FRANKLIN (United States): In the coming months new as well as many existing Nissan owners will be able to talk to their cars from the comfort of their living rooms.
Voice-operated smart home assistants may still be a very niche product, but that hasn't stopped car companies from seizing upon their potential to make their customers' lives even easier. BMW, Hyundai and Ford have already implemented Alexa integration across their latest model lines and now Nissan is following suit.
The service requires one of Amazon's Alexa devices in your home and certain Nissan cars built between late 2015 onwards with the Nissan Connect Services telematics system.
"Intelligent integration means helping our customers even when they are not behind the wheel," said Dan Teeter, director, Vehicle Connected Services, Nissan North America, Inc. "We are about bringing unexpected innovations to customers, and are excited to offer this technology to both existing and new Nissan owners."
Once configured, users will be able to remotely lock or unlock their cars and remote start the engine. The system will initially work with Nissan Altima, Armada, Maxima, Murano, Pathfinder, Rogue, Sentra and Titan models but in the coming moths it will roll out to other popular Nissan cars including the new Leaf.
And, when used with the second generation plug-in electric car, Alexa will be able to keep you up to date on charging progress, let you know how much range is available in the battery pack if you set off now, and can also remotely activate or deactivate the climate control.
What's more, the integration works both ways with users being able to access Alexa from the driving seat to check on their home or to adjust the thermostat or turn down the temperature on a connected oven.
