JBL Horizon

Almost perfect. But – I have had the clock for a year. Great Bluetooth speaker. Its a clock. One really major bugbear. The alarm snooze function can't be changed or cancelled. So you wake to music, then it turns off, then on, then off etc. Only get halfway through the news then it turns off. Show details

Worst alarm clock – True fact is when the lighting is low the clock has an auto dimmer which u can’t adjust, if u wake in the night or early morning u can’t see the time, absolutely pointless and expensive Show details

A Frustrating start to Everyday! – I love the sound quality of JBL. I did purchase a Bluetooth Charge 3 speaker for my Daughter, the sound is gorgeous. Even music I don’t really like sounds nice. Good Points: 1. Sound is good, doesn't compare to the Charge 3 understandably as it does not have a bass speaker. Very acceptable for a clock radio though. 2. Looks pretty snazzy,… Read more

nice design.

3. Large display easy to read without glasses on.

4. Ambient Light feature slowly illuminates when alarm comes on, in conjunction with soft guitar strumming alarm choice, a pleasant wake up rather than the offensive harassment of some alarm sounds!

Bad Points:

1. During alarm snooze period, Turning on the ambient light is not possible, this is usually turned on by pressing the snooze button.

2. To turn the alarm off when you get up you need to turn the room light on as you cant use the ambient light, as there is no tactile feel for most of the buttons on this unit. You need to actually see what button to turn off as you cannot feel them. Very annoying when your half asleep & cant focus clearly.

3. And Very annoying to your partner turning lights on so you can turn the alarm off.

Frustrating, annoying, poorly thought out. Once again a product that doesn’t appear to have been real world tested!

The display is what sold me – I have trouble sleeping when there’s too much light in the room and have gone through 3 clock radios in the past 2 years or so because I couldn’t stand how bright their displays were. Even the ones with adjustable display settings were too bright on the lowest setting. The one I had before this allowed me to turn off the display which I did and… Read more

then reached over to turn it on with the press of a button, turning it on to read the time in a completely dark room felt like looking directly into a laserbeam and I ended up just sitting up and checking my phone which really defeats the purpose of having a clock!

I spent hours on the internet looking for a clock with a dimmer display and this was one of them. I read the reviews written by others and to my surprise I kept seeing other people saying it was TOO dim. I couldn’t imagine that being possible. In a pitch black room you dont need much light to tell the time, I decided that I’d try it out myself.

I wanted the white version Because I thought it looked more modern, they only had the black in stock so I settled for that, it’s actually still quite nice looking in person and I’m glad I got it.

Now to address the display brightness! For night time viewing it is absolutely perfect. Its like it’s barely lit, I dont know how they make it show up in the dark while it doesn’t even appear to ‘glow’ I suppose its lit with the faintest of light, to the point where it almost doesn’t look like light yet you can read it easily in the dark. For day time viewing however.... not so great. The clock has an ambient light sensor on the FRONT, so if your clock sits in front of a window or as mine does, in front of wall-mounted light panels, it will not detect the correct amount of light since most of the light is coming from behind it. You can fix this by using ceiling lights or moving the clock to a different position but for me the only position I could have it in and still see it from bed was this one. I have considered rearranging my bedroom to have my bed facing a different way but so far the fact that the display doesn’t show up very well during day time hours isn’t a huge problem because I also have a wall clock and I wear a watch upon waking. It is strange that they’d put the light sensor on the front of the clock and then add a ‘lamp’ to the back of the clock, I find that even using that little lamp can make the clock display a tad difficult to read because of incorrect light detection but I LOVE that it has a sleep timer for the lamp. I will turn it on, press the ‘moon’ once for 5 minutes (twice for 15 etc) and then I can lie down and get comfortable in bed and have the lamp turn itself off, that has become one of my favourite features.

The sound is very good, I use it for listening to the radio quite regularly, the radio reception is crisp and clean even with the antenna hanging down behind my tallboy. I use the usb port to charge my phone overnight, its not quite as fast as apples charger but I know that slow charging is actually much healthier for my phones battery so overnight that is how it is charged, if I need some juice in a hurry though I will use my iPad charger as it’ll give me more charge, faster.

I used the Bluetooth a couple of times and it seemed ok, I have a big sony speaker dock which I tend to use if I want to listen to my phones music so I cant say much about that.

Overall I am happy to have this clock, I have finally found a display that wont light up half my bedroom every night or blind me when I want to know the time!

Great Bluetooth speaker and alarm clock that I love using. Clear display – I was very concerned about this product after reading the mixed to negative reviews of it but I actually love it! The main issue users seem to be having is the automated dimming feature. I have had no troubles with this at all. JBL may have made changes to the feature upon widespread criticism so that late 2017 manufactured devices work… Read more

perfectly. Display dims at nighttime and is perfectly clear... not too dim at all. If you find it too bright, you can hold down the "sleep" button on the right for 2 seconds and the display will turn off completely. In the day, the display brightens and is clear to read. I was waiting for the display to dim to "difficult to read" level but it stayed clear throughout all times of the night in the dark and with differing ceiling and lamp light conditions and combinations.

Bluetooth is easy to connect. Just hold down Bluetooth button for 2 seconds to pair with Bluetooth enabled device.

The ambient night light is a great feature and the alarm tones are amazing so you can choose less abrupt tones. I saw users complaining of alarm volume (which starts low then increases over time) escalating to a much too loud volume, however, it only increases to the volume that has been set. e.g. If you have it set on max volume of 15 it will go super loud but if you leave it set to volume 5 it'll only escalate to that set volume of 5.

The vertical nature of this product is great because it gives you a lot more space on the bedside table.

The USB chargers are good to have and are especially handy to use with a 2-metre charging cable.

The problem with this product is that the manual is poor. That seems to be why there are so many mixed reviews because some simple instructions on how to best use the product would greatly enhance the user experience and meet users' basic expectations.

Fabulous Functionality – Bluetooth works great and speakers are immensely clear. Multiple alarm functionality also useful. Would definitely buy again if needed. When the speaker became faulty the JBL customer service agent was able to get the product replaced for free under warranty which was super helpful. Great Job JBL Show details

This Clock radio is the balls – This is the best clock radio I have ever owned I would recommend it to anyone, easy to use and has a built-in light. It’s totally worth the price I paid  Show details

Stylish and sounds great – Just arrived and couldn’t be happier. Stylish alarm clock with great speakers. Bonus is I can now unplug my phone charger and charge the phone through the clock. Time will tell how long it will last but for now it’s great. FM radio is extremely clear . Would highly recommend for those who like to listen to music with great sound while laying in bed. Love the Bluetooth option.  Show details

Only good thing about it was the sound,digital time and light.Good luck trying to locate the buttons – Received as gift for Christmas.Died after 6 months.Contacted JBL who refused to replace or repair as I didn’t have a receipt of purchase!Now will throw it in the bin and no interest in JBL products in future. Show details

Many design faults for an expensive item – The sound quality and bluetooth are great, but as a functional clock radio its a complete failure. - the display is impossible to read most of the time as it automatically adjusts to the light conditions and here is no way to manually adjust this, its always far too dull to read - there is no sleep function, ridiculous for an expensive item - the… Read more

radio buttons are tiny and impossible to see/ feel in the dark

If you are looking for a bluetooth speaker its fine, if you actually need a clock radio that works properly look elsewhere.

Very disappointed. Don't buy JBL Horizon as a clock/radio – JBL Horizon has a bad feature that volume keeps increasing when alarm triggers. This makes this product unusable for me as it gets so load that the whole household gets awake. I just want to wake up to radio at a low volume so I can catch morning news, events etc. Show details

Not a clock! – Bought this yesterday and have already thrown it out. Bought it for it's large bright display so we could see the time at night. However, at night the display dims to a blurred dull level that is totally unreadable, even close up. Also discovered there is no AM radio, and it only works on power, not battery. What an expensive clock that is not fit for purpose. PS. Harvey Norman were good enough to give me a refund today....legends. Show details

Was sold down the river on this one! – We went in looking for an alarm/music player that would withstand a power outage (I.e. backup batteries), and we were told this is the best one for that. Bought it home, the sound quality was adequate, moderate maximum volume, nice basic LED display, we were pretty happy. Power outage - nothing could be used. When we read the instruction booklet,… Read more

the battery inside only compensates enough for alarm clock to keep running! Very dissapointed as was using it as a music / backup display light as my husband is a shift worker and I wanted something for the nights I lose power home alone. The buttons aren’t overly responsive, the layout is a bit confusing, the light can sometimes go on or off by itself or very delayed. Will be looking for another product that ticks more boxes.

Expensive and Very Disappointing – Very disappointed with this purchase and expected much better from JBL. The sound on it is amazing and loved the auto dimming of the display and the night light. Apart from that not very impressive considering how expensive it was in comparison to other alarm clocks on the market. However after 8 months of owing it the screen started randomly… Read more

disappear completely. After 2 weeks of testing after I sent it back as it was under warranty they finally admitted it was faulty and gave me a refund as they have apparently just stopped making this model and could not offer a replacement. You also could not wake up to music when you set the alarm and have to have the chime - there was no choice. Was also hard to find the 'buttons' on the top of the unit as they were all on a flat surface and not protruding which meant many times you could not find the button you were after (especially when in the dark).

Worst user interface EVER – The user interface is extremely convoluted. The buttons have multiple functions, which means that one wrong move when attempting to turn the alarm off puts the thing into a different mode and leads the user into a battle to silence the radio, which is now blaring at full volume. Sure, it wakes you up, but leaves you cranky. Multiple function… Read more

buttons may work well when the user is awake and alert, but is a disaster for anyone who is still half asleep. Good sound, nice styling, but it will probably go into the pool one morning. It has already come close a couple of times.

Defective power cords class action – My coworkers and I purchased 4 of these less than 2 years ago - all of the power cords failed within one year. JBL replaced them as under warranty and they all failed again. Now JBL claims that the warranty expired and we are out of luck. I am going to commence a class action since this is a known defect that they are concealing - if interested in participating please respond here Show details

FM Alarm volume not adjustable :( – Nice looking clock with good sound but if you want to use the FM station to wake up to it escalates to an uncomfortable high volume after maybe 30 seconds and there is no way to turn it down when in alarm mode. I have tried to find a way to adjust the FM alarm level only to find on the reviews many have the same complaint with no answers. What is… Read more

the point of having a nice sounding JBL system if you have to turn it off right away and can't listen to the news or music for awhile before getting up. Pretty much blasts you out of bed and will wake up the entire house., this is the first radio alarm I have owned that you can't set the wake up volume to your choice. Disappointing for a JBL product.

Display illumination too DIM – I will be returning this product. The display is not bright enough to see at night. The worst user manual I have ever seen. I contacted JBL customer service 3 times and NO REPLY. Harmon Kardon should make a better product in this JBL line of Alarm clocks. I am very disappointed, Show details

Overpriced – Impossible to see the time - bought this as a desk clock (the salesperson suggested this model) and it is useless. The back light stays on for a few seconds and then you need a torch to be able to see the time. Spent hours googling this issue to find others have the same problem. Taking it back tomorrow. Show details

Terrible Alarm Clock – My experience with this product. I purchased this JBL HORIZON alarm clock just recently from JBHIFI as it looked great and was told the sound is unbelievable for a clock radio. But could not test it in the store before purchasing it. Well its way over priced. Totally disappointed in it. I have this sitting on my fridge cant see the time unless I… Read more

shine a torch on it during the night totally useless. The alarm sound is awful cant hear it at all too soft doesn't even wake us up. The buttons should be raised so you can feel them without having to turn lights on.

The only thing this has going for itself is it sounds great and this is honest review. I have to find my receipt as its not on my phone. Sorry I cant give a higher star rating than what I have chosen poor design for an expensive alarm clock

Some frustrations – The night light on the back is far too bright and needs a dimmer or settings option. The buttons would be easier to use if they were slightly raised so one can feel them and press them without putting a bedside light on. Sometimes the volume button plays up and just turns into setting the date.  Show details

Excellent Alarm clock and speaker – Most people who complain about the product haven't bothered to read the instructions. It is simple to use and a fantastic product. Volume is adjustable, bluetooth works, and I like waking up the the soft acoustic sound that starts gently - makes a much less aggressive way to wake up.  Show details

Radio reception terrible – I bought two JBL Clock Radios after using one in hotel I thought it to be really good. I used Bluetooth and that worked well. But when I got unit's home I found the reception was so poor I could only get a couple of stations and they are not the stations that I listen to. I'm not just disappointed I'm really upset about it.  Show details

Can't turn the alarm off – My husband bought this for me for Xmas. It looked amazing and the Bluetooth feature was very enticing. However, I realised once I went back to work that there were issues. Once the alarm goes off you need to press 2 buttons to turn the bloody thing off, neither of which can be sensed by touch! This means you have to turn the damn light on to see… Read more

what the hell you are doing. Bad design. Very expensive and now can't return it as no longer have the box or docket!

Christmas present – My husband bought me a JBL Horizon Bluetooth ambient light alarm clock for Christmas! I was so excited! It worked great for about 3 weeks. Now I can barely hear anything. Have no idea how to go about getting it replaced because I don’t have a receipt or packaging! $100 alarm clock should last longer than 3 weeks!  Show details

Does everything well except the one critical thing a clock needs to do – A large display (very rare) and very solid, quality look and feel which far surpassed all other similar products. Excellent selection of tone alarm options (alternative to music) one of which is a gently strummed guitar, which starts off very soft and increases to your chosen volume. By all accounts looks like a great product. Unfortunately the… Read more

review by Lochanora is accurate. If anything the problem with display brightness is understated. Ironically this product's positive features are so good that they serve to make it all the more disappointing; it simply fails in the one task that is essential. A clock which doesn't tell the time doesn't deserve even one star but you can't pick zero.

If you don't want to know the time - this clock is what you want – I normally consider myself a cautious buyer and generally take time and check out most products that I buy. However, I bought a JBL Horizon alarm clock radio thinking that it’s an alarm clock – what could go wrong. Regrettably, this alarm clock is useless. Basically, in theory it all works but in practice it has one major failing – I can’t use… Read more

the clock to tell the time most if the night!

The clock has an auto dimming feature that makes the display bright during the day so that it can be seen in the daytime brightness. This works well and can easily been seen during the day. It then is supposed to have a dimmed display at night so that it is not too bright.

The night display, unfortunately, is very, very dim and as a result it can only be seen from a very narrow viewing angle. I have found that at night, the only way I can see the clock display is to pick the clock up and hold it directly in front of my face.

Even in the early hours of the day, when the sun is already up, the clock still remains on its night display setting and is impossible to see the display at all. It will finally go to its bright day display if I open the blinds and allow in more sunlight.

I see that many people have complained about this feature even to the extent that one user has posted a YouTube video to show how to bypass the auto-dimming feature. Unfortunately, to do this requires disassembling the clock.

I have to wonder if any testing went into this clock – surely, they would have given it to some people and let them use it for a few days to get some feedback. It only took me one day to realise how impractical this clock is.

This is the first time I have bought a JBL product. Well, I will never forget the name now and can say that this will be the absolute last time I will ever go anywhere near a product that has JBL name on it.

For anyone considering this product, I can only recommend that you get something else. This alarm clock radio is an absolute waste.

busted – I dont know what happened to my alarm clock... it worked perfectly for almost a year then 1 day the bluetooth stopped working. then next the alarm wont turn on. now i have already called customer support, reset the device, and asked them to replace it without any luck because I bought it from a store that I cant go back too.. . Im cant recommend… Read more

this brand anymore unfortunately after this experience. Spending over $100 on an alarm clock for it to work less than 1 year is not acceptable... I guess I have to find another brand that will take care of its customers a little better.

Disappointing - very short life for price point – Purchased Sept 2015 - product display died Sept 2017. At $150 I would expect a product at this level to last more than 2 years. Total waste of money as it can not be used. I have a cheap $10 one that has lasted 10 years. I contacted them and was told to find a repairer myself. Pretty arrogant to be charging this kind of money for such a short… Read more

life. Will be cheaper to buy another brand than it will to get this fixed.

Will never touch this brand for any product again given the poor performance and customer service.

Cannot adjust the length of time alarm sounds – My wife and I like to wake to our favourite radio show. But with this new clock, alarm (radio) turns on and then automatically off after only 3 minutes. Then occasionally turns back on. Thus is really inconvenient. I contacted the help desk on the Australian website and was told to read the instructions... Very unhelpful indeed. So I did again… Read more

but they are so basic that they didn't help one bit. I don't think there is a solution. I'm sorry I bought this expensive clock now.