Alexa Echo Auto

Mine is coming today. They force you to buy a vent mount. Heck it’s not all that expensive and Amazon’s return policy is great.

 

I got mine in awhile ago but haven't tried it yet, I plan too real soon. I don't think I'll be mounting it on my vent, but we'll see. I hope it will be good for audible books...

 

Teddy, Welcome to PriusChat !

*********************************

Our Prime has been running the Alexa + vent mount for ~6 weeks, it works great. The only limitation is if you loose your signal when you travel through outlying areas with bad reception.


Rob43

PS, If you have a 240v outlet near your Prime, you can charge up in 2 1/2 hours for less than $50 dollars.

 

You don't need a vent mount, I have mine attached directly to the flat-ish part of the dash (pardon the blurry pic):



Pros:

• Its voice sensitivity appears better than Toyota's
• Access to the Alexa skills
• Far better integration with your phone absent native Android Auto/Apple Carplay capabilities

Cons:

• Can't change the wake word (stuck with "Alexa")
• There aren't a ton of Alexa skills that are actually useful (but I can get my Echo Auto to meow at me)
• Actually getting the Echo to execute all but the simplest commands is a huge pain. I regularly get frustrated enough that I switch back to operating my phone by hand

Before buying the Echo Auto, I would highly recommend looking through the list of Alexa Skills to see if and how many you think you would actually use while driving.

Also, to any other Prime Echo Auto owners, if you have any good tips or skills for using the device, please let me know.

 

Mine arrived last week - came with the vent mount for $25(though I think you can put in near the Qi charging area and it still picked up my voice fine). Ultimately I was disappointed by it and returned it. Did not seem to work well at all - it basically needs the Alexa app on your iphone to handle most functionality. For me, it seemed easier to just use the USB input, say "Siri, open amazon music (or alexa app)" and control from there.

It also did not seem to work well with opening various podcasts, changing XM stations, etc. I got a lot of error messages or "this does not support" when testing out basic functions I would want to use.

Perhaps I set it up incorrectly, but I have several echos and dots that I use a ton and this one did not seem to be a value add for me at all.

 

Wow, how interesting, ours literally works just like the Alexa's in our home.



Rob43

PS, If you have a 240v outlet near your Prime, you can charge up in 2 1/2 hours for less than $50 dollars.

 

I bought the echo auto. It came free with a vent mount. What I did was attach some 3m double sided sticky pads and stuck it under the flat part that's above the wireless phone charging pad. If you look at the shift knob, follow that down and it will curve back into a pocket. I stuck it on that ceiling part. I hid the cable under the center console and ran it all the way into the rear and plugged it into the 12v plug. No wires are exploded and Alexa is hidden from view.