At CES Amazon announces plans to put Alexa Onboard in your car
At CES today, Panasonic announced a partnership with Amazon that will bring Alexa to your car. Dubbed Alexa Onboard, it works with Panasonic's Skip Gen IVI technology and is meant to make life with your virtual assistant more seamless as you move from your home to your vehicle.
Alexa Onboard's functions were demonstrated on stage and the most interesting aspect is that it will still have use when offline. As expected, queries like what the weather's like, how far away a destination is and where the nearest gas station is, for example, are answered by Alexa when you ask. You'll also be able to take advantage of Alexa's other skills such as controlling your smart home devices, receiving news briefings and ordering from meal delivery services. But when the assistant is offline, say when internet isn't readily available, you can still get some help from Alexa. Users will be able to ask Alexa to change the temperature in their car, ask what's coming up on their calendar and control the windows, among other commands.
Panasonic is one of the first companies to get Alexa Onboard and a seamless voice control system appears to be right around the corner.