Do you remember in years gone by, long before the age of the smartphone, the height of slumber breaking technology was the radio alarm clock which provided the ability to wake you up via either a local MW Radio station or a screeching buzzer #gooddays.
Then the smartphone came along and we enjoyed a shift as a society as we started to get woken up by polyphonic ring tones, well now you can get the best of both worlds with the KitSound XDock 4+ Bluetooth Speaker Dock.
Choose your start to the day
The theory behind alarm clocks hasn’t changed over time, you set a time that you want to wake up and then press snooze 5 times when the clock wakes you up, what has changed is the selection of output you can select to wake you up.
You can still tune the alarm clock to your favourite FM radio station, or choose a rather effective buzzer, but now you can also choose inputs from Bluetooth, Aux or directly from your iPhone’s music library.
Setting up the device was straight forward, simply dock your iPhone and the time is automatically set, and the bright screen is very easy to read. It’s worth keeping the manual handy so that you can reference which buttons set the time, tunes the radio and switch audio mode, but you’ll soon get the hang of it.
A Dock for your iPhone
Whilst the KitSound XDock 4+ Bluetooth Speaker Dock is styled to look like an old school alarm clock, the addition of a front mounted lightning connector merges the old with the new. The XDock 4+ will happily act as a charging point for your iPhone and act as a speaker for your stored music, in addition the sound quality isn’t bad with it’s 1.5″ speakers delivering 3W of sound, not as good as dedicated speakers but pretty good as a bedside speaker.
There are a few areas where the XDock could be improved, firstly with a sturdy case on my iPhone 6s I found it awkward to dock my phone, even though it has a moveable lightning connector, it really needed some fiddling to get the phone in the correct position , and as this is an Apple focused device a place to charge your Apple Watch might have been a great touch.
For £60 I would also have prefered a little more solid build quality, after all this is the bit of tech I own that is most likely to be launched across the room
A Return to Trusted Technology
Since my iPhone replaced just about everything else in my tech life, I lost touch with a lot of useful gadgets, the KitSound XDock4+ has put a radio and actual clock back in my bedroom, which it turns out I’ve missed, although not necessarily when it wakes me up when it’s still dark outside.
Like most modern technology you don’t need a KitSound XDock 4+ Bluetooth Speaker Dock but it makes life a little better.
You can purchase the KitSound XDock 4+ for £50 here
