Amazon today announced Echo Auto, an easy way to add the power of Alexa to your car. With an eight-microphone array designed for in-car acoustics and speech recognition technology, Alexa can now hear you over music, A/C, and road noise.
Echo Auto is powered by your car’s 12V charging socket or USB port. The device connects to your car stereo system for audio playback using a 3.5 mm auxiliary cable or Bluetooth connection. It connects to Alexa through the Alexa app on your smartphone and uses your existing data plan to stream your favourite music, make a call or send messages to your phone contacts, and more. Echo Auto is available for pre-order starting today for just ₹4,999 from www.amazon.in/EchoAuto, and starts shipping to customers from January 15.
With Echo Auto in your car, just ask Alexa to hear your morning news, listen to an Audible book on your commute, ask for the nearest coffee shops, petrol pumps and more. You can also control smart home appliances, set reminders, add errands to your to-do list and check them off when they’re complete, build your shopping list or manage your calendar—all while your eyes stay on the road.
“Customers in India tell us they want to take Alexa with them everywhere they go, and we’re delighted to offer them an easy way to add Alexa to the car they already own”, said Parag Gupta, Head of Amazon Devices India. “Enjoy ad-free music with no breaks or RJ talks, listen to that unfinished audiobook on-the-go, or make calls without the distraction of looking at your smartphone by using simple voice commands. We cannot wait to see how customers in India take Alexa on the road.”
Talk to Alexa with far-field technology
With its eight-microphone array, Echo Auto enables customers to talk to Alexa over music, A/C, and road noise. Just ask, and Alexa will play music, answer questions, read the news, add items to the To-Do list, and much more.
Stream favourite music into your car
With Echo Auto, customers can stream ad-free music from Amazon Prime or access music from other providers such as Apple Music, JioSaavn, Gaana or Hungama Music —just say “Alexa, play road trip songs”.
Call or message your phone contacts
Make hands-free calls to any family, friend or office contact saved on the smartphone. Android phone users can also send text messages. Echo Auto connects to the phone and defaults to its mobile network for calls and text messages to contacts saved in the phone’s address book. It will use mobile data for Drop-in and making announcements on other Echo devices.
Also Raed: Amazon Launches Echo Flex in India
Ask Alexa for entertainment, information, and more
When a customer is busy driving, information is just a voice-request away with the Echo Auto. Ask Alexa about cricket scores, questions about history, geography and the latest news updates from NDTV, Aajtak or Bollywood Hungama News. Customers can also set up reminders and add items to the shopping list when on-the-go.
Get directions to your favourite places
Echo Auto uses the default navigation app on the smartphone and its data plan to provide directions. To ask Alexa to navigate to home or work, go to ‘Your Locations’ in the Alexa app settings and add the addresses. To update or check the default navigation app, visit the Traffic section in Alexa App.
Customise the Alexa experience
With a selection of over 30,000 Alexa skills in English, customers can ask Alexa for ESPN Cricinfo, Ted Talks, Impossible Bollywood Quiz or sports updates, listening to podcasts, and play fun games. Customers can also enjoy listening to books from Audible or Kindle when driving around, just by asking Alexa.
Privacy by Design
Like all Echo devices, Echo Auto is built with multiple layers of privacy protections, including a mic on/ off button that electronically disconnects the microphones. Additionally, customers have control over their voice recordings—with the ability to view, hear, and delete utterances at Alexa Privacy Settings or in the Alexa app, at any time.
Availability
The new Echo Auto is available for pre-order today at ₹4,999 on www.amazon.in/EchoAuto and select retail outlets. It will start shipping from January 15.
