Take to the road with the Amazon Echo Auto

People are seeing dots and spots everything these days from Echo Dot in the living room to an Echo Spot on the bedside table. Now you can take Alexa on the road with Echo Auto, and it's quite the ride. 

At roughly the size of a business card and about a quarter of an inch thick, Echo Auto has eight microphones and two buttons — one to mute the microphones and one that can call up Alexa without the wake word.

The Echo Auto needs to make two connections in your car: one to your phone, via Bluetooth, and one to the car’s audio system via Bluetooth or aux-in port. If your car already has Bluetooth, you can wirelessly pair the Echo to your car stereo.

You’ll need to have the Amazon Echo app on your smartphone and follow the instructions to add a new device.

Amazon must really want people to mount the Echo Auto up high on the dashboard, since it ships with a very nice vent mount. If you don't want to block the air conditioning, you can get some 3M Command Strips and mount it directly on your dash under the stereo.

After starting the car, the Echo Auto takes about 15 seconds to power up. Say the trigger word (presumably Alexa) and say a command.

Now that the device is in your car, what can you do with it? “Alexa, call my wife” dials her cellphone, once she's added to the contact list in the Alexa app. Calls are clear on both ends.

The main use for Alexa, not surprisingly, is to play music. Just give Alexa the call letters of your favorite station or the name of your favorite show, like Brunch Café from Pandora, and you're set. The streaming services, like Pandora, Spotify and Sirius/XM, require you to link your account information in the Alexa app on your phone.

If you subscribe to a music service like Spotify or Apple Music or Amazon Prime music, you can ask for specific songs or albums or playlists you have saved with those services.

Or if you’re in the mood for Dire Straits, you can just say, “Alexa, play Dire Straits,” and she’ll answer back, “Shuffling songs by Dire Straits from Prime Music,” and you’ll get a nice selection that’ll play for an hour or so.

For traffic information or navigating from place to place, Alexa will hand off the request to your default traffic app. You can choose Waze, Google Maps or Apple Maps. Set your home and work locations in the Echo app. If you leave for work and ask Alexa about, the app of your choice appears on the phone’s screen showing the preferred route.

One downside it that it can time a little time to learn how to make Echo Auto interacts with your iPhone.

Echo Auto also struggles a little with data handoff. If you start a music stream in the driveway, it will drop before you drive a block. You have to quit the Echo app on your phone and re-establish the connection on LTE.

Still, f you’ve been pining for Alexa in your car, Echo Auto is the best solution.