You might have to wait a little longer for your Amazon Echo Auto

Back in September, Amazon announced a huge number of new Echo products, without filling in too many details about when they would be available. It looks like the launch of one of these gadgets, the Amazon Echo Auto, has now been pushed back to 2019.

While Amazon hasn't said anything officially, the product page for the Echo Auto has scrubbed any mention of "this year" from the listing, AFTVnews notes. Interested punters can still sign up to try and nab an exclusive invitation, but now there's no promises as to when those invitations are actually going to go out.

Another tweak to the Echo Auto description suggests only Google Maps is going to be supported at launch, with Apple Maps and Waze support following at some point later on – worth bearing in mind if you're thinking of signing up.

Echo in your car

The Amazon Echo Auto is currently being promoted at a knock-down price of $24.99, with a full retail price of $49.99 (at the moment only US customers can sign up for an invite). It's essentially like a little Echo Dot that sits on your dashboard.

By hooking up to your smartphone for connectivity, the Echo Auto can do all the usual Alexa tricks, answering questions from the web, playing music and audiobooks, and telling you about your upcoming calendar schedule. It can also work with location-based reminders, so you get an alert to buy milk when you arrive at the grocery store.

Other new Echo-enabled devices announced in September have now gone on sale, at least in the US: the Amazon Echo Wall Clock can now be yours for $29.99, keeping time automatically and making it easier to see your Alexa timers.