Alexa skill Radio Browser - TuneIn alternative

Radio Browser is the best Alexa skill for playing online radio stations.
Now you can flexibly customize your favorite radio station list.
Control has never been so simple and reliable - just say the radio station number and listen to your favorite music!
Alexa understands numbers well, even from a long distance and in noisy environments.

The Alexa Radio Skill with your own favorites list.

Select stations from a database of 52,000 entries.
Listen to Internet radio stations in many languages and from many countries.
Select by language, country, keyword or station name.

The selection of stations in the favorites list is done by number, or zapping.
Perfect for foreign Internet radio stations, or for web radio whose names Alexa and TuneIn can not recognize correctly.

Alexa RadioBrowser Skill can also play private HTTP Icecast streams. RadioBrowser is an alternative for TuneIn when it comes to unencrypted HTTP streams. Only a few skills can play internet radio without SSL.

Alexa Skill Radio Browser Default Station List

Call up specific radio station with a single word

This is also possible with the use of routines via the Alexa app.
Open the Alexa app and select menu item "More" (bottom left).
Click on menu item "Routines."
Via "+" sign (top right) you can create new routine.
At the menu item "when the following happens", please select "Voice" and enter a word or phrase. For example, I entered the word "karamba".
In the menu item "Add action" please take the first entry, "Custom" and enter: "tell radio browser station four".
After the routine is activated, it is enough to say "Alexa Karamba" and Alexa will play the radio station that was stored under number 4.

Add radio.net stations to Amazon Alexa

Add Onlineradiobox.com Stations on Alexa

With our special adapter, you can now easily play all stations from onlineradiobox.com via Alexa. Here's how it works:

1. Use the following base URL: https://radiobrowser.esp8266-server.de/onlineradioboxAdapter.php?
2. Immediately after, add the URL of the desired station from onlineradiobox.com.

Example:

To play the station "Rock Antenne" (URL: https://onlineradiobox.com/de/rockantennede/?cs=de.radiosunshinelive), use the following complete URL:

"https://radiobrowser.esp8266-server.de/onlineradioboxAdapter.php?https://onlineradiobox.com/de/rockantennede/?cs=de.radiosunshinelive"

Tip: Test the generated link directly in your browser. It should automatically redirect you to the streaming link.

Add the complete URL with the name of the channel to your favorites list

Costs and Subscription

Why is the skill no longer free?

For four years, I was able to host the skill for free for everyone. This was possible because Amazon rewarded successful developers with bonuses, which allowed me to cover the skill's server costs, motivate myself to fix bugs, maintain the database, and respond to your emails.

Amazon Alexa has discontinued the Developer Rewards program, leaving developers to bear all costs. There are now no incentives for operating and maintaining skills. Maintenance includes fixing program errors, cleaning up the database, performing database backups, and responding to your emails.

What remains free:

• The standard radio station list can be used without limitations
• The custom radio station list with up to three positions can be used without a subscription

Subscription Features and Details

If you want to use an unlimited favorites list, you'll need a subscription. The subscription includes:

• 14-day free trial period
• Test the skill without obligation - cancel during the trial period and pay nothing
• Costs 2 euros per month for most countries
• Cancel anytime using voice command "Alexa, tell radio browser cancel my subscription" or through Amazon Store
  United States UK + 26 Countries Canada Australia
  
  (Before committing to something, make sure you know how to exit from it)

How to Subscribe

1. Via voice command:
   • Enable voice purchases in the Alexa App first
   • Then use voice command to subscribe "Alexa, ask radio browser what can I buy"
2. Via Amazon Store:
   • Subscribe directly through the store
     United States UK + 26 Countries Canada Australia
   • System needs 10 minutes to update subscription information
   • Or ask Alexa to update information immediately "Alexa, ask radio browser what have I bought"
   • After this, you'll have access to unlimited custom internet radio stations

FAQ

Question: I have entered a radio station. The name is announced, but it does not play.
Answer possible causes:
1. URL is not a streaming address, but address of the webplayer. (Alexa can not play html web pages).
2. URL is a wrong built playlist. Try to download playlist and open it with text editor. It contains correct streaming address.


You can ask me for help via contact form. I will try to find the right radio station address for you. (If I get too many requests, I will delete this message).
I usually answer within 24 hours.

I hope you understand that I did not create the data bank. And of course I could not check all the radio stations for compatibility with Alexa.
Therefore, if you can not listen to the radio station at the first attempt, you need to understand what the reason is.
The easiest way to check the functionality of the URL is to paste the URL into the address bar of your browser.
If the browser's built-in player opens and starts playing the stream, that's a good sign. The built-in browser player looks like this:

If it opens a web page, this is a bad sign. Such a URL will not work in Alexa.
In this case you will need to extract the real address of the stream from this page. How to do this I will describe below.

The second option is that you put the URL in the address bar of your browser and it downloads automatically some file . Most likely it's a PLS or M3U playlist. You can find such a file in your download folder. Open this file with any text editor and you will see real Stream links inside.
Amazon Alexa documentation describes that the Alexa devices can play the following formats AAC, MP4, MP3, PLS, M3U, M3U8, HLS.
But I found that the playlist link PLS works only with my Echo DOT 3. And does not work on my Alexa app in the smartphone and in my TV.
So it still seems to depend on the device what works and what doesn't.

Question: I made a favorite list for Alexa.Worked great for a while.Then it stopped working and and now only plays standard list! Here I can still see my created playlist.

Answer: It happens when the skill is deactivated once and then reactivated. Thereby the skill gets new ID. And the program can't find the playlist in the database anymore.
You can see hier your old playlist. In that case write me via contact form and I will try to restore your playlist.

Question: Below what I have tried on an Everywhere music group.

Answer: This skill does not support Multi room. This is a limitation of Amazon for free programmers.
Not sure if this is a fluke, but I think I’ve found a workaround to allow Radio Broswer to play on multi room Alexa groups.

Ask Alexa to Play Spotify, SiriusXM, etc. on a speaker group (I use Everywhere).
To one of the speakers in that group, say ‘Alexa Radio Browser’

It plays to all speakers in the group!

that worked for me. but i don't give any guarantee for it. This is more exploitation of a bug in the Alexa system.