Ninety7 Vaux Speaker gives Alexa a louder voice Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ Low-cost PC gets a tasty upgrade

Free Alexa!

Amazon’s Echo Dot is a bit of a bargain, providing the same Alexa voice assistant services as the £90 Echo (both are now in their second generation) for £50, or even less when Amazon is running one of its promotions. At the time of writing, you could get it for 35 quid. The catch is that the Dot's built-in speaker is rubbish.

The Vaux is a speaker dock with a cut-out in the top into which you drop your Dot, creating something that looks similar to a full-size Echo for about the same price. Its unique selling point is that, unlike any of Amazon’s models, it has a rechargeable battery. Charged using the Dot’s mains adapter, this powers the whole setup, creating the first Echo that you can pick up and move around.

As long as you keep the Vaux turned on and don’t stray out of range of your home Wi-fi, Alexa is quite unfazed by being carted from room to room. The battery lasts six hours, which should be enough for a party or a day in the garden, although you’ll need to leave it plugged in to charge at other times.

The speaker sounds pretty good – not as hefty as some Bluetooth units, but on a par with the Echo and much better than the Dot. There’s an output jack on the Vaux so, as with the plain Dot, you can plug it into a hi-fi on occasions when you need more volume.

Adds portability and audio quality to Amazon's Dot