niche market - above a hard-core base, additional sales are only likely through repeat purchases, and more importantly extra sales by recommendation. As it stands, I've recommended the SB to may other internet radio users (as an alternative or additional device). Can't say, from what I've read about the Smart (?) radio, that I'd recommend it.

[nsfw]

What to do now? Buy another radio today? Wait for a Amazon or logitech price blowout?

From my experience this is what usually happens. You keep the old equipment you love but the features on the crippled device start to make you want to move to the newer one.
Lets say only the newer device supports some new streaming service or the newer device starts to support AirPlay. etc, etc. Eventually over a couple of years the majority of the die hards start to migrate to the new architecture and there are very few left behind to hack and create whatever is the latest and greatest functionality.

I experienced the death of ultimate ears IEM's and now we are experiencing the death of the Squeeze.

[bobm]

Is there an official statement from Logitech, will there be? Thanks Bob