The Roav Viva from Anker is a Bluetooth enabled smart speaker charger that would charge for car accessories such as mobile phone or tablet whilst you are out and about but it will also allow you to utilise the power of Amazon Alexa for search. The actual unit itself is small and compact and is presented well. I have been using one now for about 2 to 3 weeks as my main source of power for my Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus.
Let’s have a look at the device in more detail and run it through its paces however before we do that here is a demo video to show you what it looks like and what it can do.
The real secret behind the functionality of the Roav Viva is down to the Roav app. This app allows the integration of the Alexa voice assistant and the mobile phone to deliver bluetooth signals to your in-car entertainment System.
When connecting to the Roav Viva the app will self-launch and we’ll be ready to handle the interpretation of your various voice commands. To initiate an action all you need to do is say Alexa or whatever other key phrases you have set up and then the appropriate action will be attempted. The reason I say attempted is that the Alexa command has to be interpreted by the Roav app and this, in turn, requires you to have a consistent mobile data connection. When a data connection is not present then the app will not respond correctly and the action will not be carried out I noticed this whilst driving home one night trying to play Rock Paper Scissor Lizard Spock (other games are available). It proved to be quite a frustrating experience this is nothing to do with the app but more to do with my mobile phone signal.
At other times I also had issues with commands being interpreted correctly such as when trying to navigate back to my home address again these are issues that are related to my mobile phone and not the actual Roav unit.
One thing of note is when asking the system to play music. The music played will be from Amazon’s music store, not any local music stored on your phone. I cannot see this being an issue for the majority of users however for me I have a lot of locally stored music and very little music stored in Amazon’s music service, therefore, it was not the best experience. If like me you are not a boring old man and you use Amazon’s music service you will find that this setup is ideal for playing music in your car. The integration of the mobile phones Bluetooth into your car system there for playing any music or sound over your car’s speakers is nearly closed and I was very impressed with the quality of sound.
One negative for me was that the charger aspect will only charge my phone at 2.4 amps this means I am not capable of fast charging my Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus.This is assuming that you are using both ports if only one port is being used then the charger will deliver 4.8 amps as it’s out which is still not enough to fast charge.I can only hope that in the near future anchor will release a fast charge capable version of this device.
I suppose the real question that needs to be answered is do I need Alexa in my car?
I have a fairly modern car and it comes with its own integrated sat nav and other convenience features like that it also has voice control all day it’s not the greatest so for me the answer is no..that being said this product is not designed for someone like me who has a fairly modern car my impression is that this product is designed for people driving older vehicles that do not have the features that we have all grown accustomed to having on our cars. If you find yourself falling into that category then the row have is a great addition to your in-car setup and it will allow you to utilise a lot of functionality without having to take your hands off the steering wheel there for allowing much safer use of your mobile phone whilst driving.
The Roav Viva Alexa enabled car charger is available from Amazon for £49.99 and is a worthy investment if you have a car without a dedicated voice assistant or all singing all dancing ICE system.
Breaking news.
From today 10th October until the 12th if you use the code MBJCULOT then you can get it for £36.79 just follow the link here when you get to check out add the code and get your money off!!