So if you have been following this blog or my YouTube channel, you will know that I am absolutely obsessed with Amazon's Echo. I have Alexa all throughout my house, controlling everything from my closet light to my desk lamp, and everything between. At current count I have 4. Pretty much one for every room in the house. I have one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom, one in my living room, and one in my bedroom.
This Black Friday, I went out and got myself a Google Home Mini (I actually had 2 but I returned one). I was super excited to get it because I heard that they were so much better than the Dot. Well, in my personal opinion, Alexa is still WAY better. Now to be fair, I will say that sound quality wise, the Echo really holds no candle to the Mini. The Mini's speaker is much louder, and the mic can pick up your voice in another room. The integration is a bit more difficult with Google. Where everything seems to be almost second nature with Amazon, you need a bit more patients with Google.
Google is more "hardware" based vs app based like Amazon. Amazon allows for 3rd party integrations, where the Home is more about connecting directly to a device made for it. Echo allows you to use several 3rd party apps to connect to off name brand devices. Google's connection with these 3rd party apps seems to be an after thought. I have found that with Google, it will connect to the 3rd party app, but if you have more than one device listed in that app, say Bedroom Light and Bedroom Light 2 (my configuration) when you say "Hey Google, turn on bedroom light 2" it will turn on both bedroom lights. If I say "Hey Google, turn on Fan 2" it will turn on all 3 of my fans. With Alexa I say "Alexa, turn on bedroom light" it only turns on 1 light. So that seems to be kind of a conflict, and may be an error on my part, during the set up of the Google Home Mini.
Now for searches and other internet related materials, Google Home is hands down the best. Though the "AI" isn't really well developed as of yet. There are still somethings that you will ask Mini to do that "I'm sorry I dont know how to do that yet, but i'm always learning". What makes the search options better between the two is that Google uses the Google Search Engine, where Alexa uses Bing. But much like iPhone vs Android, Alexa has been around longer and therefore has more available to it. I am still considering rather or not to keep the Mini that I have now, or to take it back.
If you like streaming music, in my opinion Alexa is much better for music content. With Google, you can connect to Google Play Music, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube Music, and Deezer. With these music choices it seems that you can only connect to one or the other, not all, even though you can be signed into several different accounts at the same time. I have only been able to get Google to play selections from one service and not another without directly telling it to open that app/skill. With Amazon, all I do is say "Alexa, play me (for example) Holiday Music" it will then select a playlist with that type of music. With Google it has to look for playlists that have been created by other users or play from your playlists that you already have established.
The other thing that Google Home can do is screen cast to Google Chrome Cast. With that feature you can link your Netflix, CBS All Access, HBO Now, Starz, and Viki accounts. I have a Smart TV that already has Netflix, Hulu, Yahoo, YouTube, and several other apps built into it, and I have Roku, which has all of those apps built in plus some. So I rarely use my Chrome Cast unless its for streaming from my Laptop to the TV. So I am not sure how or what the streaming features are like, or if you need to use a TV remote to control and play the content on the screen or what. I dont know what or how Alexa works with Amazon Fire, so to those features I really cant attest. So I guess im going to have to get an Amazon Fire Stick and do a blog post about those two services.
So which one are you hoping that Santa will bring you this holiday season? Well make sure to click one of the links below, and join in the Smart Home Revolution.
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