The speed of iteration on the Alexa product line is really impressive. Nine months ago, Alexa and Google Home seemed like two sides of the same coin. But now it feels like there's almost no comparison, Alexa is gonna do more and get the skills and features that fit my needs faster.
I'm a Google Home owner, so perhaps it's a case where the grass is always greener :-)
I'm an Alexa owner, and wish to god the two companies could get along at all. It feels like I'm punished regardless of the ecosystem I choose - if I use the Google Home, I miss out on the Alexa product line upgrades and there's no option comparable to the Dot for sprinkling around my home.
On the other hand, on Alexa I can't say "play fleetwood mac in the living room" (via chromecast). That single feature is nearly enough to send me to Google Home, except for the reasons I mentioned above...but I feel hesitant to stick with Alexa when I know the only reasons it can't do what I want are stupid.
I own both a GH and an a 1st Gen Echo and I find Google Home's language processing much better than Alexa's. I can give the GH a complex command and most of the time it will understand and execute the request. So even in a somewhat noisy room if the TV is on or people are taking, I can usually get it to understand on the first attempt. Therefore its great for home automation. However, with Alexa, I have to be quite a bit more precise with my verbal commands or I have to rephrase and repeat the command. So not the best for home automation at this point.
But Alexa does seems to have a head-start with third-party integration and services. So for now I own one of each. I'm hoping that maybe both of them will reach parity at some point and I can finally settle on one of them.
Yup. I'm really fed up with the lack of interoperability. I have an Echo Dot, and hate that I can't use it to play back from Google Music (not without a beta-quality third-party Alexa skill that still requires me to use a stupid trigger word), and I can't push to Chromecast.
But the Google Home ecosystem isn't so great yet, so I don't want to jump into that basket.
I've been messing with some of the open source alternatives (+Raspberry Pi), and they're all pretty rough. I plan to spend some time to put together something easier to use, but it's a tall order.
I just see it as adding vanity features to a mediocre product. People are espousing real fear of artificial intelligence, but since I can't get my echo to play the right radio station more than half the time, quitting after 5 failed tries ("The Current" sounds nothing like "Berlin", I'm fairly sure you could train a dog to recognize the difference) I'm not too worried about robot overlords any time soon.
Get me voice recognition that actually understands language and can be corrected to learn what I want in even the most basic ways and I might change my mind. Adding cameras and screens only makes a creepy device creepier. I don't trust a company that sells me things designed primarily as vectors to sell me more things.
I have an Echo and I feel like the voice features are not as a good as Google's offerings. You can do a few things really well with the Echo but once you go outside of what it can do, it's dumb as rocks. You can't ask it basic questions that Google assistant has no problem with.
mustacheemperor|8 years ago
On the other hand, on Alexa I can't say "play fleetwood mac in the living room" (via chromecast). That single feature is nearly enough to send me to Google Home, except for the reasons I mentioned above...but I feel hesitant to stick with Alexa when I know the only reasons it can't do what I want are stupid.
nirav72|8 years ago
But Alexa does seems to have a head-start with third-party integration and services. So for now I own one of each. I'm hoping that maybe both of them will reach parity at some point and I can finally settle on one of them.
kelnos|8 years ago
But the Google Home ecosystem isn't so great yet, so I don't want to jump into that basket.
I've been messing with some of the open source alternatives (+Raspberry Pi), and they're all pretty rough. I plan to spend some time to put together something easier to use, but it's a tall order.
_Adam|8 years ago
mycall|8 years ago
Alexa, Siri, Google Home, Cortana.. they could all use the same standards to become interoperable.
panarky|8 years ago
https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/19/leak-details-google-home...
colechristensen|8 years ago
Get me voice recognition that actually understands language and can be corrected to learn what I want in even the most basic ways and I might change my mind. Adding cameras and screens only makes a creepy device creepier. I don't trust a company that sells me things designed primarily as vectors to sell me more things.
SimbaOnSteroids|8 years ago
wvenable|8 years ago
cptskippy|8 years ago
I can ask the Google Assistant to call anyone in my contacts and it happens, if I ask for a map to their house it fails horribly.
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
mycall|8 years ago