Flex Best Thing Amazon Echo Flex

A tiny wire-free smart speaker for your wall sockets, this is the smallest Alexa smart speaker yet

Looking for something small and cheap to control your smart home, but don’t need a fully fledged speaker? With the Amazon Echo Flex, you can have Alexa everywhere and anywhere from the hallway to your bedside or even out in the garage. You won’t need a table to place it on and messy cables won’t get in your way; it just plugs directly into your wall socket.

Measuring 22.5 x 14.6 x 10.1cm, the Amazon Echo Flex looks more like a smart plug than a smart speaker. It has a small blue light to let you know when Alexa is listening and there’s a microphone mute button. Above that, the multifunction button can put Alexa in setup mode or activate the microphone. Admittedly, the latter seems a little pointless because you can just say ‘Alexa’ to activate the smart assistant. On the underside, you’ll find a USB port to expand Alexa’s capabilities or to charge your devices.

Like any Amazon Echo device, setting up the Amazon Echo Flex is easy. Just plug it into a power socket, make sure your phone has Bluetooth switched on and then open the Alexa app. It’ll automatically prompt you to set up the device, you’ll just need to tap through the steps. The app will do the rest for you. It took us less than three minutes to get it up and running.

Given it’s so small with an equally miniature speaker, the sound on the Amazon Echo Flex isn’t great. In fact, it’s very tinny. You won’t get much in the way of volume either so you’ll need to be close by to hear Alexa’s responses.