Amazon Alexa now makes driving safer and enjoyable in the U.K. thanks to Logitech’s ZeroTouch that enables the assistant to play music, read emails or manage to-do lists while on the road. Amazon has opened its Alexa Voice Services to third-party developers to integrate Alexa into their devices, which is a brilliant strategy to dominate the burgeoning voice control space.
Alexa, the smart voice assistant of Amazon has clearly dominated the home with its Echo and Echo Dot. It has now escaped the Echo and found its way in U.K. cars.
The AI assistant enables drivers to focus on the road and make driving safer. It also gives a more enjoyable driving experience with various tasks now accomplished through simple voice commands.
Alexa found its way into cars thanks to the Logitech’s ZeroTouch. Logitech has made use of the free and open Alexa Voice Services to integrate the voice assistant into its products.
ZeroTouch is a special dashboard mount that can be purchased for £50. It is specially designed for a phone that works with an app that runs on Android smartphones. The best thing is users do not need to buy a new car to use Alexa.
Drivers can now play music, shop or even remotely control Smart Home devices hands-free and while on the road. Users only need to raise their hands so that it can be seen by the smartphone camera and Alexa will answer to commands just like it does at home.
ZeroTouch and Amazon Alexa combined make up a powerful combination that can do various tasks like manage to-do lists, access Kindle account, read and send text messages and emails and even amuse children with voice-based games. All it needs is a solid internet connection that the smartphone provides, the Guardian reported.
Amazon is clearly dominating the so-called “voice control war” leaving behind closest rival, the Google Assistant, which has yet to launch in the U.K. This is partly because of a brilliant strategy employed by Amazon, which is to open its Alexa Voice Services to third-party developers like what it did in U.K. recently.
The services have been opened to U.S. manufacturers since June 2015 and the smart voice assistant has been in various devices like speakers. The idea of a Jarvis-like personal assistant may not be far-fetched as Amazon continues to share its technology with other companies who may not have the means to develop it themselves, Forbes reported.
