By: Richard Hurlock
Alexa in the car now includes maps. Alexa Auto, Amazon’s dedicated team adding Alexa connectivity into new cars, lets OEMs add Alexa inside the vehicle. OEMs can now have Alexa directly talk to the maps in digital instrument clusters, infotainment (IVI) systems, or heads-up displays (HUDs).
“Alexa, drive to work.”
Once Alexa hears that request, it reaches out to our Directions API, pulling down turn-by-turn directions and maps right to the car’s dashboard using Qt Automotive Suite (Qt 5.9), Kanzi, or Android. Our HD map format turns real-world coordinates into a local tile grid. This means a long sequence of coordinates is represented as sequence instructions. This radically saves bandwidth for streaming data to a car and reduces storage size for larger area coverage offline.
Alexa has better voice recognition than most car companies have been able to develop on their own. According to JD Power, the leading automotive research group, “In-vehicle voice recognition is failing.” Of all issues in new cars, navigation, voice, and Bluetooth receive the highest frequency of complaints. Alexa, and better maps, will change this. Alexa in the car adds access to more than 25,000 Alexa skills and will be in new Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, Hyundai, BMW, VW, Mercedes-Benz, and Nissan vehicles.
Obviously, the most common things you are going to ask Alexa to do in the car is to play music and get directions. But now you can ask practical questions, like finding a gas station before you hit empty.
“Alexa, where is the closest gas station.”
“There is a gas station in 2.4 miles up ahead, would you like to stop for gas?”
“Yes”
Alexa then talks directly to your maps, updates the directions to make a stop at the gas station using the Optimization API. After filling up with gas, and you can get back in the car and Alexa will remember your original trip. The API returns an array of waypoint objects. Each waypoint is an input coordinate snapped to the road and path network. The waypoints appear in the array in the order of the input coordinates, or in the order as specified in the destinationsquery parameter. You just say:
“Alexa, lets drive.”
And Alexa remembers the original address and says it right back to you:
“Ok, we’re continuing our trip to Costco on Wake Forest Road. Traffic is light, and you will arrive in 30 minutes.”
Alexa considers real-time traffic and incidents and will always find the optimal route. The maps are fully customizable, so automakers will be able to provide map designs suited for each vehicle. To ensure Alexa continues to work when cellular connectivity is lost, our maps and directions keep running even when the car lacks network connectivity. Alexa will soon work offline; Amazon is now creating custom AI chips for its Echo devices to offer faster and more responsive devices, which will be critical to running in the car. Chipmakers like Intel are already building Alexa support right into the CPU.
Developers at OEMs can now sign up for beta access, just email me (Richard.Hurlock@mapbox.com) to get set up. We’ll also be showing off our maps integration with Alexa at Mobile World Congress February 26 — March 1 in Barcelona. We won’t have a car, but we will have an fantastic demo for everyone to play with at our MWC booth. Find us in Hall 8.1, we’re just to the left of the entrance.
Alexa Auto Maps was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.