In my recent review of the Ottocast Nano AI Box for CarPlay system, I found its key software features weren’t truly ready for prime time. So when they told me an update was out that fixed and improved the CloudSIM and AI assistant features, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the Nano AI Box and see if it lived up to their promise.
You can buy this AI Box for $309.99 directly from the Ottocast Store.
CloudSIM
The CloudSIM function allows you to purchase a data subscription plan through its Ottodrive phone App to supply the Nano a data connection without inserting a physical SIM card or rely on tethering the AI Box to a nearby WiFi network.
Setup takes only a few minutes and afterwards the Nano AI Box connects to a reliable 4G network to seamlessly supply the AI Box with an internet connection; for things like video and audio streaming from apps like YouTube and Spotify, to download traffic data in Google Maps, browsing the web in the Chrome browser, and more importantly, connecting to its new built-in Nano and ChatGPT AI assistants.
There are many period data plans and data allowances available for you to choose from, and suit your budget and requirements. Ottocast also offers a 1GB free trial to test the connection and its performance in your area before purchasing a bigger plan.
Overall, the Nano’s CloudSIM feature is an easy way to give an AI Box an internet connection, which, let’s be honest, is a bit dumb without an internet connection. It works well and the setup is easy to carry out. The CloudSIM feature won’t first activate with WiFi enabled, but afterwards you can enable WiFi back on if you need to connect to devices over a WiFi connection or for use with sharing the CloudSIM connection with other devices in the car.
Nano AI Assistant
The latest update to the Nano has brought more reliable AI Assistant functionality to the AI Box. The Nano assistant will handle a variety of commands to interact with the AI Box system, such as enabling and disabling Bluetooth and WiFi, to deeper integration of applications such as browsing and playing music in Spotify and selecting videos to watch on YouTube.
Interactions aren’t as natural as I hoped, however, but once you know the correct commands, you can navigate well enough between apps and commands within them. Asking apps to play content displays a paginated side menu of options that you can navigate through by saying “page 2,” and saying the row number alongside each listed option.
For me this was a little hit and miss and the options listed weren’t raised to the top and a more broader list was given to me that required going a few of the pages of five options before I found something I needed.
Some “hey, Nano” prompts were missed, and at times it wasn’t clear that Nano was still listening for follow-up commands. Saying “pause video”, for example, whilst the assistant prompt window wasn’t visible, did carry out the command, and I just wasn’t aware it was still listening for a follow-up command at that time. This is fine when you want to carry out what you plan on saying, but it can be frustrating when you don’t. Displaying the listening prompt at all times whilst Nano is listening for follow-up commands would have avoided this confusion.
ChatGPT 4o Integration
I found it odd that Ottocast decided to separate the local and ChatGPT assistants with two separate trigger words. Saying “hey, GPT” will trigger the ChatGPT side of the Nano assistant. Sadly, neither will communicate with the other. So asking for help and then asking for guidance in Google maps would require talking to both assistants separately, which can break the natural flow of what these AI assistants could be able to handle so well.
After a few seconds wait, the command is processed and its response is shown as onscreen text and is also spoken using the Nano’s rather dated, robotic voice. Once you’ve become accustomed to the recently improved AI assistants’ voices in Siri, Google, native ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and many others, I was surprised and disappointed to hear Nano’s rather basic and retro, WarGames-like robotic voice.
My prompts were met mostly with decent responses. But asking anything related to carrying out functions with apps or functionality would fall flat and require discussing the action separately with the local Nano assistant instead, breaking the whole flow and experience.
There are a few onboarding cards that show up when asking for certain responses within key apps. This helps you understand what can and can’t be asked of Nano. Tapping two small buttons alongside the floating assistant button also leads to more help on how to interact with both Nano assistant platforms.
The same area also informs you of the ChatGPT “credits” you have remaining and how to purchase more. Each command will use up the free 833 credits you first get given. So the more you use, the quicker this amount will deplete.
In summary
This Nano update has breathed new life into the Nano AI Box. It does now live up to its promises. It’s CloudSIM works well in my region and reduces the friction you get with AI Boxes and feeding them an internet source. But at the cost of another data plan subscription.
It’s Nano Assistant is a good start for the brand, and is the best execution of an AI assistant in an AI Box to date. However, there is still a lot to do in order to make it feel more seamless, friction-free, and more conversational. Merging the two local and ChatGPT assistants would help with this.
Taking the Siri assistant approach with Apple Intelligence would be a better approach, where the local assistant can pass a deeper request to ChatGPT and behave as one assistant. This could lead to more conversational interactions and have less friction by talking to two different assistants.
Hopefully over the live of the Nano AI Box, software and updates from Ottocast will continue to improve the overall experience of its Nano assistants. For now, you can get by, albeit with a little back and forth between assistants.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Brief overview
0:24 – CloudSIM setup
3:18 – Nano AI Assistant
4:01 – Nano App Interaction
5:36 – Nano ChatGPT Assistant
8:20 – Nano & Google Maps
9:24 – Nano & YouTube
10:28 – My impressions
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