Google Home Max vs HomePod and Google Home Mini vs. Amazon Echo Dot: battle of the smart speakers
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Home Mini gave me the names of three places within a four mile radius. Translate ‘the weather is nice today’ to Mandarin, Chinese. Home Mini gave me a list of movies ‘frequently mentioned on the web’ which was marginally helpful. Both the Alexa Echo Dot and the Google Home Mini came up with an answer, even if they were slightly different, both having obviously checked different sources.
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Music – quality, setup, and library
Most recently, Google released the Nest Hub Max, putting Google Assistant in a 10-inch smart display. It's the first product to come out under the converged brand name of Google and smart home security brand Nest. Recently Google launched a follow up to its smallest smart speaker; the Google Nest Mini comes with three speakers (that's one more than the original), and is made from recycled materials. We're not talking about Bluetooth speakers here; we're talking about speakers that live in your house, permanently plugged in and connected to the internet, which you can command using your voice. For now, flexible phrasing aside, the Echo is still ahead in the race to control everything.
You can pick up the Google Home Mini in a range of colors, with four flashing LED lights illustrating when it's listening to your commands and showing the volume level. Now in its third generation, the Echo Dot doesn't have the best audio quality in the range, so it's best suited for rooms where music playback won’t be its primary function. That said, you can pair it up with a Bluetooth speaker or another audio device using an AUX jack connection, making it a cost-effective upgrade you can make to any aging Hi-Fi system. However, lots of users who have put the two devices head-to-head believe Google Assistant could be the smarter of the two. Learning experience, and wider variety of voices than Alexa, it has the biggest potential for the future.
Developing for Google Home vs. Amazon Echo
This is pretty representative of the kind of things my kids ask. Google Home often returns better answers to general knowledge questions that require factual answers. But Alexa is the winner on giving entertaining responses to their less serious questions.
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Both devices do a good job of understanding my children aged 8 and 10. We've been tracking and trialling voice recognition for a long time and it's come a very long way. Both devices avoid swearing but you can certainly ask questions and get responses that some parents would consider inappropriate. We're advocates of the creative use of technology, but this needs to be balanced with developing physical skills such as papercraft, woodwork, clay modelling, technical drawing and soldering. If children don't develop these skills as they grow up then physical making projects can become frustrating rather than fun.
First and foremost is voice activation, with “Alexa” being the hot phrase for the Echo Dot, while the Home Mini can be activated with “Ok, Google”. From there, simply ask any questions or perform actions then you’ll be good to go. This is our list of recommended educational coding products for teenagers aged 13+. You have to go into the app to delete items from the list but that's not too bad as I'm at a device when I'm placing a shopping order anyway. You can play Audible books and you can also play text-to-speech enabled Kindle Books. We've been listening to the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy audiobook.
Then, you can follow that question with "What other movies is he in?" from which Home will infer that the "he" you're referring to is actor Mark Hamill and provide an answer. Still, I'm giving this category to the Home because extras aside, the Home's ability to group your speakers and cheaply control your TV makes it wonderfully useful as a whole home entertainer. Both the Home and the Echo play games, tell jokes, and respond wittily to movie lines such as, "I am your father." The Echo's been around for longer, so it has more fun extras than Google Home. And Alexa's version of Jeopardy is also much better than Home's simplistic and over-the-top trivia. Andrew loves writing about cool, futuristic technology. He's reviewed everything from vacuum cleaners to beer brewing robots in pursuit of the perfect smart home.
He wants the smart home to make him feel powerful, and it's getting there. Home Mini gave me the results from Saturday 16th January, as quoted by the Telegraph. Alexa gave me a detailed list of different iPhone X cases but wouldn’t give me the price of the phone itself. Home Mini recognised the follow up question and added it to ‘my playlist’. Alexa couldn’t quite manage it but assured me she is working on including more local businesses. Home Mini gave me the address of the restaurant and it’s rating.
My kids prefer Alexa's jokes as they understand more of them. Google Home seems to have more jokes that they just don't have the background knowledge for. Google Home probably has the edge over Alexa for understanding. Note that we have UK accents and the devices if anything we'd expect the experience to be optimised for US accents. Be careful with third party skills and actions which may not be password protected.
Meanwhile, the smaller devices have passable speakers not meant for blasting music. The choice here will likely be whether you prefer one digital assistant over the other, which brings us to... We haven't found a good way to work with music on Google Home. My partner has all of his extensive library of music in Google Play but we haven't found a good way to access this music via Google Home without paying for Google Play account.
Google Home devices are powered by Google Assistant, a voice-activated assistant that can do various tasks, such as providing information about the weather or setting reminders. These products are pioneers in their class of consumer goods because they set the tone for several other companies like Apple and Microsoft to come up with their own smart speaker products. Seeing as we don’t have a Google Home Mini on hand as of yet, we can only go off of what we saw from Google’s announcement yesterday. However, there are some key design features which set these two smart home assistants apart from one another. Both devices can roll a dice which is quite a useful feature.
There's a lot more content available for Alexa at the moment. There are lots more games available as Alexa skills and Alexa offers new one when you ask to play a game. My 10 year old loves Yeti Hunt where you have to move around and listen to clues to hunt a yeti. My kids add things to the list if they notice we've run out. It makes them independent and means I don't have to remember everything. As far as kids are concerned, quality of jokes is a key features of a voice assistant.
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