What we need to stress right from the beginning is the fact that both Amazon Echo and Google Home are great devices. It’s not a waste of money if you buy either of them, so it all boils down to your personal preference. However, many people need a comparison between making up their mind, so here we go.
Why would Echo be better?
One of the reasons for which Echo would deserve your money more than Google Home is the fact that it supports most IOT integrations. As such, it is suitable for many home automation devices: from lights to thermostats and Wi-Fi devices, Echo is compatible with most of them. Bonus, it has support for aging technology, such as Wi-Fi power plugs.
Another advantage Echo has is the excellent audio integration it has. If you are an audiobook lover, then you’ll definitely love Echo. Just say “read my last book” to Echo and you’re set! You can ask for a certain book, a particular chapter, pause it or ask questions about what you read.
Why should Home be better?
First of all, it has a better media story. Many people are happy to pay $10 in order to use YouTube without any ads. Add music streaming to this, and it’s perfect. Moreover, if you’re a loyal YouTube user, you will feel that this one understands you better.
Secondly, another advantage is the better query coverage. Here, Google Home is the definite winner, since they have a way larger field of answers than Alexa.
Last but not least, Google Home would be the better option here because it has a better voice recognition. The quality of the voice recognition feature is totally why you should buy this one, that is, if this feature is really important to you and you use it regularly.
I have had the Echo since it launched and now several Google Homes (GH). I just do NOT understand how the two could be compared.
They are completely different devices. The GH you just talk to it like you would to a human. The Echo has commands.
If old enough the Echo is like Yahoo in the very early days of the Internet. They were the 1st “search engine” which was a tree structure of all the web sites. So you drilled down. It was rigid structure with silos.
DEC created Altavista and then Google their search where you just typed in what you were looking for. Altavista was HUGE but not smart. Google did Altavista but with a brain.
It is the exact same with the Echo versus the GH. The Echo has commands so you have a command like “song goes like”. Google you just say whatever.
So when first received the GH very few ways to get it to replay a song and had to luck into it.
Now you can say replay, restart, play it again, one more time, from the top, and zillions of other ways. It understand the concept versus getting your command, looking up in a database, executing what is in the database.
It is with everything with the GH. So see Billy Bush on TV and say “is billy related to george” and it give you the relationship.
It is really incredible, IMO. But it also handle very minute detail differences.
I triggered but forgot my command and said “I forgot” she said “no worries happens to me all the time”. But then another time I triggered and then said “nevermind” and she saids “yes let’s move forward”.
The GH is the real deal, IMO. This is easily the most incredible tech I have used in terms of intelligence.
We have now had the Echo for just about 2 years but it never became vital to my daily routine. We went on holiday recently and I honestly missed my GH.