The Trek BellBeats combine two popular bike accessories, a portable bluetooth speaker and a bike bell, into one clever product. It’s an odd mashup that uses a high quality speaker for streaming audio with a convenient trigger to let people know you are approaching. Retail price of the BellBeats is $124.99 which includes a handlebar mount and eight pre-programmed bell sounds. Trek has also incorporated an ergonomic bell trigger with short and long press options with individually programmable modes. The BellBeats also has a 650mAh battery with a USB-C charging port that is rated for up to six hour continuous music runtime. It’s also easy to check the battery status with a four LED battery gauge.
The Trek BellBeats is a digital bike bell that combines a loud Bluetooth portable speaker with customizable bike bell options.
| Retail Price | $124.99 |
| Rating | 8.8 / 10 |
| Measured Weight (in g) | 63 (bell), 36 (handlebar mount), 9 (clip) |
| Likes | + Dual bell modes which can be customized separately + Unique bell sounds and music streaming mode + Ergonomic bell trigger and simple music controls |
| Dislikes | – Premium price for a bike bell – Music sounds flat compared to dedicated speakers |
| Where to Buy (US) | Trek |
UNBOXING
The Trek BellBeats comes in a compact white and black cardboard box with a glossy graphic of the bell on the outside. It’s a two-piece design with an outer paper sleeve and an inner structure to hold the bell and parts. Once you slide off the outer cover you’ll find:
- BellBeats bell
- Handlebar mount + rubber shims
- Allen key
- Belt clip
- USB-C charging cable
Trek includes all the shims you’d need for different handlebar mounts from commuter bikes to road bikes.
MOUNTING
The Trek BellBeats surprisingly is not Blendr compatible and uses its own handlebar mount with a tab design. It’s a simple slide-on design with a release button to make it easy to install or remove the bell from the mount. The handlebar mount itself is a standard single hinged clamp that is compatible with 25-31.8mm handlebars. Trek includes a number of shims to accommodate different bike setups and uses a standard Allen bolt attachment to secure the mount. What is clever about the design is that the bell trigger is actually part of the handlebar mount and not the speaker. That means you can remove the speaker from the mount and retain a compact form factor while the trigger and clamp stays with the mount. Pressing the trigger extends a small piece on the top side of the mount which pushes on the red bell button on the bottom side of the mount. Trek also includes a clip attachment which lets you attach the speaker to backpacks or clothing when you are not on the bike.
FIT & FINISH
The Trek BellBeats at first glance looks like a standard portable speaker with a round design and thin profile. Trek has taken this design and paired it with a custom handlebar mount and convenient controls to make it easy to use while riding. The bell is mostly plastic with a black semi-gloss exterior with perforations on the front of the speaker. Branding is limited to a ghosted Trek logo on the front and BellBeats on the side for a sleek appearance. On the backside of the bell you’ll find a rubber cover for the USB-C charging port. Along the front you have a four LED indicator that displays battery status and Bluetooth volume.
Below the indicator are three buttons, up/down and a play button that are used for streaming music and configuring the sounds. There is also a red button slightly below these buttons which is used to trigger the bell sounds and is activated by the ergonomic trigger. Trek has also worked with Harman to optimize the audio which means the Trek BellBeats not only sounds good with music but has a crisp bell sound instead of the fire-alarm like sound most digital bike bells have. The bell has a two piece design with a slide-on tab style mount that attaches the bell to the handlebar mount and bell trigger.
USER INTERFACE
The user interface of the Trek BellBeats is easy to use but a bit confusing to use to customize sounds as all the configuration is done directly on the device. Holding the play button turns the bell on or off with a soothing audio startup and shutdown clips. The four LEDs only show the battery status when the bell is on which means you cannot check the status with the bell off as you can with the Trek Commuter Pro light. Trek has designed the bell to have two different modes, a standard mode with a short press of the trigger and an extended mode with a long hold. You can select which sound you want for each mode separately using the sound select mode. The horn comes programmed with 6 sounds that can be used in either mode: train steam whistle, old car horn, short bell, Mexican la cucaracha horn, long bell, and a race start “call to post” horn. There are also two looping bell sound options that can only be used in the long press bell mode.
To program the sounds you hold the play and trigger button down together until the indicators flash white. Then you can cycle through the options with the plus/minus buttons, replay a sound with the trigger or select the sound with the play button. Once you’ve selected the sound you can then choose the long press sound using the same controls. To use the Trek BellBeats as a speaker you just have to pair it with your phone with the BellBeats automatically entering pairing mode on startup or by pressing the plus, minus or play buttons.
The plus/minus buttons on the speaker can be used to adjust volume of streaming music or double pressed to skip or restart songs which is similar to the controls headphones offer. Hitting the trigger button while streaming audio also pauses the audio and plays the horn which means you can ride with music and still use the horn functionality seamlessly. Finally, there is also a demo mode that can be activated by holding the play and plus buttons while the bell is off. In this mode pressing the trigger button will cycle through all the bell sounds which is convenient for store display models.
RIDING IMPRESSIONS
To be honest, we were a bit confused the first time we hear about the Trek BellBeats electric bike bells. It’s a product with no real competition as far as we can tell as it’s an unusual combination of electronic bike bell and speaker. We’ve reviewed a number of electronic bike horns like the Hornit dB140 and even the combo Ravemen NT101 bike taillight / horn and have disappointed by the artificial / chirp-like sounds they produce. They simply couldn’t reprodue the crisp sound of a classic brass bell to our ears. The Trek BellBeat’s high quality speaker does a much better job and produces a clean bell sound that is much closer to a real bell and it’s loud enough that people hear you approaching. The standard bell options all sound great and received a positive reaction when we used them on busy roads.
With the more adventurous sounds like the car horn and Mexican la cucaracha horn we received confused looks instead of the normal response of moving over with a typical bell. It captures peoples attention as the sound is fairly loud, but they may not get the reaction you’d expect. We also appreciated the two piece design which allowed us to use the speaker around the house to play music without any awkward bike-specific attachments. Trek’s claimed 6 hour runtime is more than enough and only used a fraction of the battery even after two hours of music streaming. The speaker lacks the deep bass tones or higher frequencies that a high-definition speaker or in-ear headphone offer which leaves the music a bit flat but still sounds good. It’s also not loud enough to be obnoxious for other people around you, but we’d still recommend not using it on busy trails.
THE VERDICT
Overall, we found the Trek BellBeats to be a clever and fun bike bell and speaker combination. Trek has taken a compact portable Bluetooth speaker design and paired it with a handlebar mount with an ergonomic trigger. The BellBeats lets you choose between 8 different bell sounds from standard bells to more unusual sounds like steam whistles and the “call to post” made popular by horse racing. We were impressed with the clarity of the speaker which produces brass-bell like sounds instead of the smoke alarm / chirp sounds we associate with electronic horns. The BellBeats is also easy to use as a speaker and horn at the same time with separate controls and the well placed trigger. Although we don’t recommend riding with it as a speaker on crowded trails, the versatile design and two-piece design lets you use the BellBeats off the bike. As far as negatives, the BellBeats is fairly expensive and doesn’t have the deep bass or higher frequency audio of dedicated portable speakers. That said, the Trek BellBeats is an innovative product that offers an easy to use bell with some unique sound options.
Disclaimer: The product for this review was provided by Trek. The views expressed on this website are solely those of the authors and are here to help people make an informed choice before a purchase. The authors or the blog itself does not get any monetary compensation from the product manufacturer or third-party websites/vendor links that are posted here.