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Using Google Assistant with AutoPi to enable voice control of a car

autopi.io

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Re: Using Google Assistant with AutoPi to enable voice control of a car

#12
post #6
post #3

Cool, and no offense, but let me know when a third party reviews it. Voice recognition and personal assistants are annoying enough in a quiet house (but arguably useful). I would be surprised if it is useful yet in a noisy moving car.

I've seen people use Google Voice in a loud bar. It seemed to be effective. I can't get Siri to work under those conditions, however. The noise should be a solvable problem.

It should be, but I'm definitely not preordering a product like that without a third party demo.

Re: Using Google Assistant with AutoPi to enable voice control of a car

#14
First off this looks cool.

But these 4G connected smart ODB dongles scare the crap out of me. You are giving an IOT device the ability to disable breaks, the transmission, and lock you inside. I'm not really worried about a Maximum Overdrive type situation, giving this much control to a category of devices that was able to take down Dyn because so many of these devices used a subset of 60 common factory default usernames and passwords.

I think there is a good use case for these type of devices, but I think ODB, isn't the right mechanism for it. But I don't know if there will be a new standard.

Re: Using Google Assistant with AutoPi to enable voice control of a car

#15
post #6
post #3

Cool, and no offense, but let me know when a third party reviews it. Voice recognition and personal assistants are annoying enough in a quiet house (but arguably useful). I would be surprised if it is useful yet in a noisy moving car.

I've seen people use Google Voice in a loud bar. It seemed to be effective. I can't get Siri to work under those conditions, however. The noise should be a solvable problem.

Yeah, Google's voice recognition has worked for me everywhere, even loud clubs. It's quite magical. I'm sure it would work in the car.

Now, whether I would trust Google with that data is a different question. (Spoiler: no.)

Re: Using Google Assistant with AutoPi to enable voice control of a car

#17
post #2

The heavyweights are already there... http://www.techradar.com/news/you-can-now-get-amazons-alexa-...

This is not equivalent. The key distinction in the device from OP's post is that it actually connects to the OBD port in your car, giving you a direct connection the cars systems. The one you linked does not seem to do that at all.

Indeed but one has to question whether you actually want that level of control exposed given the dangers it presents.

There's a lot to be said for air gapping critical systems.

Re: Using Google Assistant with AutoPi to enable voice control of a car

#18

I was actually hoping this was more a hardware sale only where they give us something like Automatic* that we can tweak ourselves. [*] https://www.automatic.com/

What do you mean? It's a Raspberry Pi running Linux, you can tweak it as much as you like: https://www.autopi.io/hardware-dongle

Re: Using Google Assistant with AutoPi to enable voice control of a car

#19
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone know how Android Auto (and Car Play) compare to the functionality exposed through the OBD port? I have Android Auto and love it for navigation/music, but it is missing any car specific controls, eg. climate controls, reporting speed, maintenance, etc. I have to exit out of Android Auto and into Sync to access some specific functionality only available through the Sync touchscreen. Is this just a case of the ma…

They sandbox many of the different systems. Carmakers won't cede deeper control to Android Auto or Carplay because they want to hold on to being the main user interface. There's also safety, security, and data-sharing issues at play.

Fair enough, I would be OK with having to run a Ford app through Android Auto to access that functionality on a Ford.

I just want the best of both worlds .. trying to hold onto being the main user interface feels short sighted. I'm not going to NOT buy your vehicle because I can use Android Auto vs your custom UI, so having both available shouldn't be a negative to the manufacturer.

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