The second-generation Amazon Echo Auto is a smaller, detachable contraption that does exactly what you’d imagine: bring the powers of Alexa to your dashboard courtesy of a little microphone/speaker combination thatyou attach somewherein your car. Plug the Echo Auto into a spare USB port or 12V power output (commonly known as the “cigarette lighter”), go through a pretty comprehensive onboarding process, and Alexa will be waiting for you at the end, ready to receive your commands. But do you really need it?
Amazon Echo Auto 2
The second-generation Amazon Echo Auto is a tiny little device that brings the power of Alexa into your car. With multiple ways to forge this connection, from a standard auxiliary connection all the way up to Bluetooth and Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, The Echo Auto incredibly easy to set up and use. The kicker, though, is that your smartphone already does nearly everything the Echo Auto can; set up its voice assistant, and what you already have won’t need an Echo Auto to supplement it. this accessory makes a ton of sense of you live in a household full of Amazon devices and Alexa-compatible gear. It’s not very practical if you have a modern smartphone and this is your first time setting up Alexa anything.
Price and availability
you’re able to normally pick up an Echo Auto for $55from Amazon, and it has been on sale for as low as $40 since its December 2022 debut. Pay an extra $8, and you can also get a version of the Echo Auto with an incredibly useful vent mount. (This should have just been included in the $55 package by default.)
Design, hardware, what’s in the box
The main Echo Auto device consists of a 2.0-by-0.9-by-0.6-inch microphone unit that comes with a speaker box pre-attached to its cable, terminating in a standard USB 2.0 Type-A connection.
The microphone portion of the Echo Auto is a bit smaller and thicker than the ugly box of the first-generation model, and it has two smaller buttons for triggering Alexa and muting the microphone attached directly to its front. The vent mount, as mentioned, doesn’t come in the standard Echo Auto package, but the convenience of the magnetic fastener is absolutely worth the extra $8. (It’s still annoying that you have to pay more for it, though.)
If your car doesn’t have a USB port, Amazon includes a “Quick Charge 3.0 certified” charger that you plug into your car’s 12V socket (formerly known as the “cigarette lighter”). You can use the USB-A port to power your Echo Auto, and the included USB-C port can fast-charge USB-PD-supported devices at a maximum output of 18W.
Finally, Amazon throws in a cable you’re able to use to connect the Echo Auto’s speaker module to your car’s 3.5mm aux-in port. This gives you a pretty wide latitude forhowever you might want to connectthe Echo Auto to your car. In my case, I simply plugged it into my car’s 12V socket, then used Bluetooth to pair the Echo Auto with an iPhone and a Pixel, which I connected to the car using their regular Lightning or USB-C ports. (And this setup worked flawlessly.)
Software and performance
Getting the Echo Auto set up in your car isn’t very difficult, but there are a ton of screens to walk through during the device’s initial setup (examples above).
You have to connect the Echo Auto to your device via Bluetooth, pick how your phone is connected to your car stereo, approve various phone permissions for the Echo Auto, and run through up to four separate categories worth of Settings to fully unlock the Auto’s primary features (Entertainment, Communication, Location & Maps, and Roadside Assistance), to name a few.
If this is your first foray into the wide world of Amazon’s Alexa, you’ll have even more to do, especially if you’re looking to venture outside of Amazon’s walled garden for some of its key features.
For example, you’ll need to set up your preferred music service (Apple Play, Spotify, et cetera) if you want Alexa to reach out to that instead of Amazon Music when you ask to hear a song. The same is true for your favorite news or podcast sources, your web-based calendars, your favorite sports teams, et cetera. Depending on just how much you plan to use your new car assistant, you could be in for a long night of configuring within the Alexa app.
This isn’t a criticismper se, just something you’ll want to know up-front so you aren’t sitting in your car, annoyed that Amazon Music keeps playing on your long road trip when all of your best playlists are on another service. If you’re already using Amazon smart home devices around your house, odds are good that you won’t need to do a ton of extra setup beyond the Echo Auto’s (meaty) basics.
Once you’re all configured, the Echo Auto does an excellent job bringing all of Alexa’s functionality to your car. Ask it to play an album, and Alexa will trigger whatever phone app your preferred music service uses to fire it up. The same is true for things like driving directions and calendar updates, even your text messages.
Placing calls to contacts is similarly easy. Alexa, in essence, becomes your device’s new smart assistant. Your smartphone, with the required Alexa app installed, will even switch to a little slimmed-down Alexa Auto interface in case you want to tap your way to basic tasks like dropping in on your existing Echo devices, announcing something to them in your home, or messing with connected smart lights.
I used Alexa to perform a variety of tasks when testing out the Echo Auto, including pulling up directions to various locations, asking for hours for local businesses, and switching my smart home devices on and off while driving. I didn’t have any issues with any of these, save for the rare moments when my cellular connection wasn’t its best and Alexa didn’t do much of anything.
Alexa struggled to read my text messages in one of these instances, which I found odd, since I (perhaps incorrectly) assumed that Alexa would be able to do that directly from my smartphone regardless of connection quality.
The Echo Auto’s built-in “Find My” feature can help you locate your car in a parking lot (my Achilles' heel), and it can supposedly share your car’s location to the Tile network in case it ever goes missing completely. While that’s probably not as good as, say, sticking an AirTag in your car (if you’re an Apple user), it’s great to have a little peace-of-mind in case your vehiclereallygoes missing. Who’s going to assume the Echo Auto is sharing your stolen car’s location, after all?
The only aspect of the Echo Auto I didn’t test was its roadside assistance feature, only because I didn’t want the Echo Auto to connect me to a real-life person if I wasn’t having an issue. While I appreciate the feature, I probably wouldn’t use it, since there’s no way to connect it to anyactualroadside assistance services you may already be paying for (like AAA). How much you’ll pay for your service call depends on your location and specific need.
Competition
The biggest competitor to the Echo Auto, aside from the many aforementioned Bluetooth hands-free setups you can buy for your car, is something you likely already own:a modern Androidor iOS smartphone.
So much so, that unless I was really invested in the Alexa ecosystem — with multiple Echo devices at home, controlling multiple smarthome objects and answering my many prompts and questions — I wouldn’t get an Echo Auto. That’s not because it’s bad. It’s just not necessary when a simple “Hey [your digital assistant’s name]” does almost everything Alexa can do in your car.
Should you buy it?
The Echo Auto is a great, albeit expensive Bluetooth microphone/speaker combo for your car that also comes with a digital assistant you can use to trigger lots of actions on your phone. It makes more sense if your car has no capacity forAndroid Auto or CarPlayand you’d like a solid Bluetooth microphone/speaker combo instead of using your phone’s speakerphone.
If you find yourself talking a lot more to the Google Assistant or Siri in your everyday life than Alexa, however, you can probably just keep using your smartphone in your car, hands-free, as you normally would. The Echo Auto doesn’t add anything you’re missing.
