Photo courtesy to Rivian website
Rivian announced on Monday that it will embed Amazon Alexa into its upcoming electric vehicles’ hardware, bridging the gap between controlling internet-connected devices and the car itself. The two companies will debut this integration at CES 2020 with its R1T electric pickup truck.
Cnet .com reports there are two major ways Rivian’s Alexa integration will work. First, it’ll do all the usual stuff you expect, say, an Echo Dot to do: It can play music, make calls and send directions to connected devices like light bulbs, in addition to working with the myriad skills available on other Amazon-enabled devices.
But with this deeper connection to the car, Rivian has opened up a whole second area of functionality. Alexa will be able to change actual vehicle settings, whether it’s adjusting the climate control or opening the trunk and windows. If you have an Echo Show or Fire TV, you can use those to access the pickup truck’s bed camera, for a little extra peace of mind. Rivian also mentioned mysterious “car-to-home” and “home-to-car” skills that it claims are unique to its own cars, but as of this writing, the company has yet to divulge more details about those skills.
Rivian is not the first automaker to put Alexa this far into its car, but it’s among the first, and it probably won’t be the last, either. Lamborghini also recently announced deep Alexa integration for its vehicles, which will cover many of the same areas as Rivian.
That’s not all, because Rivian isn’t just working on passenger vehicles. The company is also working on an electric van, of which Amazon has ordered 100,000. These delivery vehicles will also contain the new Alexa integration when they hit the road, which is estimated to happen in 2021.
Now, whether you’re in the car or taking a shower, there are more ways to stay plugged into your own personal internet of things. Expect Rivian’s vehicles to launch with the Alexa integration tech in the latter stages of 2020.
