Ford+Alexa Reviews

I have tested and it is average from a perspective that I am talking about leveraging a several decades company with a brand new one. Lots of improvements are possible. I am an IT guy with more than 30 years experience who loves IoT. So I believe that a lot of homework is due. Alarms and reminders don’t work; Communications don’t work. They are absolutely basic when we are talking about the beauty of Ford+Alexa. I can open my garage door and I can ask my vacuum to start cleaning so Why I cannot drop a message or set a reminder. I just can’t conceive such a shortage.

I downloaded FordAlexa , but the first instruction is to close down Car Play. But, why in the world would I want to do that? I like Car Play because it integrates some features of my Iphone with Sync; so why would I give that up to open Alexa? I don’t know. I can’t come up with a reason.

3 main issues that are pretty big. (1) when I launch FordAlexa and ask for weather, it gives me weather for a city that’s 150 miles from me. I’ve cycled my phone, app, etc. and keeps giving me weather for the same, wrong, location. (2) FordAlexa should just work in the background and hear the wake up word. Mine does not. I need to click FordAlexa icon on the SYNC screen in order for Alexa to hear my voice prompt. That doesn’t seem very safe.... (3) when I ask Alexa to “find coffee”, I get the screen that prompts me to enable location services. They ARE enabled, and have been since I activated FordAlexa . FordAlexa is a waste of time.

Supposedly Alexa is supposed to be built in to these new trucks but yet everything says it must be connected to your phone and your phone microphone… Either way, you can’t just say Alexa and have her respond through your truck. I have tried every setting and combination of settings and linked everything that could be linked and then deleted and reinstalled… And I cannot find a single bit of information on the Internet about the issue.

In order to use FordAlexa, I had to disable Apple CarPlay. The Alexa app does not integrate with navigation, and displays very little information on my trucks screen. It feels like it has about 20% of the functionality of Apple CarPlay. I have no idea why this is supposed to be an improvement. Just use Google play or Apple CarPlay since your device already has that, and you will get much better functionality. If zero stars were an option, I would select that.

What level of education do the people setting these things up actually have? A 3 year old could learn in 2 minutes there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in any menu, or option on the vehicle said. Not to mention it did not work or progress. Is it to much to ask you use the actual terminology YOU placed in the menus? WTH???? I see a downloading page, signed in etc. Nothing happens at all. I turned off the blue tooth as there is no such thing in any menu termed “car play”.

FordAlexa constantly runs in the background using 92% of my battery. It would make my phone get hot and the battery would run out in only a couple hours. I turned of the wake up word and it ran less in the background and didn’t get hot, but then my truck couldn’t find all my music. So to sum up it works great as long as you have phone constantly plugged in and don’t mind a hot phone.

Downloaded, tried and everytime I ask a location question Alexa said it doesnt know because my settings arent set to always on for location.. except that they are on always. I went through all the settings, same results.. if it was even set to have location while in use, it should still work. Plus you have to go thru multiple stages to get back to music cuz the source button disappears. Deleting app..

FordAlexa is not intuitive at all. This is being used in a vehicle and you can’t even get directions to work? I have all the setting properly placed to be able to get my location and it cannot give them- says I need to check my settings for location permissions yet it can give me the name of things close to me? Very poor app. Will be deleting. Very disappointed

FordAlexa is drawing my battery at a rate of 30% an hour. Just like the Ford pass app before this one needs to be fixed. Delete immediately to save you battery until they fix it. I have is set to only use location while using and it was on all the time with me even opening FordAlexa . Very poor design. Waiting for a fix before I reinstall.

Great for finding and playing music without fumbling through smartphone apps. Also makes destination entry for navigation system work like everyone has always wanted.

There have now been two updates to FordAlexa since it broke on iOS 11.2.5 and still NO FIX! If you told me it didn't work, I would not have upgraded to 11.2.5. Your app told me to upgrade and now we are all screwed! When will you work on fixing this? Why have multiple updates come out without a fix???

Just tried it on my 2020 Fusion and it's useless. The wake word only responds half the time. It won't give me directions because it says it can't find my location. Most everything else doesn't work because Alexa says she is having a problem right now. I also don't like that I have to disable car play for it to work. Going to delete until this is working as expected.

Lost voice control when I had my F150 in for oil change and tire rotation on 8/8/19. Not sure why they would’ve flashed my SYNC, but it worked going in and didn’t work coming out.

Workaround is to push the voice control button on the wheel and have it link to Alexa...but it’s not working the way it should.

Would be nice if there was only one Alexa app and my F150 and Edge ST looked like an Echo device.

Wish that Waze or Apple Maps would display when the IVI display was at the Home setting.

When Alexa is active can not listen to SiriusXM without turning Ford Alexa off. That’s too bad.

I liked that I could control my home Alexa services - that is cool. Clearly this is promising technology but requires smoother human interaction and use-ability improvements.

Nice if iPads are supported vs being only an iPhone app. Developers should not limit screen size to only one platform.

The steps involved to use FordAlexa on Sync 3 are pretty bad. If your already plugged in, go to settings, turn off CarPlay, unhook phone, hook phone back up, use Alexa to turn on the lights while your driving home and set the AC to 72, turn CarPlay back on, hope you don’t wreck in the process. This needs CarPlay support, so bad.

Generally, like being able to listen to single artist or get information, however, Alexa is slow to respond to commands at times and suddenly disconnects other times. Must unplug phone and restart to try and get back to where it was. Bugs need to be worked out.

Updated app and iOS and the wake word detection no longer works. Every time I try to change the permissions as FordAlexa asks there isn’t an option to allow the microphone to be used by FordAlexa . Really enjoyed FordAlexa until this stopped working a couple weeks ago.

Finally I can see the what song is playing! The interface looks better now. Thanks

After I plug in my iPhone X on a sync 3 I can prompt Alexa to give me directions or play music. After this first prompt if I say Alexa it pauses the music for a second like it’s going to start listening then it starts playing music again. Alexa listening screen does not come up when this happens.

Worked one day this week. Stopped working. Updated app and iOS. Still not working.

I put a Dot in my new F250 and tethered off my cell, then the Ford + Alexa app came out and it worked great. I have Sync 3 and like to listen to my Audible books through CarPlay, but I like the ability of Alexa being able to read my Kindle books to me as well. So like many others have said, how can this billion dollar industry not keep up with the iOS updates? I think it shows that Ford is over their head and needs to commit more effort to the technology aspects of the industry. Bat to the Dot.

App itself works okay, however I have no album art for any of the music I listen to. Not sure what’s wrong with it.

Please Please Please update to 11.2.5. I’ve been waiting since the last update to be able to try ford+Alexa. I have just gotten a new Ford Flex and I can’t wait to try this out. Sounds like an amazing concept!