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Amazon’s Alexa vs Google Home
Further to the discussion Amazon’s Echo or Google Home which one is better for you? This is one of the spiced talk of the people who want to have a voice-controlled smart speaker. For Amazon’s Echo, the competition is getting tough day-by-day, as the Google line of smart speakers is nowhere less than Amazon’s Echo line of devices.
The Amazon Echo line of device contains: Amazon Echo Show, Echo Look, Echo Spot, and Echo Tap. To active the device you need to say “Alexa” followed by the command. And it will respond accordingly.
The Amazon Echo line up voice assistants
- The Amazon’s Echo Dot: Small and compact design, but contains most of the features of Alexa.
- The Amazon’ Echo: Elegant and powerful smart speaker that listens and follows all your commands.
- Echo Show: Has 7 inch smart screen that displays all the contents and also have the feature of video calling.
- The Echo Look: Helps you look your best by taking your full-length photos and 6-second videos of your daily look.
- The Echo Spot: looks stylish, compact and has a small screen.
- The Amazon Tap: Alexa-Enabled Portable Bluetooth Speaker which can play music with just a tap.
The Google Home line up Voice assistants
The Google Home line of device contains: Google Max, Google Home and Google Mini. To active Google, you need to say “Ok Google” and then command.
- Google Max: Is the premium version of smart Speaker provided by Google that will control the whole room audio in a compact system. Can be easily paired with Chromecast enabled speakers or Google Home for multi-room music.
- Google Home: Is the powerful AI enabled smart-speaker with personal voice Assistant ”Ok Google”. Play your music, call and message, ask it questions, control your smart home with your very own Google.
- Google Mini: It is compared to Amazon’s Echo Dot and has small stone shaped compact speaker that will listen to all your commands and responds quickly.
Both Amazon’s Echo and Google Home are powerful in terms of voice-assistant and responding to the commands. The smart speakers are always plugged-in to the sockets like any other appliance at your home and needs throughout internet connectivity. You are set to voice control your smart home hubs, play music, ask random questions, book a movie ticket or order something online. You don’t even need to lift your fingers.
These AI enabled smart speakers will do all for you.
So, if you are confused of which is better, then here is the overlook of both the Amazon’s Echo and Google Home devices.
Amazon Echo vs Google Home
The first thing which comes in our mind while planning a buy any gadget or device is the Price factor.
Price:
Amazon Echo(Second Generation) costs $100 which is $30 less than the Google Home which $130.
Design:
In terms of design and outlook, both have won the hearts of users because of their compact, elegant and slick design. While Amazon’s Echo seems to be more attractive due to its cylindrical shape as the Google Home has the shape of an air freshener. The New look of Echo(2017) is even more compact and elegant.
Sound quality:
The most choosing factor is the sound delivery and accuracy to respond. While both can understand human language well and responds precisely to the commands. But, the Google Home has a more natural sound than Echo. And it sounds good even at medium or low volume due to its more bass than Echo. But both sounds good enough while listening to music or playing audio books.
Features:
Both Amazon Echo and Google home have similar features and can respond to hundreds of commands through their AI powered voice assistants.
Amazon Echo: Amazon’s Echo line of devices is all capable of playing music, settings wake-up alarms with your favorite jam, give you driving directions, order a cab or a pizza for you and also can control a lot of smart home appliances at your home through its skills. Amazon Echo is getting better and better day-by-day in terms of design, performance and skills. All you need to do is ask “Alexa”, play the music, or “Alexa”, turn on lights.. With AI powered smart speakers Alexa will hear you and responds quickly.
Google Home: Google Home has just the same features like playing music, asking random questions, booking tickets and compatible to various other smart home appliances. Some of the supported device are Chromecast digital media player, Nest Thermostats, SmartThings, Philips Hue, LIFX, LightwaveRF, and Logitech Harmony. Some of the commands are : “OK, Google, help.”, “OK, Google, Turn it to 11.”
Along with the similar features, both have some unique features too that are being added continuously to make the devices worth and best-in class. These are:
Supported languages and Availability:
According to latest updates, Google says that its Home will support more than 30 languages and will be available in 80 countries by the end of 2018. But Alexa currently only supports three spoken languages:English, Japanese, and German and is available in 38 countries as of February 2018.
Device Compatibility:
Next thing is the device compatibility, to which the Amazon’s Alexa supports more than 12,000 devices that also includes BMWs, select Mini vehicles, and Ford cars. Amazon has integrated the device compatibility through its owned Alexa enabled devices like the Echo or Dot and some other third-party devices. But Google till now supports only 1500 devices which will soon be numbered to 5000 at the end of this year.
Conversation:
Google Assistant gives the flexibility of continued conversation which means user can continue asking questions to its assistant without every-time saying the wake word “Hey Google,”. User can even ask multiple questions or command at a time. This makes the Google Home more natural like having a conversation between humans.
However, users of Google need to stick with the “Hey Google” or “OK Google” as the wake up of their voice assistant. But Amazon Alexa has the flexibility to change the default wake word ”Alexa” to your own preferred one, but only with its own device not on other third-party devices.
Similar to Google, Amazon also added the feature of “follow-up mode” to make continued conversation with the Alexa-enabled devices. But the follow-up mode is only functional when Alexa is not playing music or audio-books. The follow-up mode in Alexa only works in English.
Phone Calls:
However, this feature is not yet available to both Google Home and Amazon Alexa directly. But Google has announced that its assistant will be able to make phone calls and schedule appointments for its users. Users of Amazon’s Alexa can have an “Echo Connect” that enables the Echo device make phone calls from their home phone.
Alexa currently have the call drop-in feature to call people who have Alexa-enabled device or through the Alexa app on their mobile phones or tablet.
Interface:
Amazon’s Alexa has a smartphone app which helps users manage their devices, enable skills and check the history of their commands and so on. But Google not far away, it is also working on the interface of its smartphone app that will look like Google Now. Here users will can get all the information of their queries and commands. And the most interesting thing is Google Assistant will play the video contents from YouTube on the smart displays.
While this feature is not available on Amazon’s Alexa app. Google Assistant will take the help of Google Maps to provide complete navigation while driving which compared to Alexa only gives the overall traffic information and does not guide the turn-by-turn navigation.
The Bottom line:
Google Home is also gearing up fast in the market of smart speakers. But for now Amazon’ Echo wears the crown as it comes $30 less than Google Home and has launched the second generation of Echo smart speaker whereas Google Home is just a year old. So, why pay more if you are getting the same features with compact design and high-level performance with the second generation of Echo device.
On the other Hand, Google is trying to focus on making its assistant more conversational and natural. So that users can get most tasks done like scheduling appointments, meetings, making phone calls and getting step-by-step driving directions through its Google map service.
So the final verdict on which is better is not yet finished yet… A lot more to come to lessen the gap. But it will not wrong to say that Google Home is a tough competition to Amazon Alexa..
