Amazon’s Alexa is by far the leader in the home voice assistant market, but when it comes to mobility, it is usually the assistants built into our phones which win out.
Amazon has been trying to address this by getting into the car voice control market, by opening up their Alexa API to allow car OEMs to add support for custom car features such as locking and unlocking your car or controlling the heating and air conditioning.
Now Jaguar Land Rover has announced that they are bringing support for Amazon Alexa to their whole range which is equipped with the Pivi Pro infotainment system, with around 200,000 Jaguar owners eligible.
The technology will integrate with the infotainment system and allow intuitive voice control of features such as navigation and music, making calls, managing calendars, hearing the news, checking the weather and controlling smart home devices.
The upgrade will be offered free of charge either via an OTA update where supported or via a dealer update.
The Jaguar and Land Rover Remote Skill for Alexa is also available on all respective Jaguar and Land Rover models with the Touch Pro infotainment system
Owners who are eligible will be notified of updates via a message displayed on their vehicle’s touchscreen.
Our Take
In-car infotainment systems have a long way to go to beat the convenience of having access to the data and customizations already on your phone available via features such as Apple Car Play and Google’s Android Auto, but using a mature 3rd party system such as Alexa does make it more likely that car owners will actually use your solution. It remains to be seen if Alexa, which is very much designed around home use, will make a comfortable fit for car owners, however.
