Ford Continues Alexa In-Car Rollout For Mach-E, Now Offering Personalized Voice Commands

[Electric Goat]

**Eligible 2022 Ford vehicles receive three years of access to Alexa Built-in and 30-days of complimentary streaming media services that begin on the new vehicle warranty start date, after which fees apply.

It's good to know that it's a paid service... therefore, it can (and will) be turned off by me

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[Mathington]

I love how the 2022 models get free access for 3-years but there is no mention of 2021 models?Does this mean that 2021 models will have to pay to try it or do we not get the functionality at all? I really hope that Ford isn't segregating the software and features by model year, despite it being updatable OTA, otherwise it will completely destroy my support of the Ford brand.

The process should be like Tesla and Apple and make all the features/software available assuming the hardware supports it.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Does anyone with this crap on their MME know if you can disable the Alexa wakeword in Settings (like I did with the lame Ford voice assistant)?

One has to activate the service (i.e., pay for it) before it will even attempt to do anything other than lurk there next to an almost-useful function. I haven't activated it and will not be activating it, so I don't know if you can then disable the wake word.

 

[BalsaDust]

My situation with Alexa....
me; Alexa, open the car door please
Alexa; "sorry Dave I'm afraid I can't do that right now"

I know you are all saying that in your heads in the appropriate HAL9000 voice!

Tony

 

[2021-MMEx-RT1]

My situation with Alexa....
me; Alexa, open the car door please
Alexa; "sorry Dave I'm afraid I can't do that right now"

I know you are all saying that in your heads in the appropriate HAL9000 voice!

Tony

Here's a 'trick' you can tell Alexa (If you have one at home).

Ask Alexa to 'Open the Pod Bay doors'

 

[scoopman]

One has to activate the service (i.e., pay for it) before it will even attempt to do anything other than lurk there next to an almost-useful function. I haven't activated it and will not be activating it, so I don't know if you can then disable the wake word.

Soooo what happens if you say a certain female name now without activating it? Does it do anything annoying? It could be like SirusXM without a subscription and answer you and tell you to activate it. That would be annoying. Are there any Settings you can change for it?

 

[Gullwingdmc]

The Alexa command that all MME drivers never knew they needed.

In our cars it just gets you directions to the nearest Chipotle.

 

[AKgrampy]

Driver….“Alexa please remove the 5 second limit my MME GT “

Alexa ….” hahahaha”

Alexa “ no problem, you now have a 3 second limit. You are welcome!”

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Soooo what happens if you say a certain female name now without activating it? Does it do anything annoying? It could be like SirusXM without a subscription and answer you and tell you to activate it. That would be annoying. Are there any Settings you can change for it?

Nothing happens when I try to tell Alexa to do something.
When you tap on the icon, it goes to a screen with a "Let's Get Started" button.
No settings are available other than starting set up.

 

[scoopman]

Nothing happens when I try to tell Alexa to do something.
When you tap on the icon, it goes to a screen with a "Let's Get Started" button.
No settings are available other than starting set up.

So I just have to avoid hitting that button. Does it bring up the stupid get started screen while you are driving? God I hope not.

 

[scoopman]

Nothing happens when I try to tell Alexa to do something.
When you tap on the icon, it goes to a screen with a "Let's Get Started" button.
No settings are available other than starting set up.

BTW I am a related biz and I wonder if Alexa's wakeword engine is running and logging any utterances even if it is not signed in and set up.

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

This will be coming to Sync 4W as well, I'm told. So, no worries there.

 

[PrimeFuture]

I'm no fan of Alexa, but actually kind of like the idea of being able to program custom phrasing for functions in the car. The built-in Ford system can be aggravating as hell for doing just about anything. We'll see if 2021 get this at all though, since others have pointed out there's no mention of 2021 in the announcement.

 

[scoopman]

I'm no fan of Alexa, but actually kind of like the idea of being able to program custom phrasing for functions in the car. The built-in Ford system can be aggravating as hell for doing just about anything. We'll see if 2021 get this at all though, since others have pointed out there's no mention of 2021 in the announcement.

Sure, but I don't like how they're not providing me the choice to decide whether I want this installed in my car. This feels like craptastic bloatware loaded onto a Windows XP laptop that pops up if you mistakenly click the wrong icon.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

BTW I am a related biz and I wonder if Alexa's wakeword engine is running and logging any utterances even if it is not signed in and set up.

If the wakeword engine is running, it's not activating any response in the car. I haven't checked my wifi server logs to see if there's any distinctive activity over wifi when the wakeword is spoken.

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