Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Zack S, who writes in response to our note yesterday about the demise of the Reciva Internet radio station aggregator:
I wrote to Grace Digital https://gracedigital.com/ today, 11/2/2020 asking about the Reciva shutdown and here is their reply;
“Your presets will work until the URLS for the streams become outdated. Not all radios will be turned off at the same time. The Mondo will be in the last group to be terminated. The software is Reciva dependent, you can get all the details we have here:
Grace Digital Internet Radios manufactured between 2007 and 2017 will stop working
The internet radio station finding service used by our legacy internet radios is being discontinued by the 3rd party service provider. This will affect Grace Digital internet radios manufactured between the years of 2007 and 2017 including the original Mondo.
(Please note; the Mondo Plus, Mondo Classic, and Mondo Elite are not affected).
The managed shut down will begin on November 4th, 2020 and will be completed by May 21st, 2021. Anticipating the eventual shut down, Grace Digital has already developed a faster and more feature rich internet radio platform. Radios developed after 2017 are on the new platform and will not be affected. The models that are not affected start with model number ‘GDI-WH’ otherwise known as:
- Mondo plus / Mondo plus classic /Mondo elite / Mondo elite Classic
- Encore plus
- Grace Link / Grace Link Amp
The new Grace Digital platform features quad core microprocessors, over double the available radio stations, NPR, FOX news, BBC, CBS radio, Chromecast audio built in, and music services such as Amazon Music, SiriusXM and Bluetooth streaming. These new internet radios do not use a 3rd party server network to operate).
If you have a legacy internet radio, to help with the transition, Grace Digital will offer special one time discounts to effected customers. If you are interested in taking advantage of this offer, please press the following button and provide key information to our customer service team.
anyone know how to retrieve the urls for the pre-sets on the tanked radios? has anyone be successful in puttying into those units to look around?
You can find the URLs by going to the station’s website. Open the site as source and do a search for “http”. You’ll find the url buried in the site’s source. You can’t re-enter them into a dead radio, though.
Like most everything else electronic, these days, these devices are made to be ‘disposable’. Not worth the price or effort of upgrading or repairing. Just like VCR’s starting in the 1980’s, when they break, you trash (or recycle) ’em, and go buy another one. In addition, most absolutely DO depend on 3rd parties to properly operate, and these 3rd parties are exclusively in business for themselves, not the general public. If your favorite radio station goes off the air, stomping your feet won’t bring it back. A few years back, EVERY television in America ceased to operate as all stations converted to digital broadcast. We got over it. We will survive this, too. I chose to buy (at a discount) the new Mondo radio, and it works like a champ. My OLD Mondo still has about 30 stations still tucked away in it’s memory, and still functions as well. Like with TV, you can go with the flow, or move on to something else. Best wishes to us all…
How difficult could it be to replicate the services provided by Reciva? Grace is simply being cheap and screwing over all the legacy buyers of their products. I’ll never buy another Grace product again. Fortunately I’ve haven’t reset my presets so I’ve got a working AM/FM radio without any internet capability.. which really sucks
Your working presets are the internet stations you programmed into it. IIRC, Grace Radios didn’t have broadcast receive capabilities.
You’re correct…so basically I have a clock…Grace did offer me a 30% discount on a new radio to replace what I already had…I declined the offer because I don’t trust Grace not to screw over its customers again
Amen! I agree, any hardware product that uses a 3rd Party software I would not purchase period.! Always remember the software is only as good as the hardware, and the hardware is only as good as the software when it comes to supporting ANY product in this case Grace Digital is one of them! I am like you am NOT going to buy another Grace Digital product because in the long run looking at the BIG picture, they are all about making money like any company not to say a 3rd party jumping aboard the money train with them as well. I have a nice radio in good condition, now it’s a piece of trash!
This is really crappy of Grace. I have old Android phones that I’ll use as streaming devices from now on. Who needs to pay $$$ for a device that will be obsolete in a couple of years. I’m so disappointed.
TV? Radio? Computer? Etc..?
Virtually everything relies on third parties for something.
mine doesn’t work at all. not even as a door stop.
I have the original Mondo and then bought the Grace receiver, so I could hook it up to bigger speakers. If they would offer me 70% off of ONE device, I might consider it.
Unfortunately, the speakers I bought for this purpose are not Bluetooth speakers, so I can’t use Alexa or something like that with these speakers. I have to replace everything and just throw out all of these components? SHAME ON GRACE DIGITAL.
A “receiver” has output jacks to plug speakers into. I’m confused about what you have.
Thanks for the information. Does the radio you comment on has similar features than the Grace ? Grace simply screwed us up. I also own 2 “brick” radios and would like to have it replaced by something similar. I’d like to hear your comments. Thanks.
I bought a Sangean WFR-28 It’s OK but has some quirks. For one, it occasionally disconnects from my wifi but doesn’t let me know except if I look at it and see it’s not loading the station. The only way to get it back up is to pull the power cord out of the Jack and plug it back in. It may be weak wifi in that room but I don’t know for sure. There is an iOS app for it that works pretty well. It only has 5 presets. I don’t find the controls intuitive but I’ve learned to live with them. The date format is European and DST must be manually set (on/off).
Grace has flushed us down the toilet. Surely they could have put out a memo to tell people not to change their presets & a firmware patch to disallow searching for Reciva. My radio runs OK but continually jumps to search. I had 2 models the first had a cheap Voume encoder that failed. The second is failing. I bought an Ocean Digital made in Hong Kong when the first Grace quit. Their radios are on Amazon for $87. It is an excellent radio. Also if you have a problem or Q & Email them they come back to you in perfect English immediately in a friendly manner. The turn on access time is also much less than Grace.v
it’s simply because they don’t own the codes and they were not willing to reach an agreement with Reciva…. In other words they sold something that was not their property…. and now we are screwed up.
After a day of messing around with my Grace GDI-IRMamp (the mini amp Grace) I found a bloody simple solution although it does not work with the older ITC-IR1000B for some reason TBD. Install Foobar2000 which is a pretty good music player then download and install the UPnP component for it, then add radio stream URL’s to the playlist. Then go to the radio and Media Server, choose the Foobar server, then playlists, then default (the default playlist) and voila. The annoying thing is the radio keeps rebooting and reconnecting to the network so that’s another problem to solve…
So Foobar2000 is the only UPnP server that I found so far that allows the Grace GDI-IRMamp to play streams. I have created a M3U playlist file for Foobar2000 with a list of my streams and just import that into foobar and that named playlist shows up in the Grace radio and it plays them with no issue. Every once in a while the radio reconnects but it is sporadic when it does so. I will experiment with MediaMonkey and other music plays which support UPnP soon and post updates.
Also, if you have an old Android phone laying around, download RadioUPnP to it and you can play stations on your reciva-less Grace’s via UPnP. Foobar’s UPnP output component works very well as well.
I had chat with one of the owners and he said that it was a question of “survival”, either they cheated customers or they had to go to Chapter 7…. then we -the customers- paid their bill…..
Don’t waste efforts with Grace digital. They have no idea how to run a business. Once they got your money, you’re not longer important for them. They will cheat you as they already did.
And when are they going to take a little more ownership of the problem (that their customers did not cause) and come to the table with something a little more generous than 35%. Methinks this requires a little more public awareness; the kind you get with Clark Howard and consumer action sites.
https://gracedigital.com/collections/radios-tuners-amps
12/7 delivery now
They’re taking pre-orders for the Mondo Elite, 12/7 delivery.
Get iOS app “myTuner Radio”. Spend $10 and go ad-free forever. Get a cheap pair of Bluetooth speakers and you’re back in business. This app is good because you can also enter stations that are not in the search tool via the real URL which you can find on the web page inspector. (Search in the source page for “http” and you will find the real address buried in there).
I factory reset mine before I knew it would be bricked, now it is stuffed! and I am not happy
However, I have discovered that the underlying operating system appears to be a Linux variant, there may well be an exploit to get past the login, once in we could possibly make some changes to make the device once again usable … purely speculation
Try and connect to the device using putty on port 22 : )
Dan
There are a number of apps that will find, store and play internet radio stations. The one I use doesn’t seem to be on the App Store any more, but there are others. I use it via Bluetooth when in the car on long trips. One of these apps and a pair of Bluetooth speakers solves the problem.
I echo those who are disgusted by how Grace is handling this. I’m exploring the discount, but besides the fact that I suspect it won’t be enough (and the price of the Upgrade will be ridiculous), there’s also the obvious concern that this sort of thing will keep happening!
Frankly, I think a better alternative may be to just buy a cell phone capable of playing Internet Radio Stations, use Blue Tooth to connect it to speakers, AND TO HELL WITH GRACE DIGITAL!
I have one such phone (Motorola Moto e), which can do this, but I’d consider buying another to be solely dedicated to this purpose, leaving my other phone for its usual purpose.
Of course, since I have a streaming Wi-Fi Router connected to my cable modem (and computer), I won’t have to worry about using up my Data on the second phone (since it will only be used through my Wi-Fi network.
Depending on what the cost of the Upgrade is, this will probably be a most attractive alternative!
Indeed there are some choices but you’ll loss many features. I.e having just one device instead of to wired together, remote control for Mondo radios, battery operating radio, portability, etc, etc, etc.
On top of that we paid for something that now is taken out. Grace digital answered me that if they made a 100% discount the company would disappear, then we, the cheated customers, are paying for their survival…
But they have other choices like move out from Qualcomm to an owned server… but seems they are not willing to do that.
Sad to see how a company doesn’t want to keep customers and they only pay attention to the short term.
It’s highly ironic when you visit Qualcomm’s website. It’s all about serving the public with bandwidth and blah, blah, blah. And yet they shut down what we need.
I feel that Qualcomm is sort of out of the equation. Actually Grace -digital is the thief. They sold something that they were not the owners. They offered a device, that could get access to streaming radio without warning that they were not the owners of the technical solution. Grace digital never ever warned his customers about the limited spanlife of the radios. Qualcomm, as the owner of the server, made the decision of not providing services to Grace digital & others any more. Then, someone from Grace-digital, didnt’t want to put his hand in his pocket to figure out an alternative solution, and they screwed us up. For Grace Digital, customers are not important at all… They could have designed another technical solution but it’s out of their scope…. Sad but true…
These are the corporate goons who shut down our network. I got the link from someone who works at customer service for Grace:
https://www.qualcomm.com/join-us?cmpid=brfyus182240&gclid=Cj0KCQjwqKuKBhCxARIsACf4XuHsKBNMmqe2ItKU_0BNz5JQcreHjO10kdJ1QYRdvWiftYUnUlhvJzEaAp_mEALw_wcB
When I contacted Grace Digital Support to ask a question, I also got this comment regarding their plan going forward with their internet radios. They indicated that they do not want to be in this position again where a third party like Receiva can screw up their customers. Though it may not help with our current radios, at least for those interested in the new ones. it won’t happen again. I think many of us just wish that they offered a better deal to upgrade.
Grace Digital Support: Aug 24, 2021, 9:29 PM PDT
Unfortunately your unit will stop being supported, and there is a final disconnection on July 21st, 2021. Here is a brief explanation why this is happening.
From 2007-2017, our radios and most radios on the market used to connect to servers of Receiva, who is a third party company.
In 2017, we decided to create our own database to stop relying on a third party company to handle the internet streams, and bring those services in-house so we could provide a better service to our customers. For over four years we have been working with our own resources and we even have new radio models.
Unfortunately, this year Receiva is closing business, and that means that they will shut down the servers that your radio uses to connect to the internet. We tried to strike a deal with them to keep the old radios working, however they refused. Your unit will stop connecting to all services.
From Grace digital, we understand that this is affecting you directly, so if you wish to upgrade your radio, we can offer you a 35% discount code off our new models, available here:
How can I buy a new grace radio if everything is “sold out”. When will you have radios available; and will the ccup35 discount be available?
I just found this to be an issue today. We have 2 Grace Digital radios. On was manufactured in the 2007-2017 timeframe. It no longer tunes in stations because the Gateway doesn’t connect. The only good it is now is to play music from a thumb drive and as an alarm. The newer radio works fine.
If digital internet radios are at the mercy of third party vendors to continue providing the signal. . . we won’t every buy another one, especially from Grace Digital which should have honored its previous customers and provided updates & a contract extension until another vendor provided the service and/or at least a substantial discount (at cost) for a replacement since they could no longer provide the core service of the device, i.e. internet radio!
SHAME ON GRACE DIGITAL. WE WON’T BE A CUSTOMER EVER AGAIN AND I’LL ADVISE ANYONE I KNOW TO AVOID THAT COMPANY!
The presets will work just fine. You just can’t search for new stations or use Pandora.
I did a hard reset, because my radio continually rebotted and needed to be logged into four or five times overnight. I thought it was a screwed up configuration. So I did a hard reset, which eliminated the presets (which were working at the time but the manual reset was anoying). Now my radio is a somewhat accurate clock. I bought a radio transceiver, and plugged it into the usb port, so far there is nothing coming of that. I sought out this blog to see if someone had a workaround. I’m not interested in doing another grace radio. I might just buy an old small footprint computer and use it as a radio.
My 2 Mondo radios are loosing their features rapidly. On top of not getting access to the Reciva server, it gets disconnected from wifi several times a day. Most menus don’t work anymore and preset stations disappear from time to time… it’s a sort of cancer that’s killing slowly. Grace digital are definitively thieves !!!
I’ve just published an update. It appears the Reciva Gateway has finally shut down: https://swling.com/blog/2021/09/reciva-gateway-not-responding/
I had a couple TurtleBeach Audiotron internet radios and they did the same thing. Just shut down, and bricked the Audiotrons. Now Grace Digital does it, too.
Hi all,
Grace radio sent me the same canned answer twice. I’ve been formed them that 35% off on a new radio does not make up for the dysfunction of my current radio. I found that discount somewhat insulting. Like all of you I bought it in good faith and expected it to keep playing as it did. To make this short if anyone is pursuing a class action suit id like to ad my name to the list.
I just discovered this issue a couple of days ago. I called Grace support and was made the same offer of 35% off of a new device. I also expressed my displeasure by email and received the same song and dance.
I suggested that a firmware update might resolve the issue for current customers, but haven’t received a reply to that one.
Over the years I’ve spend about $270 on two different units, and up till now have loved the product and services.
What a shame.
Right. I have 4 Grace radios and am not happy! I would sign onto a class action in a second! Seems to me it should not be all that hard to run a system to keep the older radios running. I should have my head axamined as I went for the 35% off deal and regret it. NO MORE Grace radios for me.
We should present a collective claim to the courts. Apple’s customer have been lucky with iPhone which performance was reduced when time passed. We’ll receive 50 dollars for that fraud. Same should happen with Grace Digital. It’s a fraud.
Receiva search still up. Grace says it will shut down in 2 weeks. That would be September 1, 2021. You can still enter urls manually in my stuff and write them into presets. Remember that the app holds 20+ presets, double what the mondo holds.
Good comment. There would certainly have been a bigger stink if this were cable. Can’t believe that a bigger deal hasn’t been made about this. I’m guessing grace doesn’t read any of these comments. Or any attorneys for that matter. Seems ripe for a lawsuit of some kind.
Maria
March 21, 2021 at 5:34 pm
Mom has more than one of these and they aren’t cheap because she likes or rather, recently, liked to access her Pandora on it while washing dishes, etc. Not anymore apparently.
It’s a joke that they aren’t giving these older versions some sort of downloadable upgrade so that they can continue being used as opposed to becoming more junk sitting uselessly in the garage (because that’s where her devices are going to end up). This sort of waste during this time period is irresponsible.
At the very least, there should be a much more affordable trade in program so that the old devices can be recycled, but the current offer is a joke. I am already searching for alternative devices for us both to use.
I agree with Maria 100%.
Also I agree the tuner sucks, I used the remote to tune, etc.
And a 35% discount? Not going to buy another Grace, they may as well shut down now.
I have a Grace Solo. As of today, August 3/21, the presets continue to work. I have read over the comments here and still don’t understand if I can expect this to continue. Can I still set up My Streams through Grace Digital? I don’t think you can enter URLs directly on a Solo.
An interesting thing recently happened in relation to this. This weekend one of my stations changed its streaming code and I had to locate the new code and enter it into a program I use to record online radio on my computer. At the same time, the preset on the Grace Solo stopped working for that station only as well. But I tried the preset today for some reason and it’s working again. Did reciva update it? Maybe because I didn’t.
I’m not familiar with the Solo, but as of right now, (Aug. 9) you can still search on the Mondo. If and when Receiva quits, you can still enter the URL in my streams, play the station, and presumably write it over into favorites. Finding the source URL can be a pain, but it’s not too hard. I just searched for “http” in the page code and found one pretty fast. I also sent an email to a Russian station and they responded with the source URL the next day. I guess I’d be pissed if I was a Pandora user, but I’m not.
I did purchase a new Grace Link to use as a tuner for my stereo and I’m pleased with it except for a few things: the iOS app isn’t as good as the old app, and… get this… the remote turns on my LG television. It’s in the kitchen, where I programmed it, and it doesn’t affect it in its permanent location.
I am wrong. I asked Grace about this and they responded
“Lynda Smith (Grace Digital Support)
Aug 9, 2021, 2:40 PM PDT
My streams accesses the Servers at reciva, so once the servers are shut down, you will only have access to what are on the presets.”
That really sucks.
Thanks for checking that out. It’s better to know what to expect. But yeah, it sucks.
Good comment. I really don’t care about Grace Digital financials. I purchased a radio kit for some years and no warning of “limited span of life” was presented. Then they can’t come today and simply say that my decide is out of date and I should replace it at a high price. That’s a fraud. I want a new device at no cost, that could work with new technology. They should have thought when they signed the agreement with their partners and not to milk the cow until the last drop in their sole benefit. Yet waiting for the new device for free.
I agree. I have 2 possibly 3 radios that I use and love and will not be able to use them. To bad I did a factory reset to try to get Pandora back on 1 of them. Out of luck on that radio. The app preset worked on the IR77000. Anyway I think it stinks. I will see what they do to help us out but I don’t see me buying any Grace products in the future if Grace does not do right by us!!!
Grace Digital is engaging in fraudulent ransomware-type activities! Imagine your cable provider shutting down and telling you that your TV will be shut down, not work with any other networks? Grace Digital is deliberately trying to scam customers into buying their new models by hijacking people’s devices! It’s illegal, report them to the authorities, FCC, FTC etc! Scam ALERT!
I tend to agree – it’s hard to justify tossing a perfectly good unit away, and harder still to justify investing another $100+ in another receiver. While I feel sorry for the company having apparently been blindsided like they were, I also think people should expect to get more than a few years of service and if there needs to be a major software/firmware update because of something like this, the company should come to the table with something a little more satisfactory than 35%. From the tone of these comments, it seems Grace did themselves no favors in the PR/customer loyalty department. This would have been an excellent opportunity to excel. Instead, they must have listened to their bean-counters. or maybe the company is in trouble and doing the right thing would bankrupt it. Who knows? I will say that other than this, Grace customer service has been excellent. When mine conked out, they sent a new one (well, refurbished) promptly, no questions asked. As for a class-action suit, I think the main question is ‘how long should one be able to expect a device like this to work properly,’ and ‘is 35% off a good-faith offer?’ That’s for a lawyer to answer. I’m guessing that just the threat of such a suit would result in a whole slew of new offers.
Has anyone found a workaround utilizing the USB plug in the rear of the radio? I’m wondering if there’s a small product that could be plugged into the radio which would pick up internet radio via wifi streaming and use the radio as a speaker? I’m upset about this also. I purchased in 2016 and have the Victoria Nostalgic model which has looked and worked great in my late 19th-century beach rental house. I would love to keep the unit if I could find a way to keep using just the box.
I don’t know about the USB port, but it looks like that model has RCA audio inputs. Any old smart phone with wi-fi can tune Internet radio, and an earbud jack will give output to the Victoria. You’d have to do some experimenting, but perhaps a Bluetooth dongle would work in the USB port, allowing wireless connection with the smart phone.
Why is everyone so angry with Grace Digital about another company’s shutdown? Shouldn’t you be angry with Reciva? Grace has no control of what another company chooses to do. Yes, it might not have been the best idea to base the functionality of your product on a third party but, you live and learn. They’re no longer dependent on a third party and are offering people a discount. I think the discount should be a little more though. At least 50%. When you make customers happy, they will return.
Grace Digital made no path to upgrade their “Legacy” radios. That alone is sufficient to find another manufacturer to purchase a reliable internet system.
Grace Digital could have given a way to reprogram the server inside their operating system. The work around given by Ray ???? only works with access to Reciva\mystuff, then the owner can redirect the search and can input to the presets. that ship has sailed, no mo access. Their new radios manufactured since 2017 aren’t affected, so why couldn’t they offer to sell the component to adapt. I am looking for another radio right now, that isn’t subject to cancellation by aggregators. My PC can search the internet and get a signal, so it must be possible to do.
I don’t have time for all this crap. I won’t buy anything from Grace Digital. Now I don’t even know who to trust.
I think Grace performed a bad move when they made the decision to rely on a non reliable partner. We -the customers- have nothing to do with that decision. We purchased a radio and we werwe not told that it hadd limited spanlife. Grace digital should replace the discontinnued radios for new ones at no charge. Neither 35% discount, nor 50% discount. This is what a customer deserves and this is what a “fair” compnay would do. if they loss money it’s because they made a wrong decision and they shoudl pay for it, If Grace digital fails to comply with customer’s rights, i would never buy another grace product.
Grace is equally guilty. With a little effort, they could release a firmware upgrade that would use another listing service.
Bull! A hardware manufacture is responsible for the platform that its bundled with. What good is a radio that has no sever access to streams
I am not angry with Reciva. I am angry that Grace has not set up their own system so we can keep using the legacy radios. That is on Grace. I might try another internet radio or not but it won’t be another Grace. It is just plain wrong what they did. I would go back to Grace if they made it so the legacy radios are back online.
SAD SAD SAD, losing a good functioning Internet radio is disgusting and should not have ever happened. Like others the discount offer is bs, luckily I have multiple blue tooth speakers BOSE and a great OnePlus 8T phone, but still the loss of my radio in different location and wife use is just like a theft, stolen my radio.
Look at the thread at https://swling.com/blog/2021/03/how-to-give-your-reciva-wifi-radio-a-second-life-before-the-service-closes-on-april-30-2021/ You may still have time to save your old radio.
My old Mondo works every once and a while then won’t make WIFI connection. Like an old computer it is outdated. It had served me well. What I did was get a couple from Amazon of Ocean Digital WiFi Internet Radios WR-336N while you still can. Under 100 US$ Prices are going up due to chip shortage.
I agree with all the above. This is a scam pure & simple. I will just cut my losses and check out the Amazon Echo Show 5 or 8 .
I see Amazon has ab Echo Show 10. Nice big 10 inch screen. It’s around $250 and I think you can play PANDORA on it. (I first had a SQUEEZE BOX that looked just like my Grace. Had to buy a GRACE to replace the SQEEZE BOX for the same reason. Now Grace wants to make me do it again. This is becoming old! I’m thinking the ECHOW SHOW 10 is the way to go. I hear it has good sound and it can be used for a lot more things too. About 6 months ago my Grace stopped streaming WRJQ. I can get it on my computer now but not with the Grace. Now I am also loosing PANDORA and who knows what all. Sure would like to know what others think of the ECHOW SHOW alternatives from Amazon.
Is there a place or way to recycle these borderline/completely useless electronics?
Frankly, I didn’t find out about all of this until earlier in the year and that was by accident. Grace Digital claims they are offering a trade-up program, but, the question is trade-up to what? I have both the original Encore and Digital tuner but since the long time Canadian distributor from whom I purchased both units has ceased operations and Amazon offers little in product, other than the Grace Link(which never seems to be in stock), there is nothing in the model line-up that remotely resembles the models I have and would consider replacing.
In any case, luckily, I found another company that met my requirements, hence, I have moved on.
What company are you using?
My old Mondo works every once and a while then won’t make WIFI connection. Like an old computer it is outdated. It had served me well. What I did was get a couple from Amazon of Ocean Digital WiFi Internet Radios WR-336N while you still can. Under 100 US$ Prices are going up due to chip shortage.
Ocean Digital
I am so sad that my FOUR Grace Radios have been rendered worthless! As an Amateur Radio Operator, I recommended the Grace Radio’s to so many on air, and now it haunts me having done so!
What a SCAM by Grace Digital Radio!
Now, we are being asked to purchase their NEW radios; and yet, another SCAM in the making.
The Grace people need correct this SCAM or else succumb to a “class action” suit!
Why would anyone invest in another “Grace” Radio when the present SCAM is out there for ALL to know and recognize as an deliberate and outward SCAM?
While the Reciva shut down will disable any functions dependent upon the Reciva site, there are some work-arounds that may keep the older Grace Radios active in some form. I wouldn’t consider them worthless just yet. Is there a large enough class of Grace owners to bring a successful suit that would yield more than the 35% Grace is offering now? I wouldn’t think so.
I too am a ham. But I don’t understand why you just can’t find your stations on the internet and put the URLs into My Stuff (at least on the Mondo). It’s only the station search function that will be disabled. The radios should work fine as long as the URLs are not changed.
Completely agree! Total scam by an obviously shady company!
I think it’s time for a class action lawsuit against Grace?
Agreed.. Sign me up!
We have 7 of these trash bricks all at a cost of $189.00 each. But the 35% off a new radio makes everything better. I will never ever purchase another product from Dis-Grace digital.
We have two receivers that are now trash. Solved the problem, got out an older Kindle, bought a remote Bluetooth speaker and just download the stations that we like to listen to. Same with Pandora ! I can also feed the Kindle through the stereo. I would not purchase another unit from them. Also the thumb wheel dialer on both units started to fail not long after the purchases making it almost impossible to select numbers and letters. Really poor marketing decision, never again….
Mom has more than one of these and they aren’t cheap because she likes or rather, recently, liked to access her Pandora on it while washing dishes, etc. Not anymore apparently.
It’s a joke that they aren’t giving these older versions some sort of downloadable upgrade so that they can continue being used as opposed to becoming more junk sitting uselessly in the garage (because that’s where her devices are going to end up). This sort of waste during this time period is irresponsible.
At the very least, there should be a much more affordable trade in program so that the old devices can be recycled, but the current offer is a joke. I am already searching for alternative devices for us both to use.
There are some work-arounds in another thread.
https://swling.com/blog/2020/11/the-reciva-internet-radio-station-aggregator-closing-down/
Grace should offer to buy back these affected radios.Or replace them free.
This is pure BS. $165 for a radio that four years later ceases to function. They should provide no charge replacements.
This smacks of sheer stupidity on the manufacturers part.
In the first place why are Internet radios totally dependent upon a single outside server in the first place? A smart manufacturer would produce a product whereby the user could enter their own URLs and other information by either the front panel controls or through a USB port from their computer. Each Internet radio could be accessed either by an app or by presenting its own GUI interface when the user logs onto it.
You don’t need to be captive to someone else’s server to find your stations. There are plenty of websites out there that will give you all of the information and URLs to load in your radio. Just look at Winamp and other players for computers.
Just get an Amazon Echo Show 5 or 8 and be done. It’s cheaper than what Grace is offering even at 35% off. Let’s be honest whos to say they won’t cancel the next models down the line. They lost integrity with this shutdown and would never buy another Grace internet radio.
I have a Grace Digital Solo tuner which connects via RCA plugs to my old analog Bose Wave bedside radio. I listen to a few different NPR stations. When Reciva goes away and the Solo goes silent, seems like an old Android smart phone with an earplug to RCA plugs cable would do everything that the Solo does and more, including voice control rather than pushing those little buttons in the dark.
With cellphones and bluetooth and things like Raspberry pi and other mini computers why does one even need an internet radio?
Convenience. My wife can use the Grace remote to listen to her favorite music. That’s enough reason for me.
Can someone please explain how the chromecast system adopted in Grace Digital Elite works?
My Grace IRD-4000 simply stopped working last week. It hangs on any attempt to access a menu of stations, including those in my Reciva account.
I got the same ridiculous 35%-off coupon from Grace, but I’ll never trust them again. Their cheapest option was a refurbished unit for $180, so even after the discount it would be $117.
I ended up buying a Jensen JBS-200B AM/FM/CD table radio bookshelf stereo system as an open-box special for $30, although it is widely available for $50-70 new. It sounds good, but the main feature is that it can be fed audio from any Bluetooth device, making it easily capable of internet radio.
My Barlow Wadley, Collins, FRG7 and Kenwood haven’t this problem! Digital modes requires continues update (see for example digital TV and decoders). An analog radio last for decades. Internet radio, DRM, DAB, etc are standard that maybe are not supported in the future. Like other digital modes. Take for example the files from word processor used in the ’80 (Chiwrite, early Word program)… all these files are now unreadable!
files from old word processors are readable provided you have kept the right means to read it (i.e an old computer or so)…. in this case Grace digital garbage are unusable, even when you keep the power cord 🙂
I NEVER had this problem with my Hallicrafters. Internet is not short wave listening.
I would stay away from these internet radio scams.
I submitted the discount request and got a reply back. They are offering 35% off any new radio. If I get the Mondo Elite that lists for $200 my cost would be $130.
Yes I got mine too, 35% off. I wonder if the Internet Radio feature is the only one being shutdown, and one can still use iHeartRadio, Pandora, radio.com, etc. Anybody know?
Grace already sells the Mondo Elite on amazon for $150, so even with their 35% off coupon which you can only use on their site, we’re getting a whopping $20 off. Thank you Grace Digital! So generous of you.
Will never buy a Wi-Fi radio again. Thankfully I only have one, from Grace.
With smartphones, tables and inexpensive Bluetooth speakers, dedicated internet radios seem like a niche market. I’d consider replacing mine only at a discount.
Thank you for the information, Zack! I just submitted my request referencing my Grace Solo. The interface for Reciva always felt dated to me, even when my radio was new, but it was pretty reliable once it was set up. I’ll be curious to know what discounts they might offer.
Thanks Again,
Pete
You may want to get screen shots of your Reciva stations before the shutdown.
Your station changed its source url. Contact the station for the new url or you can search for it in its web page source code (search for “http” and it will be buried in there.
Lynda Smith (Grace Digital Support)
Aug 18, 2021, 8:39 AM PDT
The only way to dads a url is via the web portal. You’ll need to do it quickly and save to your presets, because the server for reciva is going off in the next couple weeks.
How to add a stream to your My Streams folder on your Grace Digital radio
log in to myradios.gracedigital.com
Then on the side of the web page you will see ‘My Stuff’/My Streams
Click “add stream” and add a name for the Stream that you will be adding. ABCD
Enter this in the Stream URL field. And click submit. http://THE STREAM GOES HERE
Go back to your radio and unplug it then plug it back in. Then turn it on. From the main menu, select My Stuff/ My Streams.
Then play it on your radio and overwrite the no working preset. You have only about a week left to do this.