Bluetooth and wired speakers are everywhere and it can be a gamble to determine which one would be the best fit for you. From smart pricey speakers to cheapo alarm clocks at your local grocery store set up as impulse buys by the register, there is an option for just about everyone out there. There is just a large ocean of options to sort through to find it. Today, we have an option that falls somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t connect to the internet, but it does connect to your phone, as well as supporting a number of other inputs. An alarm clock radio riding in the fast lane. The Tribit Home speaker.
It should fit on any nightstand, as well as just about any other location you can think of (bathroom, living room, etc).
The speaker features a cloth-covered grill design that has been popular among “decor-type” speaker options within the market. It isn’t much larger than your typical full-size Alexa or Google Home speaker.
Everything speaker-wise is located across the front behind the cloth grill. There is a 3″ driver dedicated to mid and low frequencies, and a 1″ tweeter dedicated to the highs, with a total of 25 watts driving it all.
You have a number of inputs running across the bottom of the left side and rear side of the speaker. The left side contains two USB ports (1x USB-A and 1x USB-C), both dedicated to charging other devices. Most useful when it is being used by the bed as an alarm clock.
The right side contains your inputs. There is a 3.5mm input for wired devices, as well as a MicroSD slot. To the right of these is your input for the power cable that comes in the box. It isn’t a wireless speaker, so there is no battery inside or anything.
On the bottom, there is a button to reset the time with and a coin-cell battery that is in charge of keeping it where there is no power (ie, when you transfer it between locations or there is a power outage). The clock is not displayed when it kicks into the backup battery, but the data is preserved in the background until you plug it back in. This is important for a device that doesn’t have its own connectivity to the internet and a total pleasure to see in a product like this.
Sadly, you still have to worry about daylight savings time (DST) since it doesn’t have the internet to automatically keep the time updated (yay, another clock to have to change back twice a year).
Running across the face of the speaker and around the screen are a number of touch-sensitive controls. Their functions are almost completely self-explanatory. You have volume and next/previous buttons with an enter/ok button at the bottom. These are used for everything from setting the time, to controlling tracks and browsing radio stations.
The others control your input/source, alarm functions, and the light. You can choose between using a wired aux input, a Bluetooth connection, the MicroSD input on the back, or the radio.
There is a cable included for radio that plugs into the 3.5mm jack in the back. It acts as your antenna. Of course, this also means that you lose aux-in for any other wired device if you decide to make use of the radio as a source.
You have the option of a few sleep sounds/effects, like white noise, rain, or running water (to name a few).
Finally, there is the light option. It can be turned on and off manually with the lightbulb icon. There are a few modes to choose from, including white or a few gradient options that run through various colors. The latter of which reminds us of the old jukeboxes in bars and restaurants. This is for the users that like to have LED lights on everything they own but can be turned off for everyone else.
Performance
Setup is a breeze. When you first plug the radio in, it quickly walks you through setting the time as well as connected to a Bluetooth device (ie, smartphone, tablet, etc). From there, you can jump right into using the speaker.
It offers decent sound. The bass is ok for the size of the speaker. You’ll find that the bass can really shine with some tracks, while it may mellow out a lot with others.
The overall sound does feel a bit muffled, which is common with affordable devices. It doesn’t sound horrible, but it does leave something to be desired. This could be improved on by bringing in some cleaner mids into the mix and making the highs a tad crispier. Sadly, there are zero EQ options available to you, so the sound you hear is the sound you get unless you tweak your source device any. You can, at least, get a decent amount of volume out of the speaker before hitting any distortion.
It should work great for small rooms like bathrooms and bedrooms. For larger rooms, you’d do better going with a solution with a fuller range.
It doesn’t offer Alexa/Google by itself. However, you access any digital assistant via your phone over Bluetooth. There is no Wi-Fi or Ethernet connectivity to the speaker. It is simply an alarm-clock radio solution that plugs into the wall and accepts the above-mentioned inputs.
Our Conclusion
The price can get a bit dangerous with this one since there is a lot of competition out there that falls close to $100. Some of this competition is smart/connected and voice-driven with digital assistant access (like Alexa and Google).
We would love to see a “smart” connected version of this speaker (possibly with Alexa or Google built into it). This would also help keep the time so you never have to touch it during DST changes. We’d also like to see the range tweaked a bit with some EQ features added.
Thankfully, it does offer some decent options despite lacking some of these other features. The SD access is nice, as well as OTA radio and the selection of sleep sounds. Although the sleep sounds can be improved upon as they seem to be limited to around 30-second loops and the looping point is noticeable which can be distracting to some users that have trouble turning their brain off at night.
If anything, a slightly better range of sound would be nice for the asking price. Again, this is heavily influenced by the amount of competition that is out there.
However, if you like LED lights on everything, listen to the radio, and have a wired or Bluetooth device lying around to feed it, it is a decent little speaker that looks nice to the eyes. The sleep sounds are a little bit of a bonus and sound nice (for how short their loops are) and you can get plenty of volume out of it. We brought the most out of it by hooking an Alexa Dot to it using a 3.5mm aux cable. Now, it is perfect-ish.
Currently, they have a 30% off coupon on the Amazon product page and that helps to balance things a lot better.
Additional Images:
Specifications:
- Driver size: 1×3″Mid bass+1×1.2″Tweeter/1×3.5″PR
- Output power: 1x15W + 1x10W
- Connectivity
- Bluetooth® standard: V5.0
- Wireless range: Up to 98 feet
- BT Audio Codecs: SBC
- Weight: 1200g
- Dimensions (H x W x D): 220 x 150 x 92(mm)
- Package-contents
- 1 x Power adapter
- 1 x FM antenna
- 1 x Product manual
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