Triby Family
A clever Alexa-enabled kitchen radio with a few novel features – and a few notable flaws
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £133 (£159 inc VAT) from invoxia.com/en-gb
Invoxia’s Triby Family wants to become a fixture in your kitchen, with two fiercely strong magnets on its rear to clamp the device securely to your fridge. And that’s far from the only quirky thing about this Alexaenabled device.
The Triby is designed to be at the fulcrum of family life, not only playing music and answering inane voice queries, but also acting as a messaging hub. To the left of the monochrome 2.9in E Ink screen sit two telephone-shaped buttons. These are effectively speed dial buttons for different members of the household, using Invoxia’s own VoIP service to place calls to the person’s smartphone via the Triby app.
The VoIP service was largely fine if the call recipient was connected to Wi-Fi, but over mobile data glitches and dropped calls were common. The Triby app also had problems with the aggressive power saving on my Galaxy S7, registering a missed call rather than ringing the handset when someone was trying to get hold of me.
The Triby’s messaging service worked much more reliably. Smartphone users can send text messages to the radio, which are displayed on the device’s screen. You can even doodle a little picture if your art skills are up to it. The radio sounds a little fanfare when a message is received and a yellow plastic button juts out from the left of the device. Whoever picks up the message pushes the yellow button back into the radio to acknowledge it’s been read, and the app tells the sender it’s been received. It’s a nice way to communicate with family members who don’t have smartphones, or to send snappy messages such as “I forgot to feed the dog” to the whole family, allowing whoever’s in to respond.
You’ll have noticed two other buttons perched to the right of the screen. These are the internet radio presets, with the Triby app allowing you to pick from a wide range of UK radio stations for each button. Two is obviously a little mean, so the third, thinner button allows you to mop up other stations – press repeatedly to scroll through the station list until the screen displays the channel you want.
Sound quality is surprisingly strong for a unit that measures only 3cm deep. There’s a sonorous timbre to voices on Radio 4 or piano solos, although distortion kicks in once you push the volume beyond 75%. It’s certainly no match for the Amazon Echo when it comes to sound quality or volume, but it’s plenty loud enough for all but the largest of kitchens, and it’s far superior to the puck-sized Echo Dots that Amazon would have you sprinkle throughout the house.
Unlike Amazon’s own speakers, the Triby Family also has the advantage of battery power. In our
“The radio sounds a little fanfare when a message is received and a yellow plastic button juts out from the left of the device”
tests we got around seven hours of continuous internet radio playback at a modest volume level, and over a week of standby power when used modestly. That means it’s possible to carry the unit around the house, or even out into the garden if your Wi-Fi stretches that far. It can also act as a Bluetooth speaker for your phone if not. The rubber casing means we wouldn’t have any qualms about using it outside or in the bathroom, although note that it’s not officially waterproof. The battery is charged via a micro-USB cable, although somewhat irritatingly this has a proprietary connector on it, designed to make it easier to reach the recessed socket. If you lose your charge cable, you could get away with an ordinary micro-USB cable, but it would be a faff to insert.
And what of that integration with Alexa? Well, that’s something of a letdown. The Triby’s four internal microphones are nowhere near as responsive as those of the Echo, meaning I often had to raise my voice to be heard, especially if music was already playing. Leaving the mics open also drains the battery, so Invoxia encourages users to tap a button on the right of the device to activate Alexa, which crushes its convenience. What’s more, if you’re a Spotify user, you can’t play songs directly by Alexa command – you must select the tracks via the app on your smartphone, using Spotify Connect.
Overall, the Triby Family falls irritatingly short of greatness. The voice and messaging features are promising additions for families, but they’re let down by the foibles of the VoIP service, while the Alexa integration will disappoint anyone who is used to the near-flawless responsiveness of Amazon’s devices. This Family needs a little more care and attention.
SPECIFICATIONS
Bluetooth speaker 802.11n Wi-Fi 4 x microphones 2.9in E Ink screen micro-USB stereo speakers 150 x 30 x 150mm (WDH) 590g