US owners of 2016 and 2017 Mercedes-Benz models can now use both Google Assistant on Google Home and Amazon Alexa to 'talk' to their cars.
With targeted commands to their personal assistant-enabled and voice-enabled devices, owners can activate various functions for their vehicles. Natural language understanding allows the services to interpret these commands and turn them into actions, the automaker said.
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Customers with Google devices can say: "Ok, Google, tell Mercedes me to start my car," and it will remotely start the customer's car. Another available feature includes remote lock. With Alexa devices, customers can say, "Alexa, ask Mercedes me to send an address to the car" for remote navigation input and point of interest requests.
"We want to offer our customers a broad range of services 24/7, not just when they are in our cars," said Nils Schanz, head of IoT and wearable integration at the automaker's US resarch arm. "[Our] goal is creating an intelligent ecosystem around cars, and developing cutting-edge technology to make everyday life more convenient for our customers."
Besides the devices, car owners will need an active Mercedes me account and an active mbrace subscription. In order to link their accounts, customers will have to download the Google Home or Amazon Alexa app and connect it with Mercedes me. European service will follow later this year.
In December 2016, Mercedes-Benz announced the integration with the Google Assistant on Google Home. Today, it claims to be one of the first carmakers to integrate Google Home with its vehicles.
"This integration signals a significant step forward in the company's connectivity strategy," it said.
