SEAT, the first automotive brand in Europe to roll out Amazon Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service, launches today the service in Spanish and Italian, and in French as of Monday November 12th, giving customers access to a host of functions accessible through simple voice commands.
As our lives become increasingly busy, bringing Amazon Alexa into the car means customers can optimise their time behind the wheel; whether its managing their personal schedule, playing music, navigating to points of interest, requesting personalised news or finding the nearest SEAT dealership.
How to use Amazon Alexa voice commands in your car
SEAT is the first automotive brand in Europe to launch Amazon Alexa in its vehicles.
The SEAT Media Control with Amazon Alexa app not only increases the amount of functionality available in the car, but also simplifies access to those key functions. All users need to do is press the control button on the steering wheel and speak.
Launched in 2014, Amazon Alexa now has more than 50,000 skills thanks to the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), which encourages developers to continually expand and evolve the Alexa’s capabilities.
Luca de Meo, president of SEAT said “Customers in the UK and Germany have enjoyed using Alexa to optimise their time in the car and simplify access to certain features in the safest way. We are excited to extend that functionality to customers in Spain, Italy & France, enabling those with a compatible vehicle to check the weather, play music, and more just using their voice”.
Services are already available in Germany and the UK, and from this moment, in Spain, Italy and France for the Ibiza, Arona, Leon, Ateca and the new Tarraco via the Android SEAT Media Control with Amazon Alexa app. Simply download SEAT Media Control with Amazon Alexa from the Play Store, connect it to the vehicle and the voice service is ready to use.
Safety comes first
As functionality and connectivity levels in the car increase, SEAT aims to find a balance between usability and safety. Introducing Amazon Alexa helps to maintain that balance and guarantee a safer ecosystem for drivers. With just a tap of the steering wheel, customers can ask Alexa for music, points of interest and much more all while keeping their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.
SEAT, leaders in connected car technologies
SEAT was already the first car brand worldwide to incorporate Google’s Waze into its vehicles’ navigation systems and the first brand to offer Shazam’s song recognition system and Full Link Technology compatible with iOS and Android devices across its full range of models.
In this sense Telefónica and SEAT have also recently presented the first use case of assisted driving via 5G mobile network in a real setting in Segovia, Spain. The pilot test showed how the road infrastructure “communicates” with vehicles via the existing mobile network.
The company has taken another step forward by becoming the first brand in Europe to incorporate Amazon Alexa, expanding its digital capabilities and connectivity offerings as the brand continues to be a frontrunner in the connected vehicle space in Europe.
