Date:  Nov 1, 2017

You know I cannot leave without Alexa.

I like Apple, but I hated Siri.  It does not work.  Not like my precious Alexa.

So, when the news of Garmin announced their Garmin Speak with Amazon Alexa, I told myself, I got to have this Alexa in my car.  Yeah!  Alexa in my car.

Let’s unbox it.  Side view.  A usb charging port.  Hmm… In-vehicle voice service with GPS.

Another side view.  OK, basically, this Garmin speak will need to speak to your mobile phone (i.e. iPhone) via Bluetooth.  And when your iPhone is connected to your car stereo systems with Bluetooth, whatever you do, you can ask Alexa to play for you.  That’s it.

Ah… I like this slogan.

“What you love about Amazon Alexa, now in your vehicle.”

Garmin, you did the right thing!!  Good for you!

A very long USB cable with the cigarette lighter jack.

Additional sticky pad, just in case the first one don’t stick.

Now, this come with a big surprise.

You know how big Alexa is, be it the Alexa Echo or the small Alexa.  This Garmin Speak is only like this, less than a palm size.

Great!  Well done!  That is what it should be in the car.

So, basically, stick this side onto your windscreen, and that will do!

Things to try list.  But WAIT….  At the time of this writing… Garmin Speak DOES NOT SUPPORT Singapore navigation yet.  They need time to roll this out.  So, I am sure give it some time, Garmin will fix this, and make the GPS navigation available for Singapore.  So, don’t jump the gun, if you are looking for GPS navigation features.  I buy it to enable Alexa in my car, I am not particular about that GPS function.  🙂

Yeah, more things you can do.  And these are some of the things I love to do it with Alexa in my car.

That’s it.  No more other things.  These are the simple manual and pages.

You need to download Garmin Speak app in order to set it up.  Very easy and seamless.

At same point, Garmin Speak will need to link to your Amazon account.  So make sure your Amazon app can be assessed form the Internet.

If you have this error message, enable the App to use your Telco 4G data.  You might have mistakenly turn it off.  And the buggy IOS firmware may turn it off for you by default.

Let’s try it out.

First, update the firmware first.  It will do this automatically.  It draws 4G data from your iPhone.

Last step of the step.  Just ask Alexa to ask Garmin to activate my Garmin Speak device.  And walaaa… You are all set to go.

Very easy.  Just speak to it to complete the set-up.

I drove the car to my friend workshop and pay them to attached and hide the Garmin Speak USB cable.  So, I nicely attached Garmin Speak at this location.  Right hand top side.

Let’s see what it can do for now…

Alexa, play my Audio book.  From Audible.  🙂  And it works!!!!

Alexa, where is all my staffs??  So, you ordered some stuffs from Amazon and you are wondering when is your shipment arriving… Well, ask Alexa to update you.

Alexa, tell me a joke.  When you are bored, you can do this.  Or play games with Alexa.  Alexa can play Star Wars, Star Trek or Harry Potter trivia games.  Or tic-tac-toe.  Just enable the “skills” from the Alexa app.

Alexa, read a book from Kindle.  If you dont have an Audible (audio books) account, you can ask Alexa to read a book from Kindle.  The machine Alexa voice will read it out aloud for you.

IoT is about how you use smart devices at home so that you can command your home assistant to turn on and off it.

Form the earlier video footages (before I mount the Garmin Speak on the windsheild).

Alexa, turn on “bedroom”.  Bedroom is my group or zone name for my bedroom aircon.  So, while driving, you can turn on and off your aircon.  You can set the temperature or find out the current temperature.

So, now you can imagine, I can turn on and off my bedroom lights too.

I can ask Alexa to turn on and off my TV, Apple TV and Fire TV.

I can ask Alexa to turn on and off my study room aircon as well.

I am slowly adding the IoT in my home.  So far, I have maximum satisfaction of this.

Alexa, play some songs from Bruno Mars.  Well, this is the main reason why I got it at the first place.  Alexa must be able to play my songs from Amazon Music or Apple Music.  I think playing it from Spotify is the best.  But I don’t want to subscribe to so many la.

I demo for my friend from Malaysia to see yesterday.  And I played all his favourite songs by asking Alexa to play it.  He was so amaze with that Garmin Speak can do, and envy.  Malaysia do not have such a good “4G” experience on the road.

Alexa, how’s the weather today?  Very important function too.

And now, this is the reason why you want to hold on to your purchase.  Because it does not support Voice Navigation in Singapore yet.

Alexa, what is the fastest way to office.  Office set to Suntec.

And Sorry, navigation is not supported in Singapore yet.

But if you are ok with every other things, I say, buy!

I am glad that I got this Garmin Speak.  And Hello Alexa in the car.  🙂