New on the shelves

FIRST TEST

Clever hands-free kit leads our round-up of the latest gadgets

Logitech Zerotouch Price: £49.99 (vent mount); £59.99 (dashboard mount) Contact: 0370 111 6565, www.carphonewarehouse.com Rating: ★★★

SMARTPHONES are a great alternative for owners whose cars don’t have the most up-to-date infotainment systems. They come with navigation apps and let you stream your music through the stereo while also taking calls via Bluetooth.

The only problem is that it’s illegal and unsafe to hold a phone while driving. Step in the new Logitech Zerotouch. This neat, versatile package allows you to control all these applications on your phone via voice recognition, so you can keep your eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

It uses a mount to attach itself to either the dashboard or one of the air vents and comes with a magnetic pad and two adaptors to attach to your phone.

Once it’s held in place, you link your phone to the Zerotouch via a bespoke app and place your palm in front of the screen to wake up the app. You can then ask the phone to make calls, use apps, dictate and send text messages and have incoming messages read out loud. The system links to the car’s speakers via Bluetooth.

Logitech says the voice recognition software is designed to understand natural language. We found it followed most of our instructions accurately enough, although we had to repeat ourselves on a few occasions. What we really liked, though, was the way the Zerotouch read back the text messages we dictated before asking us whether to send them, ensuring we kept our eyes on the road.

For now, the new Logitech package is only available for Android phones, but the manufacturer says it plans to make it compatible with Apple IOS devices in the future. Of course, many new smartphones offer voice-control technology for free already.

Playing music was as easy as the voice control system understood all of the commands, while the navigation uses Google Maps and is more intuitive than the voicecontrolled navigation we’ve tried from some sat-nav providers. A plethora of other apps is supported by Zerotouch, such as Waze and Whatsapp. Plus, later this month, Logitech will introduce a range of new features; from this point, the Zerotouch will even be able to read E-mails.

Best price: £9.20 Rating: ★★★★ Contact: www.ringautomotive.co.uk

THIS feels slightly cruder than the Zagg; it’s a larger design in general and has bigger gaps at the joints. Even the blue power light is harsher and brighter, so it’s more distracting in a dark cabin.

Socket fit was good in our test cars, but our Apple charge lead occasionally baulked when entering the USB outlets.

Ring doesn’t make clear whether the Fast Charge 3.5A splits its power between the two sockets, but in the test it added the same 14 per cent charge during 20 minutes as its 2.1Amp rival, so it would seem most likely that it does. The result was the same in either socket.

Despite its slighly bulkier design, the RMS18 remains our choice of 12V USB adaptor because the Sparq is only a contender at a discounted price.