Amazon Echo Flex

Alexa in a plug socket. No cable, no shelf space, nothing standing on a surface. The Amazon Echo Flex goes into a socket in a hallway, a garage, a storeroom or a landing and puts a voice assistant in the parts of the house nobody wants a speaker in.

• Where an Amazon Echo Flex goes that a speaker will not
• The small speaker is a deliberate choice, not a compromise
• The USB port on the front is what makes it interesting
• Announcements are the real use in a large house
• The details

Where an Amazon Echo Flex goes that a speaker will not

The hallway. The landing at the top of the stairs. The garage, the store room, the back corridor, the utility area. All places where a voice assistant would be genuinely useful and where nobody is going to give up a surface, run a cable and dust around a speaker. This plugs into the socket that is already there and takes up no room at all, which is why people end up with three or four of them.

The small speaker is a deliberate choice, not a compromise

Be clear about this before you buy. It is built for asking, telling and announcing: turn the lights on, set a timer, what time is it, is it going to rain. It is not built for listening to an album, and putting one in a sitting room and expecting music will disappoint you. If music is the point, the Dot or the Echo are the products; this is the one that goes where those do not fit.

The USB port on the front is what makes it interesting

A USB-A socket, which powers Amazon clip on accessories such as a motion sensor or a night light. That turns a passage socket into a motion triggered light with a voice assistant in it, from one plug. When nothing is clipped on, the same port charges a phone, so a Flex in a bedroom doubles as the bedside charger.

Announcements are the real use in a large house

Say one thing and it comes out of every Echo in the building at once. In a house with a garden, an outbuilding or three floors, that replaces shouting and it replaces sending somebody to look for somebody. Drop in works the other way too, so you can call the kitchen from the office.

The details

One button cuts the microphone electrically. It controls compatible smart devices by voice, joins the multi room and announcement group with any other Echo, and has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. There is nothing to mount and nothing to plug in beyond the socket itself.

If you want the same assistant with a speaker worth listening to, look at the Echo Dot, or the Echo 4th Gen for a room you actually play music in. Wikipedia keeps the full range history.