Hyundai is pushing the boundaries of the connected car at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The South Korean company is working on making its Blue Link infotainment system compatible with Google Home and Assistant.
Owners of eligible Hyundai models could soon be able to use Google’s voice-activated Home speaker to perform basic tasks. For example, the user can say, “OK, Google, tell Blue Link to start my Santa Fe and set the temperature to 72 degrees” or, “OK, Google, tell Blue Link to send the address of the Mandarin Oriental, in Las Vegas, to my Sonata.” The software can also lock and unlock the doors, sound the horn, flash the lights, as well as start or stop the charging process for electrified vehicles like the brand-new Ioniq.
For the technology to work, users need to link their Blue Link account with the voice-activated services offered by Google Assistant, and they need to have a Google Home device. For safety reasons, Google Assistant will only send commands to a car once the user has entered his or her Blue Link PIN number.
Many of the aforementioned tasks can already be completed remotely using a purpose-designed application compatible with smartphones and smartwatches. However, adding Google Assistant integration will simplify users’ lives by letting them control their home and their car with a single device.
“Our customers are finding smart-home integrations like the one we are showcasing with Google Home to be very useful and convenient. We will continue to add layers of convenience to the Blue Link connected car system,” affirmed Manish Mehrotra, Hyundai’s director of digital business planning and connected operations.
Hyundai promises more features will be added to the software before it is put into production, though the firm hasn’t provided more specific details. A time frame for when Google Assistant integration will be available on Hyundai vehicles hasn’t been announced yet, and a spokesperson told Digital Trends the company is only showing “proof of concept” at this point. When it launches, Google Home integration will exclusively be available in the United States.
