Amazon Echo Auto (2nd gen) review: smaller but not smarter

Amazon’s second-generation Echo Auto is a tiny Echo in your automotive’s dashboard. It has good microphones, is straightforward to put in and to stow whenever you’re parked, and gives a easy means so as to add hands-free music playback to your automotive stereo if it lacks Bluetooth. But it surely’s not as sensible as your smartphone’s built-in assistant, and until you have already got an ecosystem of Amazon sensible house devices, it doesn’t make sense for most individuals, myself included.

Merely put, the Echo Auto is a $54.99 microphone that mounts in your dashboard and allows you to use Alexa voice instructions on the highway. It connects to your cellphone through Bluetooth after which connects to your automotive stereo for playback both by Bluetooth or a 3.5mm wired connection. Your automotive doesn’t want any type of smarts for it to work, simply an old style cigarette lighter / energy outlet and an auxiliary enter in your stereo.

The microphone finish of the second-gen Echo Auto is even smaller than the final one (2.1 x 0.9 inches, in comparison with 3.3 x 1.9 inches, which was itself loads smaller than the Echo audio system and pucks designed for the house). It comes with an adhesive-backed magnetic mount that attaches to your automotive’s dashboard. There’s not lots of open area on my sprint, and I used to be a bit apprehensive it could sit too near the automotive stereo’s quantity dial. But it surely’s deceptively small, and I discovered a great place for it out of the best way of any buttons or knobs. 

The Echo Auto will get its energy out of your automotive’s USB port (or the 12V energy adapter). Your automotive must be working to make use of Echo Auto, and as soon as it’s powered on, you’ll be able to join it to your cellphone (and the Alexa app) through Bluetooth. Then you definately’ll both use Bluetooth or the three.5mm jack on the Echo’s breakout field to connect with your automotive stereo. All of this may be executed in about 5 minutes, supplied you will have an Amazon account and the Alexa app in your cellphone. 

I had no hassle with it, and I like that I can simply tuck the breakout field and cords into the little compartment beneath my dashboard so every little thing is out of the best way. Importantly, the entire thing could be unplugged, taken off the mount, and saved within the heart console once I depart my automotive — and plugging it again in is simply as fast. I attempt to not depart something in view in my automotive to tempt a break-in, so having one thing valuable-looking connected to my sprint always would have been a non-starter.

My expertise with Alexa wasn’t fairly as clean. It appears to have gotten smarter since my colleague Sean Hollister reviewed the first-generation Echo Auto. Asking it to search out close by fuel stations and low retailers and to search for retailer hours normally labored properly. However for something that requires it to work together with the cellphone, like putting calls and utilizing navigation, you’re restricted by what the Alexa app can do in your cellphone, and also you run into these limitations shortly. 

I can’t have Alexa textual content simply anybody in my contacts checklist — they should have Alexa messaging enabled. You may see who has opted into this by scrolling via your contacts within the Alexa app. From the appears to be like of it, possibly a 3rd of my contacts have enabled the function. I even have an unusually excessive variety of present and ex-Amazon staff in my circle (disclosure: I used to work at DPReview, an entirely owned subsidiary of Amazon), so take that with a grain of salt.

Alexa can also be capable of open up Apple Maps with a specified vacation spot through voice command, however I nonetheless need to faucet a button within the app to begin or cease the navigation. Siri, then again, can do this stuff with none further enter from me.

The Echo Auto desires to default to Amazon companies, which I don’t use lots of. Even with Spotify set as my default streaming service, I nonetheless needed to ask Alexa a few instances to get A Charlie Brown Christmas to play there as a substitute as a substitute of Amazon Music. It additionally defaults to placing new occasions in your “Alexa Calendar,” even when you have already got one other calendar linked to your account. Do I need this Alexa calendar? Do I even know the place it’s? No and no. You may change the default to a Google, Microsoft, or Apple calendar simply sufficient, however it’s yet one more factor to fiddle with as a way to get arrange the best way I need. 

As for different Alexa companies, properly, the library of “Abilities” is trying fairly naked. I checked for a Starbucks reordering ability, which might come in useful (disclosure: I stay in Seattle, and I’ve a behavior). It’s not out there, and the one Starbucks Alexa Talent out there is one thing that tells you which ones Starbucks espresso roast is greatest for you primarily based on solutions to a couple questions. That is ineffective. Amazon just lately made some main cuts to its units and Alexa groups, so I don’t really feel nice in regards to the long-term prospects of a extra useful Starbucks ability (or some other) coming again sooner or later.

Alexa, naturally, works greatest in Amazon’s ecosystem. However I’m not satisfied that’s one thing I would like in my automotive. There’s a in all probability case to be made for the Echo Auto you probably have lots of Alexa-enabled sensible house units. I don’t have any, and I’m unsure I’d care about turning on my front room lights by speaking to a tool in my automotive. Even when I did, my cellphone’s voice assistant can already try this.

I do order lots of my groceries from Amazon Contemporary, which integrates pretty properly with Alexa’s buying checklist perform. With the ability to add one thing to my subsequent grocery order because it happens to me whereas driving is official use case for me, so Echo Auto would come in useful in these situations. However that’s nonetheless a uncommon prevalence, and there’s not sufficient different helpful stuff that Alexa may do for me to that I’d need a complete additional machine in my automotive. If I ever get my act collectively and begin utilizing Reminders on my iPhone, I may simply ask Siri to remind me that I would like to purchase cat meals later. It might’t put Fancy Feast in my Amazon buying cart for me, however I can stay with that. 

The Echo Auto’s energy stays its excellent microphones. This model has 5 as a substitute of eight and depends extra on “improved algorithms” to grasp voice instructions. Even with fewer microphones, it’s nonetheless excellent. It might hear me talking at a traditional quantity, even with the heater and followers working at full blast. It has a more durable time if I’m on the freeway with the window down, however it could actually hear me higher than I’d anticipate with out having to talk up a lot. 

Understanding easy questions and instructions is what the Echo Auto is greatest at, and even then, it fails spectacularly at instances. I bought right into a yelling match with it once I requested for the hours of Burien Press, a espresso store in Burien, Washington, that it had appropriately recognized on the primary attempt a day earlier than. Right here’s a listing of issues Alexa thought I stated as I bought more and more impatient:

• Variant Press
• Fury Crest
• Purion Press
• Darien Press in Marion Washington

The Echo Auto is a high quality piece of {hardware} that doesn’t make lots of sensible sense. The perfect use could also be for somebody with an older automotive that lacks Bluetooth however has an aux enter. In that case, it’s a straightforward means so as to add hands-free music playback and fundamental navigation to your automotive’s built-in audio system. Nonetheless, $55 is just too steep for that — $30 feels about proper for that type of factor, and Bluetooth-to-aux adapters exist already. That $55 will get a bit simpler to justify you probably have Amazon sensible house merchandise, however I feel the overlap within the Venn diagram of “Has a really outdated automotive” and “Has a number of Amazon sensible house merchandise” is fairly slim. On prime of that, the long-term prospects for Alexa getting extra and higher third-party abilities don’t look nice. 

What actually kills the enchantment of the Echo Auto is the machine you already personal: your smartphone. When you put a easy mount in your automotive, set your cellphone in it, and simply ask your cellphone’s built-in assistant to navigate to Starbucks, ship a textual content, or play one thing on Spotify, you’ll have higher luck. Because it stands, Alexa isn’t all that sensible away from house.

Images by Allison Johnson / The Verge