Okay google, play Coolio on cars.
Sure playing Coolio on spotify.
Well I guess there are worse misunderstandings, if you've got smart speakers throughout your life all over your house I bet maybe one or two at work but not in your car, why not?
You can do it now I'm gonna show you how but I'm also gonna show you why you may not need to.
[MUSIC]
I brought along two examples of a newest category of in car accessories that go after the smart voice role while you're driving.
Ove here is the newish Amazon echo auto.
These guys obviously an elexer device for your car and this one goes upto the Googl e side of the house.
This is gonna bring Google assistant in.
It's a [UNKNOWN] bolt by [UNKNOWN] You know [UNKNOWN] from charging products probably.
So both of these do abbou the same thing.
They are both smart speakers for your car Except they don't have speakers, they use the speakers in your car.
Why not?
There's more of them and they sound better.
So whereas apple and all this, there is no analogous product on the serious side, there's no aftermarket dedicated series speaker that I know of anyway, that goes in your car to break [UNKNOWN].
Out of your phone.
Apple keeps it in their devices.
[MUSIC]
Okay,first of all, here's the Alexa device in the car.
I gotta get it right side up so it's smiling.
What you've got here is a mic mute button.
A general function button here typically used for setup.
And then you've got these eight little holes.
Each one of those has a microphone and by having an array of microphones, they're able to do some noise cancellation and some adaptive listening.
So this is different than you're gonna find on your phone.
So there's one advantage Right there.
It also comes with this kinda Mount de Leo that you'd want to stick in your vent.
I hate these kinda things, I don't like hanging things on my vent.
I prefer to dispense with that and use whatever kind of a magnetic mount works in your car.
I've got this one here on the dash.
There we go, that's more like it.
Now once you've got the device in place, and we're about to set it up, know that one of the things gonna set up is this operating as a Bluetooth device, but it can also be a Bluetooth bridge.
In other words, if you have a car that doesn't have Bluetooth but has an AUX jack, this can function as a Bluetooth bridge from your phone to this and then via cable into your AUX jack.
This is not the aux cable.
This is the nasty power cable you'll always need.
They do have a way to address that if you're using their adapter, which I don't like, which has this thing underneath it to grab the cable.
But I'd rather have no cable to grab.
Hello.
Let's get rolling.
Auto device.
That part of the background.
Sure.
Here's a playlist you might like.
She's always getting smarter and adding new skills.
Okay our Alexa setup is done.
The device is communicating with my phone.
My phone is communicating via bluetooth.
We got it all hooked up with the audio system.
I'm gonna defeat, my mic defeats.
So reactivate the mic.
And let's see how this thing works for a set of four likely car commands.
Alexa, navigate to CBS interactive in San Francisco.
[MUSIC]
Would you like directions to CBS interactive on to 35 Second Street in San Francisco.
[MUSIC]
Yes, I would
[MUSIC]
Very good.
Alexa, take me to the nearest gas station.
Would you like directions to Corte Madera Chevron Service Center on 90 Madera Boulevard in Corte Madera?
No.
Okay, so that's pretty.
So far, two out of two.
Sorry I couldn't help.
You gotta simmer down.
Let's continue on our battery of four questions.
Would you like to try it?
I don't think I like you that much, no.
Okay, so, so far, four out of four, Alexa did very well, and handed off to, at least, a reasonable, if not the optimal app to do everything, and it's gonna have it's own ways of skewing the table toward Amazon, obviously, particularly
The music selection.
Now notice everything I can do with this I can do with this.
In other words, I don't need to have this add on.
Although it ostensibly has better microphones to reject noise, I have not ever really had a problem with any smartphone.
hearing me while I'm driving.
I'm not that far away.
My car is not an open air car.
So let's take a look at the bowl which accomplishes that and perhaps more
[MUSIC]
Connect.
l don't know why, but it's not going to work.
Why aren't you connecting?
Aye yayayaya.
Painful, utterly painful.
We're gonna pair our road bolt.
Hopefully it'll work this time.
Dear God will you please pair.
[MUSIC]
There we go.
Okay so I just finished what I gotta tell you was a tedious, repeated effort set up.
It was way easier setting up that Alexa device, I gotta tell you.
Now I put my phone here, screen is off, okay Google.
[MUSIC]
[SOUND] Navigate to the nearest gas station.
[MUSIC]
Okay, I think we're stuck.
That never happens without this.
Cancel.
Okay, Google.
[SOUND] I don't know what that even means.
[SOUND] Navigate to CBS Interactive in San Francisco.
Okay, CBS interactive.
[MUSIC]
Head North on Paradise Drive towards-
Okay, took a couple of tries, finally worked.
Let's try our next one.
Okay Google Navigate to the nearest gas station.
Okay, [UNKNOWN] 76.
Notice how was a little more elegant going through Google.
Google automatically took the command and loaded up the navigation.
It didn't ask me an intermediate question.
Do you want to go to such and such a station I asked you for the nearest gas station, I assume you're not stupid.
Yes, just take me there.
Okay Google, play 07.
Playing 07 on Spotify.
Again, the command was carried out fine.
Let's try one more.
Okay Google, add motor oil to my shopping list Okay, I've added motor oil to your shopping list.
About the same as Amazon.
What did we learn here?
This is an interesting fussiness added to an Android phone.
An Android phone has all the functions that this device brings you with the exception of the fact that this has some microphones.
That are going to do some supposedly better noise cancellation and such.
If you had a car that only has an aux jack, as I mentioned, this will be a way for your to go Bluetooth from the phone to here and then aux into your aux jack, bringing ahead an otherwise dated head unit.
But I've already retrofitted Bluetooth to this dated head unit so I didn't need that In this case, which is fine because it saved me an ox cable.
But to be honest, I don't need this thing at all.
It's all built into my phone, which is one of the key learnings from both of these products.
You've got a speaker, you got a microphone, you've got connectivity, you've got Bluetooth, it's already in your phone.
These add on devices are kind of a weird category of.
Almost gilding the lily
[MUSIC]
and let's talk about the obviously missing entrant here.
Where's Apple?
Where's their solution?
They don't allow any of these kind of devices, Apple keep Siri on their products as you know so there is no Siri add on whether you need it or not.
Generally related to all this is Apple's Do Not Disturb mode, which is kind of clever.
It uses some various inputs and signals to figure out if you have a phone in your car while you're driving and goes into Do Not Disturb mode so you're not distracted by it.>> The weather looks good today.
There's also Siri Eyes Free.
If you've got one of a few recently manufactured cars and they have factory built in technology.
Where the voice button on the wheel that normally calls up that dreadful automaker voice command system.
If you long press.
It's that same button.
It brings up Siri instead, once you've got your car setup.
Now you've got access to a different voice system and you didn't have to buy anything that you had to plug into your car.
But, you had to buy a car.
[MUSIC]
And there's one last distinction I wanna make that is germane to this conversation, though not strictly about voice.
You've got Android Auto and you got Apple Car Play right in Android Auto.
You can launch it as a standalone mode on a phone, which is different than Car Play Car Play does not do this.
Car Play only works with a factory or aftermarket Car Play head unit that's actually in the dashboard.
We've shown you a number of those Whereas here on Android Auto, I can do all kinds of things that are going to be automotive centric, very much shaped and made less distracting driven by voice and I don't have to have any connection to a head unit.
This becomes my head unit.
That's a key part of the overall thing that I bet you're trying to accomplish by using in car voice is simplicity and safety.
So in other words, you've got a big divide in terms of religion.
In some these in cars smart speakers can add better microphones and a Bluetooth to ox jack bridge function if you're older car needs that.
Otherwise your phone is probably all you need to have a smart assistant as your copilot.
