Pioneer gets Sirius with new wearable radio

While this might not come to Canada because Sirius and XM aren’t merging here, Americans satellite radio lovers have one sweet new gadget to play with.

U.S.-based Sirius XM Radio (now one company) and Pioneer Electronics are hoping to make some noise with its new XMp3, a $279.99 wearable satellite radio with MP3 playback functionality.

Billed as the smallest and lightest portable satellite radio, the 3.1-ounce XMp3 is the first with multi-channel recording capability, allowing users to schedule up to five channels of simultaneous recording. The 2GB of internal memory can hold up to 100 hours of commercial-free music, talk and sports programming.

Selecting what upcoming broadcasts to flag for recording is as easy as navigating through the new program guide — a first for a portable satellite radio, says Pioneer — whereby each channel shows its programming schedule up to two weeks in advance.

Similar to personal video recorders (PVRs), the XMp3 automatically records the most recent 30 minutes of live programming, so at anytime listeners can replay what they just heard, as well as pause, fast-forward or rewind through this buffered audio.

If you also want to carry around your own MP3 or WMA collection, this satellite radio includes a microSD card slot for optional memory cards.