Using Alexa in Our Home and in Our Car

Our family was an early adopter of the Amazon family of devices starting with the first Kindle, a Kindle Paperwhite, and then Echo as soon as it came out. We now have 1 Echo and 4 Dots with a new Amazon Show scheduled to arrive on 6/28/17.

There is also a new Amazon Look coming soon which takes pictures and is geared, I think, to teenage girls interested in fashion. I'd love to have one, but there are other priorities right now, including of course, our Tesla Model X which is scheduled for delivery in June.

The embedded video below will walk you through the locations and uses of the Amazon devices in our home and will also tie back into our Tesla order by talking about using Alexa in a car. Right now, while driving,  we use the Logitech ZeroTouch phone car mount for my son, Johnny's, Android phone. On my iPhone, I use the new microphone feature of the Alexa app. Although I appreciate those capabilities, I really want to be able to have the Alexa wake word work in my car.  That is, I just want to say, "Alexa what's the forecast?" while driving down the road just like I would at home.

I bought into the Dashbot Kickstarter last year eagerly awaiting their solution to having Alexa in my car, but Dashbot still hasn't shipped. I still think it will be cool, and certainly the kids will enjoy it, but probably not necessary.

It looks like Ford is working to integrate Alexa in their cars starting out first with a skill to control the cars features and then later integrating her inside the car.

Tesla already has several similar Alexa skills that will allow you to have Alexa check your car charging status, battery charge, and control the climate. One is called EV Car. Another is called My Tesla. This post shows how they work.  As soon as we get out Model X, I'll be checking out these skills.

 Do you have Amazon devices in your house? Do you have any uses that you consider unique? Are you looking forward to using Alexa in your car? Leave me a comment.

Video