Amazon Echo Auto (2nd gen) assessment: smaller however not smarter

Amazon’s second-generation Echo Auto is a tiny Echo to your automobile’s dashboard. It has good microphones, is simple to put in and to stow if you’re parked, and offers a easy approach so as to add hands-free music playback to your automobile stereo if it lacks Bluetooth. But it’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.

Simply put, the Echo Auto is a $54.99 microphone that mounts in your dashboard and allows you to use Alexa voice instructions on the street. It connects to your cellphone through Bluetooth after which connects to your automobile stereo for playback both by Bluetooth or a 3.5mm wired connection. Your automobile doesn’t want any type of smarts for it to work, simply an old style cigarette lighter / energy outlet and an auxiliary enter to 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 rather a lot smaller than the Echo audio system and pucks designed for the house). It comes with an adhesive-backed magnetic mount that attaches to your automobile’s dashboard. There’s not loads of open house on my sprint, and I used to be just a little apprehensive it will sit too near the automobile stereo’s quantity dial. But it’s deceptively small, and I discovered a great place for it out of the way in which of any buttons or knobs. 

The Echo Auto will get its energy out of your automobile’s USB port (or the 12V energy adapter). Your automobile must be operating 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’ll both use Bluetooth or the three.5mm jack on the Echo’s breakout field to connect with your automobile stereo. All of this may be carried out in about 5 minutes, offered you could 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 under my dashboard so every part is out of the way in which. Importantly, the entire thing will be unplugged, taken off the mount, and saved within the middle console once I go away my automobile — and plugging it again in is simply as fast. I attempt to not go away something in view in my automobile to tempt a break-in, so having one thing valuable-looking hooked up to my sprint always would have been a non-starter.

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

I can’t have Alexa textual content simply anybody in my contacts checklist — they should have Alexa messaging enabled. You can see who has opted into this by scrolling by way of your contacts within the Alexa app. From the seems to be of it, perhaps 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 be in a position to 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, alternatively, can do this stuff with none extra enter from me.

The Echo Auto desires to default to Amazon providers, which I don’t use a lot of. Even with Spotify set as my default streaming service, I nonetheless needed to ask Alexa a few occasions to get A Charlie Brown Christmas to play there as an alternative as an alternative 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 can change the default to a Google, Microsoft, or Apple calendar simply sufficient, however it’s yet another factor to fiddle with with a purpose to get arrange the way in which I need. 

As for different Alexa providers, properly, the library of “Skills” is wanting fairly naked. I checked for a Starbucks reordering ability, which might turn out to be useful (disclosure: I stay in Seattle, and I’ve a behavior). It’s not out there, and the one Starbucks Alexa Skill out there is one thing that tells you which ones Starbucks espresso roast is finest for you based mostly on solutions to a couple questions. This is ineffective. Amazon lately made some main cuts to its gadgets and Alexa groups, so I don’t really feel nice in regards to the long-term prospects of a extra useful Starbucks ability (or every other) coming again sooner or later.

Alexa, naturally, works finest in Amazon’s ecosystem. But I’m not satisfied that’s one thing I want in my automobile. There’s a in all probability case to be made for the Echo Auto when you’ve got loads of Alexa-enabled sensible house gadgets. I don’t have any, and I’m undecided I’d care about turning on my front room lights by speaking to a tool in my automobile. Even if I did, my cellphone’s voice assistant can already do this.

I do order loads of my groceries from Amazon Fresh, which integrates pretty properly with Alexa’s buying checklist operate. Being in a position so as to add one thing to my subsequent grocery order because it happens to me whereas driving is authentic use case for me, so Echo Auto would turn out to be useful in these situations. But that’s nonetheless a uncommon incidence, and there’s not sufficient different helpful stuff that Alexa may do for me to that I’d need an entire additional gadget in my automobile. If I ever get my act collectively and begin utilizing Reminders on my iPhone, I may simply ask Siri to remind me that I want to purchase cat meals later. It can’t put Fancy Feast in my Amazon buying cart for me, however I can stay with that. 

The Echo Auto’s power stays its excellent microphones. This model has 5 as an alternative of eight and depends extra on “improved algorithms” to grasp voice instructions. Even with fewer microphones, it’s nonetheless excellent. It can hear me talking at a standard quantity, even with the heater and followers operating at full blast. It has a more durable time if I’m on the freeway with the window down, however it may possibly 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 finest at, and even then, it fails spectacularly at occasions. 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 accurately recognized on the primary attempt a day earlier than. 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 advantageous piece of {hardware} that doesn’t make loads of sensible sense. The finest use could also be for somebody with an older automobile that lacks Bluetooth however has an aux enter. In that case, it’s a straightforward approach so as to add hands-free music playback and fundamental navigation to your automobile’s built-in audio system. Still, $55 is just too steep for that — $30 feels about proper for that type of factor, and Bluetooth-to-aux adapters already exist. That $55 will get just a little simpler to justify when you’ve got Amazon sensible house merchandise, however I feel the overlap within the Venn diagram of “Has a very old car” and “Has lots of Amazon smart home products” 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 attraction of the Echo Auto is the gadget you already personal: your smartphone. If you set a easy mount in your automobile, 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. As it stands, Alexa isn’t all that sensible away from house.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge