Google's $50 Roav Bolt, on sale now, is basically a Google Home for your car.
The Bolt, which fit inside your car's cigarette lighter or accessory socket, was designed to better incorporate the Google Assistant into vehicles without the need for the driver to swipe or yell at their smartphone. Once plugged in, the device will pair with a Google Assistant-enabled phone over Bluetooth, and let you begin making voice commands.
Google and Anker, which manufactures the device, unveiled the Roav Bolt at CES in January. It's now available at Best Buy, on Walmart's website, and via Anker.
Of course, you can already use Google Assistant in your car via a phone, but the experience isn't ideal, according to Tomer Amarilio, a product manager for Google Assistant. For instance, your phone's microphones may be too far away to hear your voice, and the speakers might not be loud for you to hear the response, especially when there's lots of traffic noise around you.
As people drive, they can also be tempted to interact with their phone, when they should be paying attention to the road. "There's a very strong need to scroll through the phone, check messages, fumble for podcasts, etc., which is obviously bad for driving," Amarilio told PCMag. "So we wanted to make people safer."
The Roav Bolt can enhance the Google Assistant experience with the help of two dual microphones and onboard computer algorithms, which are designed to easily pick up your voice commands, even with surrounding noise. The device can also connect to your car's stereo system to let Google's voice assistant answer back loud and clear.
However, the Roav Bolt isn't a standalone device. It essentially acts as middle-man by listening to your commands, and then using your smartphone to complete them with Google Assistant.
Amarilio gave PCMag short demo of the device in action. For instance, you can tell it to play a song with the command: "Hey Google, play Sunflower," which is a hip-hop song from Post Malone and Swae Lee. The device will respond by loading the song from Google Play Music on your phone, and then playing it over your car's audio system.
If you decide to blast the music on your vehicle's speakers, the Roav Bolt will still be able to hear you. Amarilio simply had to utter the phrase "Hey Google," using his normal speaking voice, and the Roav Bolt stopped the music to hear the rest of his command.
The Roav Bolt can also make navigation easier. For example, if you say "Hey Google, take me to Googleplex," the name of the company's headquarters in Silicon Valley, the directions will automatically appear on your phone using Google Maps. Other follow-up voice commands include "How's the traffic," and "Find a gas station on the way," and Google Assistant will respond with the appropriate answer.
You can also make hands-free calls with the Roav Bolt. Simply say "Hey Google, call CVS pharmacy," and the device will tell your phone to call up the business. If you'd rather send a text, then just say "Send message" to the contact. You can also command the Roav Bolt to share your ETA with your friends, so they know when you're going to arrive. Finally, to see all the notifications on your phone, you can just say "Read my messages," and the Google Assistant will begin reading them out to you.
Stay tuned for our full review, where we'll go over more of the commands while on the road. Although the Roav Bolt is optimized for Android phones, it can be used with an iPhone through an iOS beta experience mode, but which has fewer capabilities.
The Roav Bolt device itself also comes with two built-in USB Type-A ports, so you can easily hook up your phone to keep it charged. In addition, Anker added button controls to the device, in the event you'd rather not speak.
In the coming weeks, the Roav Bolt will also be available for in-store purchases at Walmart and at Target retail locations. If you prefer a different voice assistant, Anker also made a smart car charger that works with Amazon's Alexa.