Amazon Echo Auto (newest model), Add Alexa to your car

I just acquired a 4WD 2010 Ford Escape as my inclement weather vehicle. It is an XLS, the base model, and mine is really base. No Sirius, no Bluetooth, no navigation, not even USB.I have Sirius XM in my other vehicles and listen to it the majority of the time. I also wanted hands free for safety and convenience reasons and navigation would be a handy feature. As I was looking for hands free devices, I came across the Alexa Auto. As I read more about it, this small reasonably priced device was the answer to all of the features I was looking for.Set-up was a breeze and, fortunately, the one "option" my entertainment system had was an auxiliary input. I had it up and running in no time. By utilizing the Sirius app on my Galaxy S25+ I immediately added satellite radio functionality. I've also been able to make and receive calls and navigate using the phones map functions. Connectivity has been rock solid using the aux cable and I have the added bonus of the car's speakers being utilized as the speaker for the device.Two small nits to pick: I wish the included power adapter was smaller...it is huge. I'm also surprised the device doesn't have an on/off switch.Despite those 2 issues, I love this device. It has taken care of my entertainment needs for this vehicle and modernized/upgraded the car's technology all with one small, relatively inexpensive gadget.

I was so jealous when my mom's brand new car had Alexa built in, so I started searching for ways to hook up my echo in my car and found this snazzy little device! It's perfect! You have to sync it to your Alexa app on your phone and it plays everything thru your car speakers. I have 2017 Ford Escape and this works amazing! When you set it up you can choose which services to sync for music (I synced my apple music account), radio ( I chose my Sirius which I have a subscription for), podcasts (I chose my Amazon Music service), it works seamlessly and I LOVE being able to get information like what's the weather, what's the capital of Italy, whats the joke of the day, Alexa play my audiobook, etc. It's easy to set up and if you are an Alexa fan like me, you will be super happy to have it!

The Echo Auto installed easily and worked great on the first trip out until I pulled the car into a gas station and turned off the engine to get gas. After that, the device would not communicate with my phone's Alexa app, even though the app was active. After searching the web and finding I was not the only one with this problem, I tried all of the suggested solutions, reset the device, reinstall the Alexa app, etc. This worked until I had to turn off the car's ignition. On starting up the car again, the Echo again could not communicate with the Alexa app. What DID work for me was unplugging the device (e.g. removing the USB cable from the cigarette lighter adapter) before turning off the car ignition, and then plugging the device back in only after starting the car. It's annoying to have to remember to unplug the USB before shutting the car; but so far, the device has had no problem communicating with the Alexa app. (If it stops working, I will provide an update.) Clearly can't give it five stars, but aside from this issue, I love my Echo Auto.

*** if you are attempting to connect with a newer phone, see my update below***I recently used a rental for a week that had Android Auto. I loved the voice commands. I felt far less distracted. Alas, I can't afford a new car, and, well, frankly love mine. I drive a 2015 Honda Pilot. I was curious if there were after market ways to add the voice commands and stumbled across the Echo Auto.We have been big Alexa and Amazon devices for a long, long time (we're talking owners of the 1st gen Kindle). I remembered my husband had participated in the Echo Auto when it first released. He wasn't sure where he'd placed it - his truck has Android Auto, so he doesn't use the Echo Auto. He suggested I try the 2nd gen because it had a lot of upgrades.Now, first of all, I should note I wanted voice commands for my music. I'm pretty protective about my music, and want it to play smoothly. I mostly use Spotify, but also use Amazon Music. I also figured it'd be handy to have texts read to me, and maybe to answer them, as my family with newer cars forget I don't have Android Auto. My car does have Bluetooth and does handle hands-free calls.I found the Echo Auto easy to install. I'm not sure why the instructions have you mount it first before setup, but I ignored that and set it up first. It walks you through setup as most their devices do, and it was easy. I particularly liked that I had the option to not have it handle phone calls, but could have it handle text messages. It has you select your default apps for music and entertainment, as well as maps. You can also opt out of having the Echo Auto control these.As for day to day use, it controls my music just as well as any of the devices in my house. There is occasionally some confusion as I have Spotify set as my default music app, so if I want a Playlist on Amazon Music, I have to specify Amazon Music. It reads texts messages well. My only complaint is you can't specify a contact to read the text from, so you have to allow it to read all unread texts in order they were received. It's been inconsistent on sending texts. Sometimes it works like a charm, sometimes not. It doesn't bother me as I'd rather be focused on the road and my music. Having it read the text so I can find out if it is urgent is enough. I haven't used it to navigate, but it opened Maps fine when I tested it.***UPDATE - I upgraded my phone from Samsung Galaxy S21+ to Samsung Galaxy S24+. I had to reset the Echo Auto. After many attempts, and resets and other tweaks, I finally got it to work. It would go through the setup process fine, but when I asked Alexa something, the blue ring would light, but no sound whatsoever. So, to save someone else the headache, here's how I fixed it. I un-installed the Alexa app from my phone, rebooted my phone (mostly cause that's what I do) and reinstalled the Alexa app. Setup was seamless after and I haven't had any issues.