C. Crane CC WiFi 3 Internet Radio with Skytune, Bluetooth Receiver, Clock and Alarm with Remote Control, Access to Thousands of Radio Stations Worldwide

I've wanted to purchase an internet radio for quite some time. After doing a lot of research, I opted to buy this terrific radio. So far, it hasn't disappointed me. Although this was my first internet radio, setup was extremely easy, and I was up and running in minutes. Skytune has plenty of stations, and I had no problems going from station to station. The radio was very responsive, and the sound is the best I've heard from a radio this size with a single speaker, which is excellent. It really is a lot of fun playing with this radio just to hear what people in other countries are listening to! I also tried the Bluetooth feature with iHeartRadio, TuneIn Radio, and Radio Garden; it worked perfectly with TuneIn Radio and Radio Garden, but iHeartRadio inexplicably didn't stream over everything. Not really a big deal, and I suspect it had something to do with the iHeartRadio app not playing nice with the radio.Setting up Skytune presets in the radio is very easy, but I was more interested in setting up presets that were not dependent on having Skytune service. After all, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared should the service suddenly not be available! Well, that proved to be quite challenging, because the radio stream url information for most radio stations is very difficult, if not impossible, to find. Nevertheless, I kept at it, and eventually was able to successfully locate this information for many stations and add several preset stations. Patience and persistence are the keys, and you’ll be able to easily do the same thing with no difficulty for a lot of radio stations.Are there areas for improvement? In a word, yes. For example, the radio does not come with a built-in rechargeable battery, nor can you add batteries to the radio. Not a big deal, but if you want the radio to be a truly portable radio you’ll have to get a power bank. If you don’t have one already, a good one will set you back about $20.00. Additionally, having another aggregator service besides Skytune, and/or having iHeartRadio, Spotify, Pandora, etc., available in the radio itself, would also be nice. Don’t get me wrong, Skytune seems to provide an excellent service. But if Skytune shuts down, most of the functionality of the radio for the majority of users goes away, leaving you with a pretty black box. The remote control is functional, but the buttons feel a bit “mushy”, and overall is not up to the same build quality as the radio itself. Finally, it would be great if the radio incorporated an “old school” radio to listen to local AM and FM radio without the need for WiFi connectivity. Not only would this give users an additional option if Skytune was unavailable, but it would also be useful during emergencies when power was unavailable.So, even though I have a “wish list” of improvements for the radio, at the end of the day it is a great radio. It works flawlessly, my list of improvements are relatively minor, and I can get nearly all of my suggested improvements from other radios and equipment I’ve purchased over the years. Maybe the next generation of the radio (WiFi4?) will have some of these additions, but as it stands this is a great radio that’s easy to use and will put a smile on your face.

I have had 5 C Crane WiFi radios. I bought my first one about 15 years ago and soon after using it for awhile I wanted s few more to set around the home and shop. They worked very well in every location. I was saddened when the streaming service for those early WiFi radios went away. It immediately made the C Crane radios worthless. As a result I begin looking for other WiFi radios to replace the C Crane radios.I contacted C Crane about new radios and they did not have a replacement at the time. I then searched for other sources of radios.I found Ocean Digital on Amazon so bought one, WR-23f, portable. I liked it so well I purchased another Ocean Digital desk top radio, WR-336N. Both radios booted up fast and produced quality sound. I continued to look for other brands of radios.I soon found Grace Digital and liked their Mono Classic Elite but it was very expensive, I thought. None were available because of the Covid scare so I was stuck with Ocean Digital but pleased with their performance.I contacted Grace Digital and asked when they thought they would be receiving the radio I wanted. A delivery date to Grace Digital was not available at the time but the customer service representative gave me a voucher for a discount on the radio when it arrived at their warehouse. The voucher made the purchase of the Mono Classic Elite possible.A few months passed and I received an email from C Crane about their new WiFi radio and I purchased one. The new C Crane radio is by far better than their past offerings in WiFi radios. The C Crane boots up very quickly, produces great sound in music and news broadcast. The beauty of this radio is SkyTune streaming service.SkyTune is used on all of my radios, C Crane, Ocean Digital and Grace Digital so easy to learn and program the radios. C Crane radios are affordable and well worth the investment. The difference in the radios I have is Grace Digital offers Sirius XM service on some of their radios. Even though C Crane does not offer XM on their radio it is still a good and affordable radio.

I did a lot of research before settling on the C. Crane CC Wifi 3 as my first internet radio. The market is pretty rough when it comes to quality and positive reviews, but this stood out to me as the best of the bunch for my price range. The sound quality is pretty good considering the size of this radio (and you can connect it to your home audio system).The search features are easy enough to use, and categorized by genres to make your searches for new stations a more enjoyable experience, although it can be pretty overwhelming as you're searching through genres that contains hundreds, if not 1000+, radio stations to choose from. But you can store as many of your favorite stations as you'd like, although you can only access your first 10 presets via the remote control (after that, you'll need to use the controls on the radio itself).The one real thing keeping this from being a 5-star review? I wish it had a rechargeable battery option like my Tecsun PL-880 radio, rather than just a 5-volt AC adapter which keeps me tethered to the outlet via a power cord that's not very long. I just bought an inexpensive Anker portable power bank through amazon, so we'll see if that gives me the portability I'm looking for.The radio is manufactured in China, although the company itself is stationed in California, if that's important to you. The instructions are well written, easy to follow, and the company seems to stand by its product from everything I've read. I'm very happy with my purchase!