Ford teams with Amazon to connect homes with cars

Ford is also integrating smart home platform Wink with the Ford SYNC AppLink, allowing drivers to access home automation features (such as turning a porch light on) from their phone.

“Alexa, could you start my vehicle?”

The level of computing power inside the average Auto has increased rapidly in recent years, and manufacturers are looking to exploit that to create new revenue streams.

The Amazon’s Alexa, name of Echo’s personal assistant, will send the voice commands from home to Ford automobiles.

After many years of persisting with Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Automotive 7 platform, the Ford Motor Company has chose to up the game with the Sync 3 infotainment system that is a standard offering in their cars globally.

Ford is expected to unveil several of the new features of Sync 3 and AppLink at CES 2016.

CNET reported that, when the big Blue Oval finally put MyFord Touch out to pasture previous year, that was good news for most.

To begin, the automaker will announce that it is tripling its fleet of autonomous vehicles in 2016, upping its total to 30 test vehicles on the road. This would enable drivers to use in-car voice commands to control home functions, so you can ask the auto to close the garage door as you’re pulling out or turn on your furnace when you’re on your way home. This would allow drivers to control smart home systems and security systems from their vehicles, as well as stop, start, lock, and unlock their auto from the comfort of their home.

“With Sync, we move at our customers’ pace – making it easy for them to maintain a connected lifestyle no matter their choice of smartphone, apps or services inside and outside their vehicle”.

New sensors and other technology updates will help “bring Ford ever closer to having a fully autonomous vehicle ready for production”, according to Jim McBride, Ford’s technical leader for autonomous vehicles.

Ford and DJI are imagining a world in which vehicles and drones become more capable and efficient working together, and are announcing a challenge to develop the software to make that possible.