Gizmodo
Sometime late this year, Monster (yes, that Monster) will roll out the iSonicast, a two-piece system that turns your iPod into a wireless remote control that streams music to the base station, located at your stereo. It's a simple system, and at $100, a pretty low price, especially for Monster. It uses 2.4GHz RF to transmit, and though it's currently spec'd to get a range of 30 feet, Monster's Noel Lee tells us they might try to jack up the range, though the downside may be less battery life. I know what you're thinking: I've seen this before. Logitech had something like this about two years ago, using Bluetooth. Not sure what became of it, but the sound quality back then wasn't great. Here's hoping Monster can live up to its reputation and get some decent sound. [Monster]
Monster iSonicast Turns Your iPod Into a Wireless Remote
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9:33 PM on Tue Nov 13 2007
By Wilson Rothman
3,380 views
7 comments
Comments
You lost me at "live up to its reputation." Wouldn't that imply charging up to 20x what they should for a what is otherwise just an okay product?
If they made the transmitter smudge proof.. it wouldn't match the iPod!
And this is necessary because...it's so hard to carry an iPod 30 feet to your stereo?
@luckypictures: Are you saying you'd only pay $5 for this product?
And @92BuickLeSabre: Really? You wouldn't want to keep your iPod on the coffee table while the music itself emanates from your sound system?
I think there are limits to our kneejerk Monster-baiting, and quite frankly, I think much of our hard work and research has only demonstrated to Monster the need to lower its prices. They may not be where we want them, exactly, but since we made a lot of racket, Monster is introducing products in lower price ranges. I'm not saying love 'em, or that, by default, this is a worthwhile product, but I do recommend that we watch what happens next.
@Wilson Rothman: Just to clarify: I'm still glad I heard about it, and I don't actually have a problem with Monster. I'm a little bit of a label-sucker, so I readily admit I have a couple of Monster products in my home.
I just actually don't see the use for this particular product. I can already keep a wireless remote on the table and control the iPod and the stereo if the iPod is docked in/into the stereo. Whether I use a high-end system or iPod docking system (like the iHome, Altec, etc.) I'm likely to have this availability without an additional step in between.
@92BuickLeSabre: Gotcha. I actually look forward to more products like this, in part because those Logitech and Belkin systems from before didn't sound great, and I like the idea of having the actual iPod in front of me, at least while its battery lasts.
@92BuickLeSabre: I've yet to find a wireless remote with an LCD display that works very well - I like having the iPod in front of me (as WR said) so I can browse through albums, playlists, etc. The wireless remotes without screens aren't so useful to me, and the ones with screens don't work very well. So if this works reliably and provides better sound quality via RF than the other Bluetooth solutions did, I'm all for it. It's like a poor man's Sonos - single room, from your iPod instead of off of a NAS or server, but you get a "remote" with full visual feedback and full iPod capabilities, and not a dumbed-down version like on the DLO and other products out now.
I don't like having to turn on the TV to listen to music, so the remotes with on-screen menus don't do it for me.
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