Hands-On With HondaLink in the 2013 Accord

Honda is jumping into the in-dash app chase with the addition of an adapted HondaLink arrangement for 2013 Accord by partnering with Harman’s Aha Radio. And Honda hopes to leapfrog competitors like Toyota Entune and Ford Sync’s AppLink by not alone outsourcing app affiliation but by aswell bringing in added agreeable and authoritative updates abundant easier and added frequent.

Ford afresh teamed with NPR for Sync AppLink, but it requires the user to actualize playlists of admired programs appliance the NPR app afore hitting the road. With HondaLink, NPR programming is on appeal and drivers can skip astern to accomplished programs on the fly. In this way, HondaLink is absolute for podcast junkies, back they don’t accept to amend their accessory to get beginning programs. According to Charles Koch, Honda’s administrator of new business development, Aha can action “thousands of podcasts because they’re cloud-based on the Aha server,” as able-bodied as audiobooks through Librovox. “It’s a chargeless account for now,” Koch told Wired. “But as time goes on they are anticipating abacus exceptional channels and exceptional content.”

Drivers can admission Yelp by hitting a “Hungry” tab to acquisition bounded restaurants, and the arrangement converts Facebook and Twitter feeds appliance text-to-speech so that drivers can accept to them (but not acknowledgment to or “like” a post, as with BMW Apps). One affair HondaLink doesn’t action is Pandora, although it does accept a accord with pseudo-rival Slacker. But the new Accord will cover Pandora as an anchored application, a affection that launched beforehand on the 2013 CR-V forth with SMS argument messaging. And according to Koch, the 2013 Accord will aswell accept a text-to-speech e-mail-reading affection appliance the Bluetooth Message Admission Profile.

HondaLink will admission on the 2013 Accord if the ninth-generation becomes accessible after this month, and it will eventually be formed out to Honda’s absolute U.S. line, says Koch. HondaLink will be accepted on EX-L and aloft sedans and EX and aloft coupes. It works through a proprietary HondaLink app that Aha developed for iOS and Android devices, which affix to the car via Bluetooth or USB. Drivers ascendancy Aha Radio agreeable through the new Accord’s 8-inch center-mounted touchscreen and a abate 6-inch touchscreen lower in the birr that plan in tandem. The abate awning aswell allows admission to Aha Radio if the beyond awning is getting used, say, for navigation. Some appearance can aswell be accessed via steering-wheel and articulation controls.

According to Koch, Aha Radio is just the “first abundance of HondaLink” and the automaker affairs to body on it. “We’ll use HondaLink as the centermost point for all of our affiliated car activities, and for infotainment Aha absolutely makes sense,” he adds. “Future aspects of HondaLink will cover assurance and aegis and chump accord management.” As addition archetype he credibility to the HondaLink EV smartphone app that was appear forth with the Honda Fit EV if it was alien this summer. It can be acclimated for limited operation such as blockage the battery-charge cachet or activating the altitude ascendancy to preheat or air-conditioned the interior. “Any casework or advice we can accept on the cloud, that’s what we’re aggravating to anticipate with HondaLink,” Koch adds.