In the era of smart speakers with voice control, there is something decidedly retro about the Tribit Home, a Bluetooth speaker that also works as a clock radio. In addition to Bluetooth and FM radio connectivity and a digital clock face, the speaker has an aux input, a color-changing LED light, and preloaded soundscapes to help you relax. Even with all of these modern features, the Home Speaker feels a bit dated, especially compared with actual smart speakers like the Amazon Echo Dot With Clock. Beyond this, the audio performance is merely decent, and sometimes a little tinny, making the Tribit Home Speaker a hard sell for $89.99.
Jack of All Trades
The Home Speaker has a rounded top and an almost jukebox-like shape, measuring in at 8.6 by 5.9 by 3.6 inches (HWD) and weighing 2.7 pounds. The front and back panels are covered in a gray cloth grille, with a thick LED strip separating the front and back, and an array of controls encircling the digital clock and status readout in the middle. Internally, a 15-watt, 3-inch midrange/bass driver and a 10-watt, 1.2-inch tweeter deliver mono audio, with some help from a passive bass radiator on the back panel.
Starting at the top and going clockwise, the buttons that surround the clock include Snooze/Sleep, Source/Bluetooth pairing, LED light (you can cycle through white, rainbow, animated rainbow, or off), Track Forward (although it looks like the widely recognized symbol for play), Plus (for volume), Play/Pause (represented by a circle), Minus (for volume), Track Backward, Alarm Clock Set, and the bank of internal Soundscapes, represented by some vague parallel lines. Generally speaking, the touch-sensitive controls are quite responsive and easy to operate, and the included instruction manual is quite detailed, so learning the basic functions is easy.
Along the edge of the speaker’s base, there are various connections, including a USB-C port and a USB-A port, both for charging mobile devices; the connection for the included power supply; a 3.5mm aux input/input for the included FM antenna; and, why not, a microSD port—if you load music onto it, you can play the tunes off of the card in the Source menu. On the bottom rubberized base, there’s a covered panel with a CR2032 battery installed—the speaker isn’t portable, but this modest battery allows it to keep time if the system loses power. Here, you’ll also find the Set Time button. A USB-A Y-cable that terminates in dual micro USB connections for charging more than one device is included along with the FM antenna.
The Home Speaker is compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and supports the SBC codec, but not AAC or AptX.
Tribit Home Speaker Sound Quality
Let’s start the preloaded Sleep Music soundscapes, some of which seem useful at first, like White Noise and Rain, except that you can hear the looping points in a very obvious way, and the loops seem to last in some cases a mere 10 seconds. Beyond annoying loop points, some of the sounds, like Bird, are just bizarre—it’s an exceptionally short loop of nonstop birdsong that’s almost aggressive and will help no one on this planet to relax, bird lovers like myself included. Light Music, on the other hand, is one very short song on an endless loop—the kind of piano and keyboard number that seems most appropriate for a funeral home. By the time your ears get their third or fourth helping of this short track, the existential dread will be building. Ultimately, don’t consider the built-in Sleep Music a selling point for the Home Speaker.
When it comes to your own audio, on tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the Home Speaker delivers decent low-frequency depth, and at top volumes, comes close to distorting but manages to avoid it. For an alarm clock-style speaker, the Home Speaker can get quite loud, which is a plus.
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Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Home Speaker’s general sound signature. Simply put, things don’t sound great here. The tape hiss that is usually relegated to background status is pushed forward in the mix notably, while the drums lose any semblance of bass depth. It’s a bright, almost tinny sound, save for Callahan’s baritone vocals.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives enough high-mid presence for its attack to retain its punchiness, but the midrange driver once again seems to teeter on the edge of distortion at higher volume levels. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat get a decent showing here—there’s no real bass rumble, nor would we really expect it, but the lows don’t sound almost completely absent like they do on the previous track. The vocals here are delivered with solid clarity, although there’s some added sibilance in the mix.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound a bit brighter than they need to be, but there’s at least a decent low-mid richness to the recording through the Home Speaker, as well.
Not the Smartest Home Speaker
I don’t know who the target audience is for the Tribit Home Speaker. Even if you have a soft spot for retro alarm clocks, the Home Speaker doesn’t look particularly retro. And even if you forget about the truly bad Sleep Music function, the rest of the speaker just feels dated. Beyond that, while its audio performance isn’t terrible, it’s certainly not a reason to go out and buy it. The $59.99 Amazon Echo Dot With Clock is your best bet for a smart alarm clock, with Amazon Alexa voice control and more balanced audio, while the $99.99 Echo offers voice control and significantly better sound quality, albeit without a clock face. And if you’re willing to forego the clock radio concept, we also recommend the $89.99 Ikea Eneby and the $79.99 Anker SoundCore Flare 2, both of which sound better than the Tribit Home Speaker.
