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Aha Radio partners with Honda and Subaru, streams tunes to the BRZ

Aha by Harman continues to grow in relevance with new partnerships with automakers and content providers.

Antuan Goodwin Reviews Editor / Cars
Antuan Goodwin gained his automotive knowledge the old fashioned way, by turning wrenches in a driveway and picking up speeding tickets. From drivetrain tech and electrification to car audio installs and cabin tech, if it's on wheels, Antuan is knowledgeable.
Expertise Reviewing cars and car technology since 2008 focusing on electrification, driver assistance and infotainment Credentials
  • North American Car, Truck and SUV of the Year (NACTOY) Awards Juror
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Antuan Goodwin
2 min read
Aha Radio in the Subaru BRZ's dashboard
Subaru will be demonstrating its new Aha Radio connectivity in the 2013 BRZ sports coupe. Aha by Harman/Subaru

LAS VEGAS--Remember when Aha Radio's claim to fame was robotic text-to-speech reading of Facebook status updates? You've come a long way, baby.

At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, Aha by Harman announced a handful of new content and hardware partners, the ranks of which include Subaru, Honda, and Kenwood.

The two automotive partners, Subaru and Honda, will be building Aha Radio connectivity into their vehicle's infotainment systems for the 2013 model year--which means we should start seeing the fruits of this union as early as this fall. After pairing a smartphone running the Aha Radio app, drivers of these Aha-enabled models will be able to control the app using their dashboard interface and gain access to streaming content from Aha and its content partners. Subaru is demonstrating its new Aha-enable infotainment system in the new BRZ sports coupe here at the show, but it's not been officially stated exactly what 2013 Subaru models will feature the new functionality.

We were told that Aha is also in talks and active development to bring similar functionality to even more auotmotive OEMs, but Aha and Harman's representative were not yet at liberty to discuss specifics.

Kenwood is handling its integration similarly, only with an aftermarket receiver that can be installed in any vehicle. We'll be taking a closer look at its new receiver as the show progresses.

Streaming audio and content into the car is useless unless you actually have something interesting to listen to. So, Aha has also announced partnerships with new content providers, including CBS Radio, NPR, Entertainment Radio Network, MOG, Rhapsody, and AOL SHOUTcast Radio, all of which will become available this year.

Finally, Aha has announced that it will be updating its iPhone app, which is starting to look a bit dated, to handle the new functionality planned for this year, and launching its first Android app. Expect to see these apps in their respective markets sometime in Q1 2012.