theregoesdave

The Livio Radio connects to wifi to stream Pandora Radio into your home. It has very clean lines, a simple speaker and (almost) all the features you could want.

Buttons for voting songs up or down and allows you to skip to the next song are almost allow you to fine-tune your Pandora stream. A single knob allows you to control both the station and the volume.

So what’s missing?

The peeps at DVICE tested out the all-in-one control knob and found it, “maddeningly difficult to use,” as it requires too much pressure to change the station. It sounds like the controls are only really effective if you push the Livio Radio against a wall.

While I appreciate clean, classic design, I think Livio could have sprung for a second knob so as to have separate volume and station controls. Unfortunately it’s a case of an A in design, but a C in terms of overall usability.

Still the concept of a Pandora radio holds a lot of promise. One of Pandora’s great strengths is that it’s available on your computer or an iPhone, just not in your living room until now.

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