Customer Reviews

Innovage Outdoor AM/FM Emergency Battery Free Crank Radio

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Do not buy this radio. The hand crank option failed to work on the one I purchased, which would seem to defeat the purpose of owning it. In addition, it is impossible to contact the manufacturer regarding a replacement. This is the second problem I have had with products from this company, as I also purchased a flashlight that did not work. Avoid Innovage Outdoor.

The purpose for buying this radio is the hand crank feature. For the one I bought, after the factory charge died, the hand crank
did not recharge. In addition I tried a charger, but it also failed to do the job. All that worked was batteries.

This item is marketed under a number of names including Jensen, Innovage, and Lifelong. They're all the same radio except for the name. From other reviews I would gather that you can get a good one but that's an iffy situation.

Oh well, I bought it just to play around with it anyway.

This review is about the smaller version of the one featured for sale, but I am commenting because I think it may help.

I bought two of the small crank radios yesterday from Rite-Aid--one for me and one as a gift. I was pretty disappointed with the one I intended for myself--I cranked it for over 1 minute only got 3-4 minutes (if that) on the FM. This was true for several attempts. Then I tried the other one I bought, which happened to be set to AM--well, guess what, cranking for the AM really does last about 20 minutes. Tried it on both radios.

It's a handheld emergency radio/light/siren, so it will be useful if and when a situation occurs. Mine is already set to a local AM news channel (KRLA). I think they could be a little more forthcoming about the 20-minute feature because I was this-close to going back for a refund.

SO, in short--maybe this is true of the larger radio featured here. BTW, Rite Aid was selling it for $19.99, so Amazon's deal is good.

The battery free portion of this radio failed to work for more than two minutes at a time after cranking for nearly one half hour. When placing batteries in the radio, it works fine, but it defeats the main purpose of an emergency radio when no batteries are available. I had to remove the Ni-MH storage batteries and replace them by re-soldering them in place. This is my second one of these radios, the first one works just fine.

This is a cool little radio. All you have to do is wind it up for about 45-60 seconds, and it plays for about 20-25 minutes. You have a choice, you can wind it, or you can run it with batteries. It is portable and perfect to go anywhere. The only thing that is not great, is it is a bit tricky to tune, other than that, neat product!

I bought one of these radios at CVS for $9.99 after Hurricane wilma, just to get info about what was happening as far as storm relief. Well, it does crank up easily, and the power lasted longer than they suggested, at least in my case. The impresssive performance ended there, unfortunately. Only AM works, and nothing else. You switch it to FM, and it is static across the entire dial. It will not pick up even one station. When you switch it to Weather band, which is the MAIN reason I bought it, it picks up only ONE station. This station depends upon your location in the country, and IS NOT a weather warning band. In both locations I have been, one in TX, and one in Ft. Lauderdale, it has managed to pick up a religious station. Is this some kind of joke? Save your money, unless they let you test it first. Make SURE it works before you buy.

***Update. I pulled it out to make sure it would work for this year(AM only, lol). I cranked it until the light said full charge, and it worked only for about 4-5 minutes. Last year it was working about 25-30 minutes on less charge.***

Update two***Was that glorious info about the Noaa band meant for me? If it was I can tell you I know all about the NOAA stations. I have a full time weather radio in my truck, and know full well how to use it....***

You crank it for UNDER a minute...and it plays for about 15-20 minutes. Not bad if you ask me. I live in Brooklyn, NY and get plenty of stations coming in on BOTH AM and FM (without even extending the antenna).

To be honest with you, I was expecting better than this, but then, what do you expect for fourteen bucks. It's a handy little radio, and I do like the crank system. Nothing is more irritating than listening to a ball game while you are fishing and have the batteries give out. But with this little radio, crank it and presto! You got power.

Now for the downside. The tuner is unbelievably poor. Even strong stations are hard to tune in. Trying to tune in weak station? Forget it. Also, the tone is very tinny. It does, however, serve it's purpose however- a general purpose portable radio which you will never lose power. But if I had to do it again, I would spend more money and buy a better radio.

I bought the AM/FM Hand-Powered Emergency weather radio for two main reasons - the first being the battery free operation by way of the hand-powered crank handle, and second, for the relatively good sound for a transistor-sized portable radio.

As some other posts have said, there are some drawbacks to the unit. Of the several radios I tested (all under the "LifeLong" brand name, a different name than the Innovage name, but essentially the exact same model), some never powered on even after 30 seconds of turning the power handle. All radios that did work, including mine, require the volume switch to be moved a ways before the volume comes on. I have yet to hear the emergency weather band station. All I get are FM and AM stations. At the lower end of the FM band, selectivity between the 90.1 FM and 94FM bandwidth is poor in one regard - a strong station that broadcasts near 94 FM is heard again near 90.1 FM, overpowering the signal of the weaker station that should be heard at that frequency. Other than that problem, most other FM stations are heard fine. The telescoping antenna does not extend up as far as I would like. I associate length with greater receptivity. So far, even with the shorter length of the antenna, the set does pick up FM stations adequately - even inside a store with heavy floresent lighting. Selectivity on AM stations at night is average - some stations that I can pick up on other radios only can be heard when I turn this radio in one specific direction and hold the unit there.

Now the strong points - the handle fits snug into the unit and is easy to pull out for cranking. The radio station numbers appearing in the small horizontal window near the top of the front side of the unit can be seen rather easily, albeit closeup (due to the small-sized lettering), but at least the station indicator dial is in red and is easily visible. Switches are intelligently separated so as to not be confused with each other as far as functions go - volume and tuning dials are on the top, on/off on the side, as are the band switches. The product description indicates that this unit is water resistant. I still wouldn't want to have water coming down on the top of the radio where the tuning and volume switches are!

This unit is deeper than most small portable transistors, and for the extra width, the listener gets a bonus of deeper bass which is normally sacrificed in transistor sized radios. In fact, for a set this small, this offers one of the deepest basses I have heard. The treble sound is average at best. Sometimes the "s" and "t" sounds, audible on sensitive radios can barely be heard on this set.

The feel of the set (the portion that is in black) is excellent - the material feels like soft rubber, not hard plastic. The set comes with a carrying strap attached to the back of the unit, as well as ear buds.

After cranking the set for about 15 to 30 seconds, I received at least 30 minutes worth of power. I installed two AA batteries just to makes sure the set worked with those. It did. Next, I plugged in an adaptor (DC 6V), and while it was plugged in for about 30 seconds, the "charging" light stayed lit. I did not touch the set for another few days. I was shocked to learn that one week later, with no hand-cranking of the power handle, when I turned on the volume switch, the sound boomed out.

A friend suggested that there may be built in Ni-Cad batteries in the unit to hold the power. I thought that the unit would only run for a short time, and then with lack of use, it would be totally out of power. My set seems to have held the charge all this time.

This is a fine backup radio for when you don't want to bother with batteries and also want a slightly better than average sound for a transistor radio.

I bought this unit on sale, but even at the normal price, it offers good value - decent sound, and three ways to generate power - by hand, battery, and by adaptor. Make sure that the unit you buy works! Not all of these models do. It may be that my set will never be able to pick up the one emergency weather band, but given all the other features it has, I am happy with those.

I picked up my version of this radio (Lifelong brand) at Walgreens for about $20. The advantage of buying it in the store is you can actually crank on it and make sure that the radio you are buying works (AM/FM/weather ... and charge). It comes in a plastic package where you can access the knobs, switches, and crank - a big selling point for me.

I've never put batteries in mine - using it only with the hand crank.

Maybe I have a little too much time on my hands, but I can get about 6 minutes for every ten cranks of the little handle (i.e. 100 cranks = 1 hour, 50 cranks = 30 minutes, ...).

I've never seen the 'full' light ever come on except the one time I tried to over voltage the radio with a power adapter set to 9 volts.

It's not a very good weather band receiver - very picky and not that great of reception ( compared with my ham radio 2 meter handheld and weather alert radio at home - it is rather poor).

Otherwise, it has a basic AM/FM receiver that are somewhat difficult to tune in and the dial is almost useless for frequency accuracy.

But - it works fine for how I intend to use it.