"Hey, Alexa! Drive on the left please?". The second-gen Amazon Echo Auto is coming to UK drivers, priced £59.99, having already released in the States, where it was priced $54.99 for its late 2022 on-sale date.
Okay, I know, Amazon Echo Auto can't take over the wheel of your car and actually do the driving, but this little dongle does add Amazon's Alexa voice control to your vehicle, bringing hands-free controls to many of your favourite voice-activated services.
If you're an Alexa user you can use Echo Auto to control your music selection (whether from Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music, and more), make calls and messages, adjust smart home devices, get a read of the news, and even adjust calendar appointments when on the go.
The second-generation Echo Auto is said to vastly improve the product's ability to hear your commands and respond, which I'm sure would be useful, although the same complaints as placed on the original product are said to still apply (based on various US reviews that I've read): namely that Echo Auto just, well, can't do all that much for you.
The reveal of the second-gen Echo Auto for UK drivers appears alongside Amazon's update of its best smart speakers: the Echo 5 and Echo Show Kids get 2023 upgrades, plus there's the introduction of an all-new Echo Pop – the smallest-scale Echo device that I've seen, kind of like a Google Nest Mini competitor, if you will.
I certainly think the second-gen Echo Auto looks better than the first-gen product, too, as it's slimmer overall, and covered in a microphone-like mesh as you can see from the image above. It's supposed to be easier to fit, too, thanks to an adhesive mount. Even so, do you really want to have the wire of the new Echo Auto trailing about in your car, or is that a sacrifice too far for Alexa voice control?
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