Those lucky kickstarter backers of ROCKI have started to receive their units, pretty much on time - I was no exception. I was very excited and decided to give ROCKI an early road test.So lets get ROCKI on the road.
First of all you will need the app from either the Google Play store of the course the Apple store too if you are a member of the Apple fan club.
Hardware wise the basic ROCKI Play has just two ports, a 3.5m jack and the power from a mini USB - the same USB port you find on all Android and Windows phones so chances are you will have a few cables kicking about. However some are included for you anyway.
ROCKI Play+ has the benefit of a HDMI output which is missing from this unit.
Connecting to the ROCKI is very much the same as Chromecast, the ROCKI will create a hotspot that your handset will seek out, then input your local LAN settings - ROCKI will then associate itself with your local network. Then your good to go. You will be guided to look for light indicators on your ROCKI app so look out for those.
Select your ROCKI from the top green bar and then log into your streaming services, for now only Soundcloud and Last.FM are listed as well as all your lovely local music too.
Since my business is cloud based you can guess that I'm a heavy user of Google Music, Soundcloud etc, so it wasn't very difficult for me to log into Soundcloud via the ROCKI app and then sync my playlists. The entire set up took around 2 mins to complete to playing music.
I've been trying the ROCKI out on all my smaller bits of HiFi such as a sound bar, portable speakers and the kitchen sound system, all of which it worked flawlessly on as you would expect. Difficult to say anything negative because it does what it says on the tin, it does get a little warm but I guess that's while charging and throwing music at it. You can change the sleeves to funky colours (7 no less)
Very much looking forward to ROCKI adding additional services in the coming months, and expanding the app a little bit. Little things like learning when to swipe to remove items from your ROCKI queue are touches that need a little refinement, but remember this is early days and a start up that's done brilliantly to get the product out the door on time and within schedule.
Streaming various sources to the ROCKI from a few handsets was a joy to use too, meaning many of you can get social with your music at home and on the road, thanks to the internal battery which will outlast many AA based power systems I'm sure.
Anyway - I will update more on ROCKI as the app changes and more services are added. In the coming weeks I also have a very exciting announcement to make, so stay tuned to IHAG.
To get yourself a ROCKI, head over to http://www.myrocki.com/ starting at $49, very reasonable cost to create yourself a speaker system that will not only give new life to your current hifi set up, but makes sharing your music fun too, especially if you have several of them in your house. Its heterogeneous but good in every sense of the word.
Click here for a quick You Tube demo using ROCKI Play
