To many it may sound old, but FM Radio has always been one of the main additions to mobile. In the past, believe it or not, small radios were sold to carry in your pocket whose sole purpose was to be able to tune in to all those FM stations arranged around us. For years, we can do this with the mobile.
Curiously, the advancement of technology and the passing of time has made it increasingly difficult to find the radio app on our smartphones. In many models the tool is available, in others it is invisible because it is “capped” and in others, it is not directly available.
How can we know if a phone has a radio or not?
What mobiles usually have FM Radio?
Today there are a large number of phones with FM radio capabilities, but the limited information from the manufacturer means that many do not know it.
The FM radio in a telephone is not a very requested function since users generally use Internet broadcasts, but being able to listen to the FM radio implies less battery and data consumption. Therefore, although it is not announced by default, almost all phones released before 2021 can run FM Radio out of the box. Since 2008, almost all mobile phones can use this function using a pair of headphones, since the plug of the headphones acts as an antenna for the radio signal.
Curiously, one of the manufacturers that has always opted not to eliminate this function is LG, the company that is now closing its telephony division. All the ranges of the brand have the possibility of listening to the radio without the need for Internet, as is the case with Samsung, Motorola and Huawei.
Bad news for this year
Unfortunately, a new regulation has been approved, Law 205/2017 that eliminates FM Radio from all devices sold in some regions such as Italy as of January 1, 2021. All smartphones prior to this date will be able to continue using the radio without problems.
This decision is due to the development of other laws that detail the use of other technological advances such as DAB + technology (digital audio transmission) which improves the results in tunnels, houses and places with poor signal. The downside of this technology is that it would increase the thickness of the devices and, in the end, manufacturers will choose to go “the middle way”, eliminating the FM radio from their phones.
Does your radio have a mobile or not?
To find out if your mobile has an FM radio there are a few things we can do, although we will not get the same result with all of them.
Use the mobile search engine
The quickest thing is to use the application search engine that all the customization layers have integrated into their system. Open the app drawer, slide your finger from the home screen down or up and you will find all the apps installed on the smartphone. Then write the text “radio” and cross your fingers. If your smartphone supports this technology, you will see the app. If it does not appear, do not despair.
Use NextRadio
If your mobile has a radio but you can’t find the app, you can do one thing. Download the NextRadio app , place a headset in the dedicated context and launch it. If you start listening to any type of broadcast, you already have the radio activated through this app.
Use our site search engine
As we have said before, not all manufacturers report that their smartphone has FM Radio or not . This is where we come in, who dive through the full specifications of the devices to bring to life the most complete technical sheets on the current scene. In them, in addition to knowing the types of lenses that a mobile has, the download speed of its modem or the type of screen that an indeterminate telephone has, you will be able to know if it has FM Radio or not.
If you don’t have it, maybe you can activate it
Even if you can’t find it, your smartphone probably has an FM radio receiver built into it. You only need to activate it and so you will have an FM tuner on your mobile. The ability to access the radio comes from the Qualcomm LTE modem in our phones and when a manufacturer prefers not to use it, it is easier to disable the radio chip than to use completely different modems for their smartphones.
For this reason, it usually depends on the owners of the mobile to unlock the FM radio in some phones that are usually very different without being free or operator. In terms of operators, many of the main ones already offer the opportunity but if it is free, there are more difficulties.
How to unlock the FM tuner
As we have advanced a few lines back, if you have a compatible device and provider, accessing the device’s FM radio is as simple as downloading NextRadio and connecting the wired headphones or a speaker to act as an antenna.
If the app cannot find a compatible chip, the download would be worthless but if it detects an activated FM chip, you can now start enjoying your favorite stations.