When I bought my truck last year it came with 6 months free. I listened to it pretty much every time I drove till it ran out. Then I just went back to normal radio. I miss it a bit but I can live without it. They are trying to entice me back with $4.99 a month for 24 months plus fees and taxes which comes to under $7 a month. They’ve given me a free week and, again, I do have it on when I’m driving.
I just don’t know if it’s worth it.
For many it is, for others it is not. Personally, I find it worthwhile, and I pay more than $7/month. You’ve had access to it for 6 months, so you know enough to decide based on your own experience and finances.
Like the OP, I started with it on a freebie w a new car. Then switched to pay, albeit reluctantly. I still use it pretty regularly in the car and occasionally on my phone elsewhere. But I’m not somebody who has to have music in his ears all day every day. Nor do I give two shits about particular groups, albums, or what’s hot. Mongo is just listless disinterested grazer in the vast buffet of musical life.
Broadcast radio is uselessly awful. I’m unwilling to spend the effort curating up a bunch of my old CDs into my phone to play back. So I’m outsourcing that hassle to Sirius for a few bucks a month.
Is it “worth it”? What does that even mean? I don’t miss the incremental dollars and I’m happy they’re doing cataloging and curating so I don’t have to, and there’s pleasant noise in my ears whenever / wherever I want it, seldom though that is.
I suppose that constitutes “worth it.”
I decided to do it. It’s $6.89 a month. I feel like I somehow got taken, but whatever lol.
I enjoy having SXM in the car, especially during long car trips, when terrestrial radio coverage is spotty or limited to stations I’d rather not listen to. I also sometimes play music off of my phone while driving, but I enjoy listening to news (esp. BBC World Service) and NPR, both of which are carried on SXM.
In addition, I can stream SXM stations on my Alexa devices; now that I’m largely working from home, it lets me easily use my SXM subscription to listen when I’m not in the car.
I’m on the same page as @LSLGuy. It’s a luxury, but I do think it’s worth it.
I’d love to have SXM on my home SONOS system. I’m sure it’s possible, but probably beyond my abilities.
Looks like this may be possible, if you have an Echo (Alexa), at least. There may be other ways to do it, as well.
With the streaming, WiFi, Bluetooth capabilities we have these days, I don’t think it is. On the other hand, I don’t live in Montana where there are maybe 2 radio stations in range at any one time, and they are all playing music that you don’t particularly like. I would never buy it.
It’s possible and very easy. Just load it as a service on your ap like you would with Spotify. Even if what I just wrote is gibberish, Google how to do it.
You’ll need the Sonos ap on your computer or phone first which you must have or you couldn’t use Sonos.
Thanks. I have the Sonos app on my phone. I also have thje SXM app, but I don’t think I have ever figured out how to log in. I’ll ask my kids…
I’ve had a XM “Snap” portable unit for years and I listen to it all the time. It plugs into the cigarette lighter – it has a wired connection to the magnetized antenna and you can set it up to broadcast to an FM channel or connect to a radio AUX port. It’s especially good on road trips. The reception is a little iffy in forested or mountainous areas, but most of the time it works fine. The subscription is worth it at the cheap “retention” rate, but I would probably cancel if I had to pay the full price.
Having live Grateful Dead music any time I want it is huge for me. Also, I have been turned on to lots of great music while listening to Chris Smither’s channel and B.B. King’s Bluesville. Music I probably would have never otherwise heard. In addition, Ozzy has a channel, and Outlaw Country features a weekly show from Steve Earle, and further turns me on to cool new music (Shinyribs!)
At eight bucks a month it’s a steal!
(And if you like music that I don’t, there’s probably a similar story for you, but featuring music you like.)
You can also listen online while you’re inside your home.
Agree attitudinally that for somebody phone-centric who wants to fiddle with Spotify and gosh knows how many other streaming services there’s probably no real “need” for SXM in your car’s entertainment device or in your phone / tablet / TV / home.
In a way, kinda like a cable TV channel bundle vs a streaming Firestick TV, SXM is the big red “easy button” for geezers used to a more themed-channel approach to audio entertainment.
I’m not pleased to find myself using geezer “assistive technology”, but IMO it’s worthwhile to call the spade by its correct name.
I gave up on it and let my subscription lapse, even in the face of the $4.99/mo offer. I mostly listened to XMU and the alternative-ish stations on either side of it. I felt for a while that the playlists on each channel were getting shallower with more repeats. Plus I felt like they were tailoring their broadcasts to feature a particularly non-offensive, mildly poppy brand of alternative, while I know from following all the blogs (you know, ‘the kids’) that there’s still a super vibrant scene of off-kilter, experimental, noisy stuff out there getting attention, just not on Sirius XM. So Apple Music curated playlists take care of me now.
I really liked XM back in the day before the merger with Sirius. XMU really was a channel with a bunch of fun, weird shit on all day.
I gave up on it because the signal failed so often. Driving under heavy tree cover and in valleys, I kept losing the signal.
I’ve had it for a few years — came with my new car, and I like it. I like that I can have presets for various different styles/genres/eras so there’s almost always something good playing.
I do have my own playlists with plenty of songs I like, and I play them often, but sometimes I’m in the mood for the radio experience: where I don’t have any idea what song is coming next and it could be something good I don’t have on my of my own playlists.
Mine came with the new car and I gave up on it after multiple free trials (the starter trial, then several free trials during holiday weekends) for the same reason as you, constant dropped signal. And sometimes the signal failed for no apparent reason at all, in suburban areas with no clouds in the sky.
I’ve had little or no signal on a couple of trips driving I-80 in parts of Montana. It’s a weird kind of dead zone in that “big sky” country…there’s really nothing block the signal.
I listen to it all the time when I’m driving. Also, my wife leaves it on all night on her Google Nest, usually the Old Time Radio channel (we have separate bedrooms). It’s on about 12 hours a day most days overall.
So we get a lot out of it.