Let Amazon Echo and Alexa Unlock your BMW

BMW is already planning on releasing the revamped “Connected” assistant official app this month. The first version of BMW Connected focused largely on the journey management for the car. It included digital tools and products that are designed to make daily driving a breeze. It had the ability to scan your device’s calendar and address book and then plan your journeys based on calculated travel time and appointments. Route and real-time traffic data are used to achieve this. BMW Connected just sync everything with the car. But how about using other tools to unlock your car, like Amazon Echo and Alexa?

That’s what BMW is announcing today. They have added support for Amazon Echo and the Alexa feature. BMW owners will now be able to check their vehicle’s remaining range and use commands like “lock doors” through the Echo device, as long as they have the Connected app installed.

Alexa, is becoming a common household feature in the U.S. This integration will allow for the owner to just tell Alexa to lock the car instead of actually going out to the garage at night to double check if it is. You can also check car stats like gas levels, so you won’t have to worry about having enough gas for the drive tomorrow.

BMW Connected uses a flexible service architecture called the Open Mobility Cloud. This is a great platform to use because it builds on Microsoft Azure and processes data and information from all sorts of different sources. It is capable of machine learning and data analysis that makes it possible for providing the basis for personalization and context orientation of the BMW Connected services.

The BMW iOS app will arrive in August, with the Alexa update coming later this year. Android support has not been announced by BMW yet.