If you thought using Amazon's Alexa at home to turn on lights, tune your television, answer questions, and perform dozens of other tasks that made you feel like George Jetson coming home after a hard day at Spacely Sprockets, wait until BMW puts Alexa into your mid-2018 and beyond BMWs and Minis.
The BMW Group is forging ahead to change and improve how we connect with our vehicles and how our vehicles connect with the world. Integrating Alexa, Amazon's voice-controlled artificial intelligence personal assistant into BMW and Mini vehicles will allow drivers and passengers to access services, information and entertainment, and shopping while underway. Since Alexa is cloud-based, tens of thousands of Alexa skills available now to Amazon Echo and Echo Dot users will also be available in cars. BMW and Mini cars, to be exact.
You might be thinking that BMW Connected has been able to hook up with Alexa for over a year, and you'd be right. BMW Connected users in the U.S., U.K., and Germany have been able to use Alexa to check vehicle information like fuel levels or high-voltage battery state of charge for BMW i and iPerformance vehicles. They have also been able to integrate calendar appointments or routes and departure times using Alexa. This new integration coming in 2018 will take it to the next level.
“By making this step of integrating Alexa into our models from mid-2018, BMW and Mini will form a more intrinsic part of our customers’ digital lifestyles,” explained Dieter May, BMW Group Senior Vice President Digital Services and Business Models. “Voice control first featured in BMW Group cars many years ago, and we are now enhancing its functionality by adding a digital ecosystem, which will open up all sorts of new possibilities that customers can access quickly, easily, and safely from their car.”
BMW has been not-so-quietly providing more and more connectivity over the past few years. Now, more than 8,500,000 BMW Group vehicles worldwide are connected. Much of the integration has been with smartphones, but with vehicle SIM cards and Alexa built in starting next year, connectivity will be more seamless and provide more online accessibility in more places.
BMW provides an example. BMW and Mini users can check local movie times, listen to music playlists, or check weather using voice command by asking Alexa, just like they could at home with their Echo or Dot. Depending on the Alexa skill, certain information may be shown visually on the BMW Display Screen or Mini Center Instrument.
“We are excited to work with BMW to bring the Alexa experience to their drivers,” said Ned Curic, Vice President of Alexa Automotive. “Using your voice to enjoy content and interact with Alexa makes a great driving experience even better. We can’t wait for BMW customers to try this out.”
From mid-2018 on, Amazon Alexa will be available in all BMW and Mini vehicles in the U.S, U.K., and Germany.
As useful as many home users of Alexa find the digital personal assistant to be, we think the integration of Alexa in BMW Group connected vehicles may be close to unlimited. Perhaps even someday, you can ask the Alexa in your car to tell the Alexa in the car behind you to stop tailgating. Someday.—Scott Blazey
[Photos courtesy of BMW AG.]
