Today I’ll be looking at Amazon’s first attempt to bring Alexa in your car with my Echo Auto review. Now unless you have been living under a rock for the past decade, you know exactly what Alexa is and what it can do. Want to hear a song, set a reminder, ask a question or even hear a laugh, all you have to do is ask Alexa.
Now you’ll be able to do that in the comfort of your own vehicle. During your commute or picking up groceries? You can take Alexa with you using Amazon’s Echo Auto. Serving as your personal co-pilot the smart device has been very popular since it’s release, and now you can even get a free Echo Auto.
Wondering just how good Amazon’s smart device really is? Want an unbiased Echo Auto review, check it out below.
Echo Auto Review – Good but not great
So you want to bring Alexa into your car. Who doesn’t? It’s handy and the hands-free nature of this smart device can really help. If you are used to calling Echo’s name out at home, now there’s one more place you’ll be able to find her and that’s in your car. But does Echo Auto work as advertised? The answer is yes… kinda.
I signed up to try out the new Echo Auto during the beta phase of the product. Currently Amazon lists the new device at just 49.99 which is a pretty good deal when you think about it.
Echo Auto First Impressions – Straight out of the box, the Auto looks very solid and comes in a compact form factor. It comes with several wires that help you charge the Echo Auto device through your cigarette lighter.
Mounting is a bit tricky, only because the routing of wires doesn’t always come naturally to most dashboards. However, with some creative mounting I got my Echo Auto to fit in a place I was happy with.
My first impression of what I know about the echo Auto is this is really just the interface device for your smartphone. That is to say, the Echo Auto is simply a pass-through device that will connect to the Echo app on your phone.
Basically a microphone that will tell your phone what to do. Your phone goes and gets the data, and delivers the content to te Bluetooth speakers of your vehicle.
What really works – Everything you would expect from your Alexa smartphone app is delivered seamlessly to your vehicle. Just as you would expect it to, music, directions, your schedule and much more can play through your car speakers with just a simple phrase.
Just as the Echo does in your house, the automotive version does pretty darn well. Even with the ambient road noise, the Echo Auto did a fair job in picking up my voice and recognizing my commands.
Echo Auto Review – What I didn’t like
Although the smart device does well in voice recognition, there are a few things that bugged me. Mainly the pairing of the Alexa device to my Android phone. Often times in the morning I would have to disjoin or unpair my Echo Auto, just to get it to work properly.
Considering that the Auto uses Amazon’s own application, you would hope for better integration here.
What’s more, a close-up look at the Echo Auto device gives you a good look at the difficulty of mounting this unit in a clean way. The front fascia has small holes in front of the microphone. Although it does a decent job in recognizing your voice, the Echo Auto could use improvement in this area.
The operation of Echo Auto is simple and elegant. There is a button to turn the microphone on or off, as everyone is concerned about privacy these days. The other button is to wake it up or get its attention.
Along the front of the Echo Auto there’s a light bar that lights up to show that it’s listening to you. Much like the home unit does, and along the back there’s some rubber pads with an indented area that allows you to utilize the mounting bracket that it comes with.
In the end, I’d have to give a solid B to this unit in my Echo Auto review. It does what it’s supposed to, but with a few caveats that I’m sure Amazon will improve upon.
Before you think about buying an Echo Auto, here are a few considerations you have to take into effect.
- You will need a solid data plan
- Consider where to mount your Echo Auto before you buy
- Make sure you have plenty of charging capability in your vehicle
What do you think about the new Echo Auto? Leave me a message below and let me know!
