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Are you looking to make your car smarter. Maybe add Google Assistant to your car so you can go hands free, listen to/voice-to-text message, ask for directions, traffic, weather, and control your smart devices from your car? If so, I have a great option that can help you make your car smarter, its the Roav Bolt Car Charger with Google Assistant.
Roav Bolt Car Charger – Features
The Roav Bolt Car Charger is a two port car charger with built in Google Assistant. Below is the copied features taken from Roav.com.
The Google Assistant Optimized for Your Car – Stream music. Get navigation. Make calls. All hands-free. All on the road.
Voice-Controlled Navigation – Just say the word to get turn-by-turn directions to your destination instantly
Your Music On Demand – Bolt + the Google Assistant is compatible with the following apps. Android: Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Music, YouTube Music, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and Deezer. iOS: Apple Music, Google Play Music, YouTube Music, and iHeartRadio.
Hands-Free Communication – Staying safe on the road is priority number one. That’s why Bolt is optimized for hands-free calling and messaging through the Google Assistant, so you can chat or text, just by talking naturally.
Compact Size – Everything you love about the Google Assistant is engineered into a compact device and optimized for incar performance
Broad Compatibility – Bluetooth and AUX connectivity options make it easy to connect Roav Bolt to your car.
Dual Signal Processing Technology – Your voice commands will be heard loud and clear with Bolt’s unique technology that combines advanced on-device signal processing with machine learning based signal processing on Google Cloud.
Charge Your Devices – 2 PowerIQ-equipped charging ports with VoltageBoost intelligently detect and deliver the optimum charge to any device.
The Roav Bolt – The Review
About 2 weeks ago Roav sent me a sample of the Roav Bolt because I was part of the We Love Testing Contest and as one of the winners they sent me one to test and review. Today I want to share my review of the Roav Bolt.
First Impressions
The Roav Bolt comes in Roav’s standard orange cardboard box that opens like a book to display the Bolt in all its glory. Its got a couple of fancy smaller cardboard boxes that stores the accessories. The Bolt sits in a laser cut cushioned foam like material that secures the Bolt in place.
Removing the Bolt from box I found the device to be made from a highly quality plastic. The two ports can be found on the side of the charger and accented in the standard orange that Roav uses on most of their products. It gives the charger a shock of color to help break up the black. It looks pretty good in my all black car interior. On the face of the bolt it looks like a Google Home Device and even operates the same as the home devices do!
If you need to connect your car’s AUX port to the Bolt you can use the supplied right angled AUX cable that came in the package includes.
The Setup
Unlike many of Roav’s other products, the Roav Bolt doesn’t need any additional Roav apps. It just needs Google Assistant installed. The install is straight forward and only takes a few minutes. Plug in your charger and turn on your vehicle. The lights on the bolt will flash orange. Go into your Bluetooth Settings and pair your phone to the Bolt. Next, open Google Assistant and it should automatically walk you through configuration. It may even ask you update the firmware. If you have the data and the time go ahead and update the firmware. This should only take a few minutes.
Once connected, the yellow lights go white and solid. When it goes into listening mode the device face goes blank. Once you start asking questions it will light up.
The Testing Process
I only had a limited time to complete the review (contest rules) and I plan to update this review as I use the device more and add more pictures.
My testing process for the Roav Bolt Car Charger involves connectivity reliability, charging, design usefulness, and using the Google Assistant Feature.
The Charge Test
Charging speed is decent but not as fast as my other Anker/Roav car chargers. It takes about 2 hours to charge 30% to full. This isn’t a big issue for road trips but when you are in the car (in my case) 30 minutes to 45 minutes to commute to work having a fast as possible charge time is needed.
As to the charge time, it work great charging my Note 8 and my Soundcore Space NC at the same time. It completely charged my earbuds in 30 minutes and added about 20% back to my phone. The charger was only warm while charging and when direct sunlight was blasting down it, only warmed it a little more.
Connectivity
Its still to early to really understand the connectivity issues. The first pairing was easy. It paired up instantly and Google Assistant found and started the process. After that for a few days it automatically connected in about 20 seconds. Then over the next few days it got worse. It went to over a minute. Then there were times that it wouldn’t pair and I would either have to manually pair or pull the charger from the plug.
Then 4 days into using the Bolt I lost connectivity. My phone wouldn’t find the Bolt for a minutes even when the Bolt was in pairing mode. Eventually it started seeing it but still wouldn’t work.
So I ended up deleting the Bolt from Google Assistant and did what I think was a factory reset. After doing that it paired and ran through the setup process including updating the firmware. Now it connects whenever the Bolt powers up.
Currently on start up it takes just over a minute to connect and hadn’t had any issues connecting.
Using Google Assistant
For the most I find that Google Assistant works great. I found issues where it couldn’t understand me when I asked it find directions in Waze. But after the reset it seems to know what I’m asking.
I find it useful for reading out notifications, having it read out my received text messages, and then verbally replying them. For me this important. I get a lot of messages and some need immediate attention and I have to pull over to deal with these messages.
I use Google Assistant to control my smart home devices from the car to turn down the a/c unit when I leave work and have the home temps cool and comfortable when we get home.
Using the microphone works great. The people on the other line can hear me clearly and rarely hear background noise. When giving voice commands the Google Assistant will pause audio and listen to me.
The only real issue I have is the 3 second delay. At home my Google Home doesn’t lag its almost instant. I can go “Hey Google, next tract” and Spotify will move to the next tract. On the bolt I have to go “Hey Google” wait 3 seconds (Wait for the status light to ready itself) then say “next tract”
I’m still playing with Spotify commands and other useful commands and will update if I find any issues.
Final Thoughts
After testing the Roav Bolt for over a week I have to say this is a great device. It does have its issues but Roav Bolt will continue to update the firmware as needed to correct some of its issues.
I don’t use the charging ports. I have faster USB ports in my car. I don’t understand why they didn’t put the latest charging tech in the Bolt.
To be honest, I really do not use Google Assistant as much as others may use it. For me, I use it to the check/read notifications, voice to text messages, check the weather/traffic on my commute, get me directions, and make/receive phone calls.
When I compare the Roav Bolt to the Roav Viva I personally find the Bolt to be more useful, more reliable, and it doesn’t take up as much space. Since I didn’t have room for both the Viva and Bolt in my car I ended up removing the Viva and I haven’t missed it once.
For those that are using iOS I would wait a while before adding this device to your car. From what other users have mentioned is that the Bolt doesn’t work all that well and is unreliable. My understanding is iOS issues are being work on.
Even with the issues I brought up, I highly recommend the Roav Bolt if you are invested in the Google Assistant environment. If not, its still a great option to add functionality to your car if your phone is Android based.
To purchase the Roav Bolt, its currently available on the Roav website and Best Buy. It isn’t available on Amazon. Once its available, I will add the details.
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