Amazon Echo Flex: It’s Not What You Consider
Amazon has all these crazy ideas to help Alexa reach anywhere and everywhere if it could get some electrical connection. Yes, Alexa is one of the omnipresent creatures on earth, and all thanks to the new Amazon Echo Flex speaker. Do you consider it a smart speaker and wish it to hum your favorite tunes? Drop it, please!
There’s already so much in the world that would help you get the best taste of music and you can refer to my previous blogs for that. Amazon Echo Flex has some different purpose to achieve and let us know a bit about it here.
Design and Setup:
Amazon Echo Flex is a small and compact, plug-in smart speaker with built-in Alexa support and weighs a mere 150 grams. Yes, you read that right. On the front of the device, there are standard Echo “Action” and mic-muting buttons and an indicator light above them that wakes up when Alexa is listening. A pair of flanking microphone holes also reside just in the small box. Beneath the buttons, there are a couple of small speaker ports an there is also a 3.5mm line-out jack that sits on the right side of the device.
All this, still in a very compact design for a device that is roughly the size of a USB wall adapter. There are no volume controls that take you down to the conclusion that you either need to ask Alexa or finger the Alexa app to adjust the Flex’s volume.
On the bottom, there us a USB Type-A charging port, which can deliver up to 7.5 watts of charging power for a smartphone or other compatible device.
Setting up of the device is one of the cakewalks. If you have other Echo devices at home, Amazon Echo Flex is no different to set up and could connect to your home wi-fi easily. Plus, you can use the Alexa app to install and control it anytime, anywhere.
Features and Uses:
Amazon Echo Flex is advertised as a smart speaker. Well, it is powered by a MediaTek chipset inside it which takes care of the connectivity and makes sure that Alexa responds to your calls in a moment. In functionality, it is hardly different against, say, Amazon Echo Dot. However, it is still not a speaker to help you soothe your nerves with some calm music.
In fact, you would not like the sound quality, even if it produces your favorite tune.
However, you can plug it in your kitchen or the hallway and you can ask Alexa to perform a wide range of duties, from checking on the weather conditions for the day and reciting sports scores of your favorite team to turning on your lights and enabling “Guard” mode (which can surely keep you vigilant if you miss out on any sound in the house).
The device can be paired with an external Bluetooth speaker or even a wired external speaker using the 3.5mm audio jack. Plus, if you need a moment of privacy, just press the mic mute button. Also, use the Action button to silence the alarms or reset the device.
Amazon has already made it wide clear, saying clearly in the product description that the Flex’s 0.6-inch speaker has “not been optimized for music playback.” So you hardly have a bone to pick about the quality of its sound output, especially at $25.
However, if you really want to play music on the Echo Flex, pair it with a Bluetooth speaker or plug it into a wired speaker via the 3.5mm audio jack. Or, just request it to play music on another Echo device or a speaker group, that’s it.
Amazon Echo Flex certainly has a lot of capability as compared to its size and I think this is one really good option to be connected with Alexa at almost every place you wish.
