Thought be the best place to put this. out of the two which do you find is the best option for your needs? is Alexa slightly smarter on your experience?
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amazon Alexa vs google home
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I use Echo but she is definitely not the 'smarter' option.
If I ask Alexa who Adele is she will tell me. But if i then say 'what is the name of her first album', she will not understand. I'd have to follow up with a whole new question of 'what is the name of Adele's first album'.
Google will understand that it's a question based on the previous one you just asked, which makes a huge difference.
The smarter of the two for me is definitely google, for obvious reasons.
But Alexa is great with my Spotify playlists and my Phillips lights and smart plugs are all set up with her, so she does what I need.
If I ask Alexa who Adele is she will tell me. But if i then say 'what is the name of her first album', she will not understand. I'd have to follow up with a whole new question of 'what is the name of Adele's first album'.
Google will understand that it's a question based on the previous one you just asked, which makes a huge difference.
The smarter of the two for me is definitely google, for obvious reasons.
But Alexa is great with my Spotify playlists and my Phillips lights and smart plugs are all set up with her, so she does what I need.
As with the echo line, you need a Hue bridge for Google Home to work with them. In the case of Echo, you can either get an Echo Plus or use the Hue Bridge
Yeah it does. I'm saying in response to Alexa being smarter, that isn't my experience.
I have to admit I'm thinking off getting the amazon echo as it supports hive which is my heating system. sadly HomeKit doesn't support this.
HomeKit works fine when it comes to my lights in the lounge, bedroom and hall. Just the heating is the issue.
I'm thinking of returning my homepod and buying the amazon echo and the echo dot. The dot would be for the bedroom and echo for the lounge. Homepod sound is great but I feel I'm not using it much for music which is the big reason having it.
it's a very good piece of kit but don't think I'm using it for what it's main strength is. As in terms of a voice assistant it isn't really close to the Alexa
I have Amazon Echo 2 gen and 2 Amazon Echo dots. Also have a Google Home.
Echo has a better mic(s) for listening that Google Home. Often if my TV or stereo is loud, I find it hard to active Google Home. Echo has no problem doing so under loud conditions, as long as the background is not extremely loud. Echo can also hear you at a longer distance.
Echo is slightly faster with the responses. Google Home often takes a second or two to respond, but is as quick as the Echo with the typical questions and commands like "weather and news".
I shop a lot on Amazon, and the notification for status of orders is a huge pro for me. And the way the lights on top are designed, it's hard to miss.
Common user error is telling Google Home to turn the lights on/off/change color/dim, but forgetting to specify which room or specific bulb. Google Home will send the command to ALL the lights unless you specific. This can be annoying when you have family and significant other changing your lights by mistake. If you don't specify with the Echo, it will catch it and ask you specify, preventing unwanted changes. That's a huge pro for me with the Echo.
Another thing I like about the Echo, it keeps it's responds short and to the point. Even when giving a command to turn off a light, Alexa will just reply "Okay". While Google home will repeat your command, which is sometimes annoying. Sometimes when asking Google Home a question, it will give me more info than I care for and I would have to tell it to stop. Echo rarely does that, but most of the time still gives me the info I need.
Both the Echo and Google home setup and changes, can be extremely easy or difficult, depending on setup. There has been times of both, when editing my Phillips lights setup, it was easier just to start over.
Every once in a while, Echo will act crazy. Sometimes the Echo lights will show for no reason and it won't respond. Google Home has never acted erratic.
Echo can sometimes take longer than usual to start back up when plugging it back in.
Echo gives you a choice of 4 wake words. Alexa, Amazon, Echo, or Computer. I use "Echo" cause it the least syllables.
I prefer Echo, but I do like Google Home as well.
Echo has a better mic(s) for listening that Google Home. Often if my TV or stereo is loud, I find it hard to active Google Home. Echo has no problem doing so under loud conditions, as long as the background is not extremely loud. Echo can also hear you at a longer distance.
Echo is slightly faster with the responses. Google Home often takes a second or two to respond, but is as quick as the Echo with the typical questions and commands like "weather and news".
I shop a lot on Amazon, and the notification for status of orders is a huge pro for me. And the way the lights on top are designed, it's hard to miss.
Common user error is telling Google Home to turn the lights on/off/change color/dim, but forgetting to specify which room or specific bulb. Google Home will send the command to ALL the lights unless you specific. This can be annoying when you have family and significant other changing your lights by mistake. If you don't specify with the Echo, it will catch it and ask you specify, preventing unwanted changes. That's a huge pro for me with the Echo.
Another thing I like about the Echo, it keeps it's responds short and to the point. Even when giving a command to turn off a light, Alexa will just reply "Okay". While Google home will repeat your command, which is sometimes annoying. Sometimes when asking Google Home a question, it will give me more info than I care for and I would have to tell it to stop. Echo rarely does that, but most of the time still gives me the info I need.
Both the Echo and Google home setup and changes, can be extremely easy or difficult, depending on setup. There has been times of both, when editing my Phillips lights setup, it was easier just to start over.
Every once in a while, Echo will act crazy. Sometimes the Echo lights will show for no reason and it won't respond. Google Home has never acted erratic.
Echo can sometimes take longer than usual to start back up when plugging it back in.
Echo gives you a choice of 4 wake words. Alexa, Amazon, Echo, or Computer. I use "Echo" cause it the least syllables.
I prefer Echo, but I do like Google Home as well.
I went the Google home route simply due to chromecast options that allow me to scale up or down my audio requirements existing or future. Like amazon I just use the Google native home or mini in convenient locals around the house as I certainly cant justify +£300 for HP in say the bathroom just for radio where a mini is fine for example
If I want a new good quality and convenient speaker I think I prefer some of the B&O offerings linked to my Google Home over the limitations of HP
If I want a new good quality and convenient speaker I think I prefer some of the B&O offerings linked to my Google Home over the limitations of HP
I have 3 Dots and three fire sticks and use Alexa to control my lights, heating etc. However I actually find Siri more accurate and less fussy. Also I have quite a few hue motion sensors which have temperature sensors built in. Home kit can access these and you can ask Siri what the temperature and light level is for a particular room. Alexa doesn't even recognise these sensors.
I have a HomePod and find Siri picks up your voice better than a dot at loud volumes in your environment.
None of these AI’s are smart but Alexa and Google are cheaper than Apple and more compatible with a wider range of devices. The secret is to try and buy products which are cross platform compatible if possible. Voice interface is great but still a long way to go and no way ‘smart’
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I have a HomePod and find Siri picks up your voice better than a dot at loud volumes in your environment.
None of these AI’s are smart but Alexa and Google are cheaper than Apple and more compatible with a wider range of devices. The secret is to try and buy products which are cross platform compatible if possible. Voice interface is great but still a long way to go and no way ‘smart’
[doublepost=1518984335][/doublepost]
That’s my experience with Alexa as well. And sometimes you say turn a light on and it doesn’t happen but replies,’ok’ so you tell her to do it again lol. The drop in feature is good and used it quite a few times now.
The echo plus will only give you basic functionality with devices that utilize zwave or zigbee. It's no difference from something like a wink hub. If you want to maximize your smart home experience, purchase the appropriate hubs.
Thanks, I didn't know that. In my case it isn't an issue as the items I use with it are all white lights. On/off/dim/brighten are all they would do regardless of what was controlling them.
I'm getting a 3-pack of Blink outdoor cameras today, I wonder if they do more with Blink's hub than they can do with the Echo Plus.
I almost got the Plus, but reading the reviews on Amazon, a lot of users had issues with the built in hub. The average complaints were that it was limited or not reliable.
Unfortunately yes it is. It's totally stupid. I haven't tried it on the HomePod yet.