Amazon Echo Auto review: “Alexa, why do I need you in my car?”

Our Verdict

A very niche product that a lot of people volition struggle to find a employ for, especially in more mod cars. While it makes Alexa more than accessible on your telephone, it's still nowhere near as capable as Google and Apple'south alternatives.

For

• Adds basic smarts to older cars
• Solid Bluetooth to Aux adapter
• Unlocks hands-free Alexa if the app isn't open

Against

• Alexa not as useful every bit Google Assistant or Siri in the car
• Offers nothing of annotation if you have CarPlay or Android Auto
• Ugly mount

Tom's Guide Verdict

A very niche product that a lot of people will struggle to notice a utilize for, especially in more modern cars. While it makes Alexa more accessible on your phone, information technology'south still nowhere virtually equally capable as Google and Apple's alternatives.

Pros

• +

  Adds bones smarts to older cars

• +

  Solid Bluetooth to Aux adapter

• +

  Unlocks hands-free Alexa if the app isn't open

Cons

• -

  Alexa not as useful as Google Assistant or Siri in the car

• -

  Offers nothing of annotation if you have CarPlay or Android Car

• -

  Ugly mount

Amazon Echo Automobile: Specs

Cost: $50
Size: three.3 x 1.9 x 0.five"
Weight: 1.six oz
Microphones: 8
Output: 3.5mm, Bluetooth
Bluetooth: HFP (telephone calls), A2DP (sound), AVRCP (vox control)
Os: Android 6.0, iOS 12 or newer

An Echo for your auto: That's the main selling point for Amazon's Echo Motorcar, a compact $fifty device that is built for one thing and 1 affair but: Using Alexa to make your car smarter.

While the Echo Auto by and large delivers on its promise, when y'all look beneath the surface you start to realize that it's a very niche piece of hardware that doesn't perform that well against the contest.

Amazon Echo Machine review: Price and availability

The Echo Motorcar costs $50, and has been available to purchase from Amazon since Jan 2019. That price gets you the Repeat Machine itself, a mount/cablevision tidy for your car vent, too as a micro-USB power cable, 12v dual-USB power adapter and a three.5mm aux cable.

Amazon Echo Machine review: Pattern

The Echo Car is a modest rectangular device that's 3.3-inches long and 1.9-inches wide, making it slightly smaller than a credit carte du jour. Still, it's also half an inch thick, and looks like to a small-scale battery pack you lot might behave around in your bag or wallet.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

It also features the same ii buttons as any other Alexa speaker: i mutes the microphone and stops Alexa responding, and another push button lets you toggle the virtual assistant without having to say "Alexa" first.

Plus, at that place's the classic Amazon arrow logo, which makes it look like the Echo Auto has a smiley face on it.

Other design features include a micro USB and iii.5mm Aux port on the right hand side of the device, and a foursquare-shaped indent that lets the Echo Automobile magnetically connect to the mount that's included in the box.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Overall, information technology's quite a sleek and discrete device, one that tin slip into whatever nooks or cubby holes that you might have in your car.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The mountain itself is almost the consummate opposite, and looks like an unwieldy metal 'vii'. A 7 that also has a rubber grip for connecting to your car's vent, and a small cable prune that stops the Echo Auto'southward cables from dangling precariously over your machine.

(Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

I feel like the Echo Auto can do without the mount, or at the very to the lowest degree Amazon could have offered something a little more discreet in the box. Personally, I prefer to keep the Motorcar tucked away in a infinite between my dash and my gear shifter instead. That meant the cables were closer to their corresponding ports, and could be tucked away out of sight without affecting the Echo Motorcar'due south ability to hear me.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Alternatively, at that place are tertiary-party Echo Auto mounts out in that location that are a little more subtle, and since the Auto is magnetic you could simply pick up a cheap telephone mountain and see how that plays out.

Amazon Echo Auto review: Setup

Like other Echo speakers, the Echo Auto setup all happens in the Alexa app, though the process is a trivial bit different. Because the Automobile isn't the same as a standalone Repeat speaker, and is designed to be an extension of your phone. That connectedness is washed via Bluetooth.

(Epitome credit: Tom's Guide)

The Echo Car will also ask you whether your automobile has Bluetooth sound, which mine does, at which indicate I was told to discard the Aux cable. In this instance all Echo Auto simply acts as an Alexa microphone, since all the audio is relayed through your phone's Bluetooth connexion.

If your machine does not have Bluetooth, then the Echo Machine essentially becomes a Bluetooth adapter. Information technology relays your phone'due south audio through the Echo Car's Aux cable. This adds a few more smarts to your automobile in the procedure, assuming your phone doesn't take a headphone jack and yous desire to avoid plugging an adapter into your telephone.

(Image credit: Tom'south Guide)

The final stage of the setup has the Repeat Auto perform a sound bank check to ensure both the audio and microphones are all working correctly. If everything is ok, the app will register that fact afterwards less than 30 seconds.

The setup process will too ask you what mapping service you'd similar Alexa to default to, and supports the large dogs like Google Maps, Waze and Apple Maps. But more on that later on.

And that was essentially information technology for the setup, and the procedure was incredibly painless. In fact, I've had Bluetooth speakers cause more trouble during pairing than the Repeat Auto, which is something Amazon should be commended for.

Your only remaining chore is to figure out where the gizmo should live. The included mount is the most obvious choice, though information technology'south less than platonic. The Echo Auto has viii microphones and far field applied science, which means information technology can alive just virtually anywhere in your car that isn't physically blocking the microphones.

Amazon Repeat Motorcar review: Auto Mode

One of the actress things that comes with the Repeat Motorcar is a new Alexa Auto Style. This is available every bit long as your phone is continued to the device, and substantially switches your display to a lark-free, driving-friendly interface.

That essentially means you take 4 tabs available to use on your screen. A basic homescreen with a scrap of everything, a navigation tab, a communications tab for calls and texts and a playback tab with a list of media Alexa can control.

(Image credit: Tom'southward Guide)

While y'all can switch Automobile Mode off, or just leave the app and apply your phone as normal, the thought here is that it keeps your telephone useful — merely in a way that doesn't make information technology a unsafe lark from the road ahead.

However, the major upshot here is that Auto Style is completely reliant on your Echo Auto being connected to your telephone. Without that connectedness between the two, yous lose all access to Auto Mode — meaning it'due south essentially locked backside the Echo Auto's $50 toll tag.

That should non be the case. While the Repeat Machine is useful in that it means you don't need to keep the Alexa app open for hands-free control, locking an important fleck of software behind a physical buy doesn't experience right.

Amazon Echo Motorcar review: Navigation

As nosotros mentioned before, the Repeat Car's setup process also asks you what mapping app you prefer. A full list of supported apps hasn't been revealed, only it does support the big players like Google maps, Apple tree Maps, and Google-owned Waze.

And Alexa volition bide by your choice. If you want to navigate with one service or another, that's the 1 that the banana will default to every single time you inquire for directions.

Though navigation is 1 of those areas where vox assistants, including Google and Siri, both autumn down. You lot ask Alexa to take yous somewhere, and the assistant will list off a bunch of possible locations if you're non specific enough. This is useful for, say, finding a gas station in an unfamiliar area, merely it's not keen for getting to more than specific locations.

Still, the integration with the third-party navigation app is quite impressive. Though really it's more of a citation for the mapping apps themselves — Google Maps in my example. All Alexa really does is requite it a location, or lists off any potential locations yous've asked for, while Google did all the hard work. Even when it came to the actual search results.

But that'due south proficient. Alexa doesn't need to be involved in the navigation process, and it means the assistant isn't going to be an extra distraction as you try and work out where y'all need to get. It was fifty-fifty capable of interacting with Android Auto while my phone was plugged in, and asking for directions meant they flashed up on my machine's display rather than my phone.

My only real complaint was the voice recognition. For some reason Alexa couldn't sympathize the name of the village I live in, but was able to understand my alphanumeric post lawmaking without issue. Merely when it comes down to it Alexa was able to get me where I needed to go.

There was also a split-second delay every bit my phone wrestled with the fact it can't be continued to Android Motorcar and show directions on its own screen. But it wasn't then much of an issue that information technology caused actual problems.

Amazon Repeat Machine review: Calling and messaging

While easily-gratis calling while driving is something human beings figured out back in the '90s, text messaging is a fleck more than bad-mannered. Yous tin't type, and yous can't really read any messages people accept sent you. And then it all relies on the voice assistant to do it, so far the tech industry hasn't figured out how to do it without it existence extremely awkward.

The Echo Auto is no exception. Though again this is an outcome with voice assistants in full general, rather than an consequence specific to the device or Alexa.

(Image credit: Tom'southward Guide)

Thankfully, calling with the Repeat Auto is quite simple, provided Alexa has the necessary permissions to deal with contacts and calls. Asking Alexa to 'send a message' or 'brand a call' is as simple as just that.

If you don't specify who y'all desire to contact, Alexa volition ask y'all to analyze which of your contacts it's supposed to be using. It manages this quite well, all things considered, and recognized that my girlfriend's Shine proper name is non pronounced the same way it's spelled.

If y'all're sending a message Alexa volition ask y'all what that bulletin should exist, and volition read information technology back to you for confirmation. It won't actually send until y'all give the assistant the all clear, and for the sake of convenience will include a link to a voice recording that can be accessed for 24 hours. Calling is like, though in that instance Alexa will ostend who you desire to speak to before information technology starts dialing.

Equally for receiving messages, Alexa tin can read your latest and unread messages. Y'all simply demand to ask the assistant to 'read my text letters' and it volition do equally instructed. Likewise, answering and catastrophe a phone call is as easy as telling Alexa to 'answer the phone' or 'hang upwards'.

Unfortunately, this is all restricted to your telephone's default phone and SMS app, rather than whatever communication app you may prefer — similar WhatsApp or Signal. Which is a major advantage for Google Assistant and Siri, which can do but that.

Being an Alexa speaker, the Echo Automobile tin call and message other Alexa devices the same way an Echo Dot would practice. However, you lot will accept to fix this up ahead of time on the 'Communicate' tab of the Alexa app.

Amazon Echo Auto review: Alexa performance

Alexa is, well, Alexa, and the Repeat Motorcar is barely whatever different to the Echo you might have in your home. The only difference is that it's completely reliant on its connection to your smartphone to function.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The Repeat Machine can even practise all the default Alexa things y'all probably wouldn't take idea of doing in your car. That includes interacting with your smart home devices from afar, setting timers and alarms, or playing the many different sound games the Repeat speaker at dwelling house can handle.

Unfortunately, this caused a problem when trying to play a game of "guess the song" since Alexa plainly can't empathise me when I say "eighties." I honestly didn't call up my accent was quite that bad...

Plus, if you want Alexa to fart y'all a sea shanty, the Repeat Auto can fart out a sea shanty. You know, just in case y'all have a car full of kids, or kittenish adults that demand entertaining for a few minutes.

However, smartphone reliance is likewise Echo Automobile's biggest downfall. While it's possible to activate skills on your standalone Echo speaker, the Echo Machine is reliant on having the correct apps on your phone. Some Amazon-centric services, like express admission to Amazon Music, are available, only a 3rd-party service similar Spotify won't piece of work unless you have the app installed.

Alexa will inform y'all if you lot endeavour to utilize an app or service that isn't installed, and will take you lot to the relevant app shop. That style a rider tin can download it for you, or you lot can do it yourself one time you stop driving. Though the chances of yous trying to utilise a service that you don't already accept installed feels unlikely.

Unfortunately Alexa isn't nearly as useful on its own every bit Google Assistant or Siri because it doesn't have the same organisation-level controls equally the native Apple and Google Assistants. The Repeat Car only exists as a workaround to permit you lot summon Alexa without having to keep the Alexa app open all the time - something both Sir and Google don't take to worry about.

In other words Google and Apple tree have a major advantage because their assistants don't require users to purchase an actress piece of hardware to activate their full potential.

That situation isn't exactly Amazon's fault, but it does mean prospective Echo Auto purchasers accept to be really invested in Alexa to buy it. Because when it comes to driving, chances are everything you need can be dealt with past Google Assistant and Siri just as hands.

Amazon Echo Auto review: Hardware performance

By virtue of what it is, the Repeat Automobile doesn't need to do very much. It but needs to exist in the machine, and connected to your phone via your device'south own Bluetooth connection. Information technology helps to keep it somewhere open, though the device'southward eight microphones and far field tech mean that yous will rarely encounter issue with Alexa hearing you.

(Image credit: Tom'south Guide)

The only time it didn't hear me was because I had the AC cranked up to max, and I responded much more quietly than usual.

It's too worth pointing out that the Echo Motorcar is essentially a glorified Bluetooth adapter with a microphone. Information technology doesn't matter whether or not an app or service is really compatible with Alexa, any sound your telephone produces will beam through the Echo Automobile and into your auto's stereo via the aux cablevision.

So fifty-fifty if you don't care about Alexa, it adds some wireless connectivity to your vehicle. That'll be especially useful if your phone doesn't have a headphone jack, and you have an aversion to adapters.

And the whole process works. Most of the time anyway.

During my time with the Repeat Auto I did have a couple of issues with connectivity. One of them had Alexa responding to me through the Echo itself, merely wouldn't output any audio to my car — no thing how much I tried. In the stop I had to factory reset the Echo Machine to solve the problem.

Thankfully that effect never arose over again, though I did subsequently have an issue mid-drive when the Echo Motorcar only stopped responding. Vocalization commands didn't work, pressing the activation button didn't work, and unplugging the whole device and forcing a restart didn't work. In the end I went without Alexa until I got domicile, and by the time I was due to drive over again, the Repeat had started working properly again.

Both of those instances are uncommon, though it shows a flaw in the whole Echo Auto process: Calculation more devices to a setup ways at that place are more ways information technology tin can fail. And when failures happen when yous drive, even the simplest of issues can become difficult to set. Even so much as unplugging and USB cable and plugging it dorsum in again requires concentration that should be spent on the route ahead.

Amazon Repeat Auto review: Verdict

For drivers rocking an older car that doesn't enjoy the benefits of Bluetooth, Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, then the Repeat Auto may prove useful. Provided you're admittedly infatuated with Alexa and don't want to have to use i of the alternatives when you're driving. And in fairness to Amazon, it has managed to build a very capable Bluetooth adapter. Those are not easy to find.

But anyone driving quite a recent car will struggle to notice a manner for the Echo Automobile to be useful. All of its most practical uses tin be handled with Google Banana or Siri, both of which accept amend app back up and control over your phone. Auto Style goes a long way towards improving Alexa'southward lot, but it yet irks me that it's essentially locked behind a $50 purchase when it really shouldn't be.

You but demand to ask yourself, is it really worth spending $l for a fancy Alexa adapter, when you lot can but as hands use Google Banana or Siri for free? That'south a question only you lot can reply.

Tom is the Tom's Guide's Automotive Editor, which means he can usually exist establish articulatio genus deep in stats the latest and best electric cars, or checking out some sort of driving gadget. It'southward long fashion from his days every bit editor of Gizmodo U.k., when pretty much everything was on the table. He'south usually plant trying to clasp another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of java, or complaining that Ikea won't let him buy the stuff he really needs online.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/amazon-echo-auto

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