Amazon Echo Auto brings right-hand drive update that Alexa fans will love

(Image credit: Amazon)

published 17 May 2023

"Hey, Alexa! Drive on the left please?". The second-gen Amazon Echo Auto is coming to UK drivers, priced £59.99, having already released in the States, where it was priced $54.99 for its late 2022 on-sale date.

Okay, I know, Amazon Echo Auto can't take over the wheel of your car and actually do the driving, but this little dongle does add Amazon's Alexa voice control to your vehicle, bringing hands-free controls to many of your favourite voice-activated services.

If you're an Alexa user you can use Echo Auto to control your music selection (whether from Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music, and more), make calls and messages, adjust smart home devices, get a read of the news, and even adjust calendar appointments when on the go.

The second-generation Echo Auto is said to vastly improve the product's ability to hear your commands and respond, which I'm sure would be useful, although the same complaints as placed on the original product are said to still apply (based on various US reviews that I've read): namely that Echo Auto just, well, can't do all that much for you.

The reveal of the second-gen Echo Auto for UK drivers appears alongside Amazon's update of its best smart speakers: the Echo 5 and Echo Show Kids get 2023 upgrades, plus there's the introduction of an all-new Echo Pop – the smallest-scale Echo device that I've seen, kind of like a Google Nest Mini competitor, if you will.

I certainly think the second-gen Echo Auto looks better than the first-gen product, too, as it's slimmer overall, and covered in a microphone-like mesh as you can see from the image above. It's supposed to be easier to fit, too, thanks to an adhesive mount. Even so, do you really want to have the wire of the new Echo Auto trailing about in your car, or is that a sacrifice too far for Alexa voice control?

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Mike is T3's Tech Editor. He's been writing about consumer technology for 15 years and his beat covers phones – of which he's seen hundreds of handsets over the years – laptops, gaming, TV & audio, and more. There's little consumer tech he's not had a hand at trying, and with extensive commissioning and editing experience, he knows the industry inside out. As the former Reviews Editor at Pocket-lint for 10 years where he furthered his knowledge and expertise, whilst writing about literally thousands of products, he's also provided work for publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Metro, and more.