One of the perfect—and worst—issues in regards to the Android TV platform is that it permits for bizarre, bold merchandise just like the JBL Link Bar.
While it seems like a typical soundbar, the $400 JBL Link Bar doubles as an Android TV participant for streaming video from apps like Netflix. It additionally responds to “Hey Google” voice instructions, and it has three HDMI passthrough inputs, so you’ll be able to see Google Assistant’s responses on the massive display screen with out switching away out of your cable field or Blu-ray participant.
This is the sort of wild thought that you just received’t see from Roku, as a result of Roku licenses its software program solely to sensible TV and cable-box producers. You will encounter just a few soundbars with Amazon Alexa built-in, however not Amazon’s Fire TV media streamer, though at the least one in every of them—Polk Audio’s Command Bar—has a USB port which you can plug an Amazon Fire TV stick into.
I’m glad JBL and Google gave it a strive, however rolling a soundbar, sensible speaker, and streaming field into one gadget solely works if the person parts can stand on their very own. With the JBL Link Bar, each bit feels compromised, and mixing them into one unit simply doesn’t present sufficient of a profit.
JBL Link Bar efficiency as a soundbar
The JBL Link Bar is a 40-inch soundbar with a pair of 0.8-inch tweeters and 4 “racetrack” drivers—every measuring 1.7 inches by 3.2 inches—powered by an amplifier that delivers 100 watts most energy. The enclosure is a medium-gray plastic with a material speaker grille.
While the Link Bar does have a Toslink optical audio enter, which is often most helpful for TVs or A/V receivers that don’t have HDMI (or which have older HDMI ports that don’t assist HDCP 2.2 copy safety), you’ll wish to join it to your TV with an HDMI cable, as a result of that’s the one manner you’ll be able to stream Android TV video to your TV. The soundbar can also be Chromecast appropriate, and it helps Bluetooth for streaming music from a cell gadget. Finally, there’s a 3.5mm analog stereo enter for connecting legacy audio gear.
Around again, the JBL Link Bar has optical, auxiliary, and HDMI inputs, however solely HDMI for output.
At $400, the Link Bar is on the pricier aspect for a standalone soundbar, nevertheless it provides nice readability in a medium-sized room. While watching Snowpiercer on Netflix, for example, the clanking and crashing of the movie’s first massive motion scene rang out greater than they did on a less expensive sound system, and and whereas listening to Snarky Puppy’s Family Dinner – Volume Two, the intricacy of Michael League’s basslines have been simpler to determine.
Still, a soundbar alone is not any match for a correct encompass system and subwoofer, particularly for the reason that Link Bar’s low-end frequency response cuts off at 75Hz. While you’ll be able to spend an additional $300 for JBL’s SW10 wireless subwoofer, there’s no manner so as to add wi-fi encompass audio system, so that you’ll at all times be caught with stereo audio. JBL’s system isn’t appropriate with Dolby Atmos or DTS:X for soundtracks with object-based sound results, both.
The JBL Link Bar is likely one of the comparatively few soundbars to assist Google Assistant voice controls, which suggests you should utilize voice instructions to play music, management sensible dwelling gadgets, and get data, even when the tv is off. LG provides a number of fashions, with its $600 SL8YG being the least costly. On the opposite hand, LG’s soundbars do assist Dolby Atmos and they provide the choice of including wi-fi surrounds. The $499 Bose Soundbar 500 and the Sonos Beam, in the meantime, don’t assist object-based audio, however they do provide the choice of wi-fi encompass channels.
Bose and Sonos additionally provide the choice of utilizing both Google Assistant or Alexa, though it’s essential to select one or the opposite within the firm’s apps. You can’t say “Hey, Google” with one breath and summon Alexa within the subsequent. But if you happen to’re an Apple family, the Bose and Sonos merchandise each assist Apple’s AirPlay 2 streaming expertise, the place JBL’s speaker doesn’t..
Jared Newman / IDGThe JBL Link Bar has far-field microphones for hands-free Google Assistant voice instructions. (You may disable them with the microphone change.)
There are downsides to utilizing the JBL Link Bar as a sensible speaker, nonetheless; Google Assistant can really feel gradual to reply, and when you have one other Google Home speaker even remotely inside earshot, it’ll typically be the one to reply to your summons even once you’re a lot nearer to the Link Bar. The JBL Link Bar doesn’t assist multi-room audio with different Google Assistant gadgets, both; so once you attempt to create a speaker group throughout the Google Home app, the Link Bar received’t seem as an choice. Google says it’s engaged on an answer that may enable Cast-enabled audio system and Android TV soundbars to play collectively, however the firm can’t say when that may be out there.
JBL Link Bar as an Android TV field
The massive promoting level for the JBL Link Bar is that it’s greater than only a soundbar and even only a sensible speaker. It’s additionally an Android TV streaming participant that may substitute your Roku, Fire TV, or sensible TV software program. Just plug the Link Bar into your TV over HDMI, and it’ll play video on the tv whereas feeding audio by means of the soundbar.
Judged strictly as a streaming field, nonetheless, the JBL Link Bar isn’t significantly better than low-budget Android TV gamers just like the Xiaomi Mi Box S. It at present streams 4K video, however Google continues to be engaged on an replace to assist streaming in HDR, which offers brighter imagery with higher colour element with 4K HDR content material on supported televisions. Performance is enough, however not almost as zippy because the Nvidia Shield TV, and in contrast to many different Android TV bins, the Link Bar doesn’t have a USB port for connecting TV tuners, onerous drives, or different equipment.
The greater downside is that the Link Bar additionally doesn’t assist 60-frames-per-second video in most stay TV streaming apps, together with Hulu with Live TV and Sling TV. (Other low-cost Android TV gadgets have the identical downside.) Even worse, PlayStation Vue is unwatchable on the JBL Link Bar on account of fixed video stuttering. (Google says it’s wanting into it.) The one exception was YouTube TV, which shortly loaded channels on the increased body fee.
Jared Newman / IDGOnce hooked as much as the TV, the JBL Link Bar is like every other fundamental Android TV field—warts and all.
And whereas Android TV has made some recent strides in app assist, it’s nonetheless lacking a small variety of apps which can be out there on different platforms, together with AT&T TV Now (previously DirecTV Now), Nick Jr., and Discovery apps. Amazon Prime isn’t out there both, regardless of a latest promise by Google to roll it out on more devices, though you’ll be able to at the least use the Link Bar’s built-in Chromecast capabilities to entry the service.
Android TV does have some neat options. Google Assistant is nice at pulling in search outcomes from video apps corresponding to Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, and it may possibly additionally deal with detailed style searches, corresponding to “indie sci-fi movies” or “comedy shows from the 90s.” With the Link Bar, with the ability to execute these instructions hands-free is a pleasant contact.
Built-in Chromecast assist can also be useful for launching movies and music out of your cellphone, or for exhibiting off Google Photos albums on the massive display screen. Even the “channel rows” on the house display screen are coming together with broader app assist, so you could find issues to observe throughout Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV, and extra with out having to leap into numerous totally different apps.
Still, if you happen to’re actually into the Android TV platform, the Nvidia Shield TV stays a superior choice, with quicker efficiency, a correct Amazon Prime Video app, full 4K HDR assist, and not one of the Link Bar’s frame-rate points.
JBL Link Bar as an HDMI switcher
One of the JBL Link Bar’s greatest options is that it’s outfitted with three HDMI inputs the place most soundbars provide only one, anticipating you to plug extra gadgets into your TV and depend on ARC (audio return channel) to ship their audio on to the soundbar. If you’ve ever struggled getting ARC to work along with your Blu-ray participant or set-top field, you’ll be able to see why having three HDMI inputs on the soundbar is a vastly superior various. And not like the Link Bar’s Android TV characteristic, these HDMI inputs do assist 4K video with HDR.
What’s extra, Google Assistant responses will seem as an overlay on whichever HDMI enter is lively, so that you don’t want to modify again to the Android TV menu to see solutions to your voice instructions. You can use voice instructions to modify HDMI inputs, too.
Jared Newman / IDGGoogle Assistant on a Nintendo Switch? Nope, just a bit HDMI passthrough trickery.
I did, nonetheless, encounter a big downside utilizing the JBL Link Bar’s HDMI enter with a Nintendo Switch gaming console: Latency. I’d enterprise to guess that the speaker is performing some sort of sign processing, as a result of whereas I used to be enjoying Super Mario Bros. 3, there was noticeable lag between urgent a button on the controller and seeing Mario leap on the display screen. The recreation was nonetheless playable, nevertheless it wasn’t as responsive because it was after I had the console related on to the TV’s HDMI enter.
And that may be the workaround for any state of affairs the place latency is a matter: Plug the console immediately into the TV and depend on ARC to ship recreation audio on to the Link Bar. But you’ll most likely must fiddle along with your TV’s settings to make this work. You may additionally uncover, as I did with my Vizio TV, that the HDMI-ARC in your TV is restricted to a decrease refresh fee or 4K colour depth than its different HDMI ports. (Most TVs have a couple of HDMI port, however usually solely one in every of them has ARC.) Since the one HDMI port with ARC on my Vizio TV is restricted to a refresh fee of 30Hz, the standard of video that passes by means of the Link Bar could possibly be compromised.
It’s additionally price noting that the JBL Link Bar’s distant management can’t management your different gadgets. You can use it—or a voice command—to regulate the quantity or change inputs, however you’ll want to select up a separate distant to make use of your cable field, DVD participant, or secondary streaming gadget. If managing a number of inputs with one distant is the objective, a tool just like the Caavo Control Center or a common distant such because the Logitech Harmony (or the Alexa-powered Harmony Express) will likely be a greater match.
Jared Newman / IDGAlthough you’ll be able to change inputs with the JBL Link Bar distant, you’ll be able to’t management different gadgets with it.
JBL Link Bar because the sum of its elements
Granted, the JBL Link Bar is cheaper than the overall invoice for all of the gadgets it goals to switch (specifically, a soundbar, a sensible speaker, and an Android TV field). The Sonos Beam prices the identical, for instance, however you’ll must spend anyplace from $40 for a Roku Streaming Stick to $180 for an Nvidia Shield TV. And the Beam doesn’t include a distant in any respect (you’re anticipated to make use of voice instructions or your smartphone to manage it).
But a $400 soundbar that forces you to decide on between counting on ARC and compromising video high quality, or placing up with latency whereas gaming; one that may’t ship HDR video streaming; a speaker that doesn’t assist optionally available wi-fi surrounds; and a Chromecast speaker that doesn’t assist multi-room audio in any capability is simply not a superb worth.
Google and JBL introduced the JBL Link Bar a full 15 months in the past. One wouldn’t solely anticipate that these points would have been ironed out by now, however that the speaker would assist new applied sciences which have come to the fore within the meantime, together with eARC (enhanced audio return channel, which provides assist for 5.1 audio, Dolby True HD, and DTS Master Audio). (For the document, the Bose Soundbar 500 helps eARC, however the Sonos Beam doesn’t.)
Now Google did say again in May 2018 that the JBL Link Bar can be the primary in a collection of hybrid soundbars. Let’s hope future efforts are better than the sums of their elements.