Amazon Alexa Works Great in Your Car
Amazon has had its biggest shopping day this week: Dot, a small version of the company’s Echo, has become the bestseller of the day. While this device is most commonly used in homes (I have my seat in my living room so he can hear me around the apartment), a Business Insider reporter wrote that he installed it in a slightly different location: in his car . In fact, I’ve been using Alexa on the road for about the last six months and found it really useful, perhaps more useful than it was at home.
Although there are voice-activated cars, I don’t drive them. It’s nice to be able to do things like make music queries, ask for headlines of the day, or add things to your to-do list hands-free (because obviously driving on the freeway is a great way for me to remember what I forgot). Instead of swapping connected phones to navigate to my friend’s “perfect” playlist, anyone can make requests for music from their seat. On long journeys, little things and playing with Alexa can also help break the monotony, and I definitely used Alexa to order the things I remember I needed and knew what I could get from Amazon while I was driving.
If you have a physical home, you can also use it to control smart home gadgets such as lights or a garage door opener. All of this turns a dumb car into a car that feels like a car from the future, even if the real car is barely functional at the moment.
You can see how the reporter arranged it with Dot here .
While I love the idea of Alexa while I’m driving, I think doing it with Dot is a little overkill. Ford and Volkswagen have announced plans to introduce Alexa in future cars, but I used a docking station for your smartphone ZeroTouch from Logitech for $ 30 , and your phone to get almost the same effect.
In hardware, it’s just a car mount for your phone. There is a dashboard mount and a ventilation mount. I have a ventilation room, mainly because I don’t have my own car and I like to rent one. It’s small enough to fit in your pocket or purse and is easy to move between different vehicles.
The air vent version is cheaper than buying the discounted Dot and comes with a few other really useful hands-free features. For example, you can also ask for directions or where the nearest gas station is, send and receive text messages or Facebook and WhatsApp messages, call friends, or dig in your inbox.
It comes with a small metal sticker that you stick to the back of your phone that sticks to the mount in your car when you’re ready to use it. Attaching and detaching your phone while driving is as easy as putting your phone on the mount (which, frankly, makes an impression on people in its own right). Once connected, the Logitech speakerphone app will automatically launch and you’re done.
Do you need Alexa in the car? Of course not. But there is something completely satisfying about ordering groceries at 75 mph.