Shulou(Shulou.com)05/31 Report--

In the past few years, I have installed smart speakers in the bathroom to play music and podcasts in the shower and get the weather forecast for the day when brushing my teeth. Because my bathroom is very small and there is no good place for speakers, I used one of the many available plastic brackets and installed them directly on the wall socket.

Amazon's Echo Flex seems to be designed to meet my needs: it's a small Echo speaker that plugs directly into a wall outlet, so you can install it in the bathroom, kitchen, hallway or anywhere else without a speaker shelf, but you still need a voice control assistant. In addition, the $24.99 Flex (although it often sells for less than $20) has an USB port that charges the phone and accepts additional modules to extend its functionality. Two additional components are currently available: motion detectors and nightlights, each priced at $14.99 (about $12).

But after testing my Echo Flex in the past week or so, I found that it can't completely replace the smart speakers in the bathroom. Instead, it fills a very special area of smart speaker requirements.

Advantages:

Small size.

Plug into the wall outlet.

Low price

Add-ins are acceptable.

Disadvantages:

The sound quality is too poor.

The volume is not very loud.

Add-ins are now limited to two.

It's much cheaper than Echo Dot.

Like all other echo speakers, Flex has a microphone that can be monitored at any time, so you can use the power of Alexa with simple voice commands. There are two on Flex-- less than seven you can find on Echo Dot, but they can hear my orders, about 10 feet away.

In any case, you should at least be close to Flex, because the 0.6-inch "mini speaker" is not loud enough to be heard in the whole room. There is no Echo Dot or Nest Mini sound quality in Flex voice response or music. I think this may actually be worse than the original Echo Dot. It sounds like a jar full of angry bees. Needless to say, it is not functional enough to listen to any sound in the shower.

Admittedly, the Flex can be connected to larger speakers via 3.5mm cables or Bluetooth connections for better sound quality, but this adds complexity and equipment level, masking the minimalist charm of the Flex.

There is a USB port at the bottom of the Echo Flex that can charge your phone or power add-ons such as night lights. It can also be plugged into larger speakers through a 3.5mm cable.

You can change the color of the night light to various shadows in the Alexa application.

So if Flex is not a great music speaker, what are the benefits of it? Because it has the ability to accept additional modules, you can use it as an action detector to trigger smart lights and Alexa routines, or as night lights in dark corridors or other spaces.

The smart night light behaves as you expect: when the light in the room is insufficient, it turns on; when the sun rises or you turn on the light in the room, it turns off. You can also change its light color into various shadows through the Alexa app. If you want purple (or green or red, etc.) Night light, it doesn't matter.

For people who use smart home devices, motion detectors may be more interesting. You can use it to turn on the lights in your room, turn them off after a period of inactivity, or run other more complex routines set up in the Alexa application. Unlike battery-powered motion detectors from companies such as Hue and SmartThings, Flex sensors are fixed in place and need to be placed on an electrical outlet. This can lead to placement and vision problems. You need a wall socket that is not behind the furniture or unknown to make it really useful.

The Motion detector add-in allows you to control smart lights or trigger Alexa routines when motion is detected.

The motion detector will encounter other problems. Sometimes, even if the blue light on the device indicates that motion is detected, it will not trigger the light. The delay is much longer than the hue motion detector I use. When I enter the room, it usually takes a few seconds to turn on the light. But Flex doesn't need a hub, so if you only want to use a single motion detector for a room, it's easier to install than Hue. Those with more complex smart homes should use Hue or SmartThings systems for motion control because they provide other functions, such as temperature measurement, that Alexa applications do not provide on their platforms.

Now, every smart device requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before it can be used-- this is a contract that no one has really read. We cannot read and analyze every agreement. However, we will start counting the number of times you must click "agree" to use the device when viewing the device, because these protocols are agreements that most people will never be able to negotiate without reading them.

To use Amazon Echo Flex, you need to download iOS and Android Alexa apps. You need an Amazon account to log in. To register for one of these accounts, you must agree to the terms of use.

After that, the Alexa application asks which device you want to connect to. You know, once you click on the device, you agree to all the mandatory terms. In Amazon's own words: "through this program, you agree to Amazon's terms of use and all terms found here."

You can browse the documents on this link, but the documents you must browse are listed below.

12 agreed terms:

Special envoy of Alexa

Terms and conditions

Conditions of use of Amazon

Amazon Privacy Policy

Disclosure of children's privacy

Amazon Prime clause

Amazon Music terms of use

Kindle Store terms of use

Conditions for the use of audio services

Amazon Dash replenishment terms of use

Amazon FreeTime Unlimited terms and conditions and Kindle FreeTime Unlimited terms and conditions

Amazon Photos terms of use

Terms of use of Amazon equipment

Final count: 13 mandatory agreements

Overall, the Flex is best suited for users who want to place voice-controlled access points (or possibly motion detectors) in specific locations where you cannot place more traditional speakers. If you are suited to that narrow use case, then Flex may well meet your needs. However, most people looking for cheap smart speakers should stick to Echo Dot or Nest Mini.

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