Fuze+ Feedback and Feature Request Thread

Make it sort the song filename/ title in ascending instead of descending order when the song do not have a track number

I have three requests in order of I want most to what I want least. And they have all probably been mentioned before, but, it’s here as follows:

  1. Accelerated Scrolling/Wrap-Around Menus. I remember the days when my old Fuze didn’t have accelerated scrolling and when you have 2000+ songs and want to listen to anything that started with “E” or after, I cried and hoped that the playlist shuffle gods would be nice today
  2. One touch scrolling so you don’t have to keep swiping a finger across to scroll
  3. Resuming music where you left off. Either it doesn’t do this or mine hates me =(

Wrap-around scrolling, in addition to faster scrolling overall

My list so far (in no particular order)

Folder view especially for external cards and podcasts. Old Time Radio and podcasts are not always tagged correctly. Relying on the tags means that they are often in the “unknown” category.

Sleep timer good – but it would be useful if the display showed the amount of time remaining.

Sleep timer is too fiddly to set. It’s easy to get the wrong time. Also it’s not flexible enough

Some form of Pause/Unpause while locked. Locking is great but being able to pause the device without having to unlock it would be great e.g. so you can pause it while you buy a paper etc.

Variable sensitivity on the touchpad. It can be too sensitive.

Increase the font size on the display

Increase the size of the display string which shows the currently playing – it truncates long artists and album names.

Ditto when displaying individual albums and artwork.

Automatically hide slot/card when no card is present.

Remember where you are in lists e.g. Song list, Album list – with over 600 albums and 10,000 tracks it is difficult to scroll through the lists when you start at the top every time.

Some fast access mode for jumping around the lists e.g. an A-Z mode whereby you can jump to a point in the list (600 albums and 10,000 tracks)

Add date/time to the file names for the Voice/Radio recordings. Makes it easier to find the one you want.

24 Hour Option, once more

Folder view, once more

———————–

My own addition, parsing m3u & m3u8’s relative to the file.  This in itself, might simply be something that’s fixed with folder view.

On my Fuze.v.1. I put an m3u list on my microSD card and list a few files from the MUSIC/whatever/artist/ folder and the playlist shows up, enumerates, and plays. This same microSD card inserted into my Fuze+  shows the playlist, enumerates it, and then sits there with a songlist that’s as blank as the face of a kid in a school room corner with a dunce cap on his head.

It would be nice if, not only did playlist reading do the same thing it did on the fuze.v.1, but the same thing it does on all my other microsd reading devices that play music.

Feature requests from me:

  1. Folder navigation

  2. Folder navigation

  3. Folder navigation

  4. Folder navigation

  5. Better scrolling (as suggested before)

  6. Menus wrapping

I think it’s been suggested before but my wife was hoping for an option to use the powe button as a lock of some sort.

Somthing like the following might not be awful.

Pressed when off - turns unit on

Pressed when on-turns screen off

Pressed when on (screen off) - turns screen on

Press and hold 3 seconds  -  locks controls

Press and hold 3 seconds (when locked) unlocks controls

Press and hold 8 seconds -  turns off unit

As for the reason she wants the lock, apperantly something in the lining of her jacket fools the capacity sensor. Even with nothing in her inside pocket the unit unlocked itself 4 times on a 15 minute walk to work.

Add folder view to the Fuze+, this the one thing I miss from my old Fuze.

hkmix, are you converting video using ubuntu, and if so how? i have no clue how to get video podcasts (or any video) onto my fuse+ w/ ubuntu 10.4.

better linux/ubuntu documentation would be the #1 improvement for me. followed by everything else already suggested.

Silverdisk I have used video4fuze in Ubuntu 10.10 to get video on my Fuze+, it might suit your needs. It handles photos and playlist as well. You will need to download two packages from there fuzemux and video4fuze, good luck.

The main thing  I’d like to see implemented right now is a huge improvement in the unlocking & locking mechanism. I just opened the package, and after doing a quickaround of the features, I have to say, my biggest problem lies with not the touch sensors - I personally think they’re a great idea, they just require a user to adjust to them (but they are a little… awkward? in that aside from a response in the interface, there’s no physical response (like, even a slight click) - but with the locking mechanism. It just astounds me that such an idea survived the design process.


First off, a play/pause button should not integrate a third feature. Although functionality-wise, it isn’t impractical, I just think it’s a bad idea. Secondly, the locking mechanism - and this is with just five minutes of testing, I’m sorry to say - evidently does not do what a locking mechanism intends to do. I can both lock and unlock the Fuze through the sleeve, and very easily - I can only just imagine the trouble I’d face leaving it in my pocket. I’ve looked around reviews, and many people have also complained about it.


In the next generation of the Fuze, I definitely hope this is addressed (and possibly, the old locking switch is returned, because that was definitely effective). The creation of a volume switch that is still functional even when locked is a good idea, although it may be advisable to add a setting in which users can opt to allow for functional volume controls when locked, or to disallow it.


But, back to what this post should be focusing on: the locking mechanism. Now, obviously, a firmware update can’t integrate a new lock slider. However, I think that there are indeed a number of viable alternatives to the locking mechanism (again, adding a setting to choose the locking method may be more effective).


  • Tapping the play/pause & back buttons while sliding down top to bottom. It’s essentially tapping the buttons with your ring and pointer fingers, while your middle finger slides down the center.
  • Holding down both volume buttons while tapping some sort of key combination (simultaneous taps, not successive).

An alternative could also be to slide two fingers from the center to the left and right (or top and bottom) tap points. The problem with this is that as effective and responsive the interface is, most teenagers’ and adults’ fingers are too big for such an approach to be effective.


In summary, the Fuze+ seems to be a great product so far, but its locking mechanism is horrendous, and is in dire need of improvement. (If at all possible, could a separate thread or even sub-thread be established for such suggestions?).


thanks so much for the help. used video4fuze to convert an .avi, it worked great. i changed the settings to match the fuze+ resolution 320x240. below is the mencoder pass1 command line i used (only difference from default is the resolution) was this neccesary and/or are there better settings to use? mencoder -msglevel all=0:statusline=5 -ofps 30 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vqscale=3:keyint=15 -vf field,expand=:::::320/240,scale=320:240,harddup -srate 44100 -af resample=44100:0:1,format=s16le -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=192

oopsie. i also changed the bitrate and fps.

I miss the Music Info function that was in the old Fuze. From there, I could see the audio format, bitrate, sampling rate, artist name, album name, ect. quickly and easily. Although the priority right now should be fixing the UI lag. Still, if Sandisk could add this feature, that would be great.

Artist Information is there, it isn’t properly implemented yet.  With a Rhapsody track playing, try sweeping from top to bottom, or tap the center-bittom area.

You’ll now see the artist information screen.  The problem is that wee DOT below the genre listing.  This is the existing information as stored on the Fuze+.  I am wondering if the issue is within the firmware (as the Fuze+ handles Rhapsody tracks a little differently), or if the Rhapsody client isn’t sending the proper file over.  The index is there for each artist, but all we have in the files is that wee dot.

Bob  :dizzy_face:

Integrate a lock feature that I can use without using tactile functions. Use the power button(simple tap makes it lock). The present lock feature makes the device frustrating to use and I am looking into getting a refund because it’s that bad.

Also, reduce/remove the delay/lag. And also, folder viewing would be nice.

Integrate a lock feature that I can use without using tactile functions. Use the power button(simple tap makes it lock). The present lock feature makes the device frustrating to use and I am looking into getting a refund because it’s that bad.

Also, reduce/remove the delay/lag. And also, folder viewing would be nice.

+1000

Like many other, in this post, I think that the lock and unlock fonction with the power button can be a good idea. I have a problem with equalizer, it have a lack, I will like to have more option, like bass, clarity and 3D, independant from the basic equalizer. I will be nice to have some animation or equalizer to replace the album artwork, or change the artwork, for better looking album artwork. The possibilitie of use a zoomed picture for background can be nice. The picture viewner, need some improvement at the level of zooming and move into a picture. The music player need some improvement too, like to have directly in the menu, the sound option(equalizer). I would be nice to correct the lag when using menu of the player.

I posted my suggestions here before, but here’s an update after having the player for a longer time.  The first three are basic functionality, and I really need these to be fixed so I don’t feel quite so ripped off:

  1. FIX SLUGGISH UI, START UP, AND OVERALL RESPONSIVENESS!!! My library is not even full, and without the MicroSD card in, I face 30+ second start up and 3-5 second lag between menus.

  2. The “Back” button should never take me back to the wannabe-coverflow top menu unless I press it while in the Artist, Album, Song, Genre, or Playlist menus.  " Back" should always mean back to the previous menu.

I have never had a device that defaulted back to the main menu, I have always been able to press the back button and go back the way I came.     The back button on your browser, your phone, and every other music player that’s worth a darn functions by taking you back to the previous menu.  Esp. given the lag time, it is SO frustrating to be taken to the top menu from song playback.  For example, if I have selected the artist I’m listening to by a specific genre, there’s a good chance I may want to change to another artist from that genre.  I should be able to back up to that menu easily.  I should not have to press “Back”, then select “Music”, then side over through “Artist” “Album” “Songs” and finally “Genre” and then scroll down and select the genre I was listening to.  This should not be effected by locking/unlocking, idle screen shut off, or even turning the player on and off–" Back" should always mean back to the previous menu.  Maybe “Back to Main Menu” could be listed under “Music Options” for quick access to the main menu.

  1. Lock function.  I voted in the poll, and it’s in almost every feature request.  Let’s get with it.

  2. As I suggested before, scrolling alphabetically would be nice.  I have a Samsung Sunburst touch screen phone, and the way I scroll through contacts by alphabet is by dragging a little scroll bar down slowly and letting go when I get to the letter I want.  The Fuze+ can do the same thing, using a slow drag down the center line.  Swiping on my phone is better too, when I swipe, it scrolls quickly, but when I get to the place I want, I tap once to stop without selecting anything.  Maybe this is already a feature and I just can’t tell because of the lag, but I should be able to stop immediately from a swipe when I reach the file I want, and that doesn’t happen for me now.

  3. Bookmarks for audiobooks.  Why even have an Audiobook menu if it plays exactly like a song?

I say it every time–I really want to like this player.  It has great features that you can’t even find all together on more expensive players.  The severity of the issues I have with menu navigation, scrolling, and even the poorly designed lock feature would be greatly decreased by improving overall responsiveness of the UI.  Please, please, please release a firmware update that addresses at least some of these basic functionality issues!

It’s not a good Xmas gift without folder navigation…

plase add this option.