Google Home versus Amazon Alexa

Hi,

I am not sure what to buy, Google Home or Amazon Alexa. Can you let me know what your experiences are? Which device would be the best integrated with Homey and understands you the best?

Choice stress :slight_smile:

Depends on the smart devices at your home you want to connect to them, and the language you want to use. I have both Google and Amazon at my Home, and I think the Google is way smarter then the Amazon. Start with looking wich devices you own are allready supported by Amazon or Google.

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Iā€™m currently in exactly the same positionā€¦ donā€™t know what to choose!
Alexa i know just a little, Google home iā€™m a complete newbieā€¦ so donā€™t know about difference in smartness or supported devices.

Do some people have experiences with one or both and some real-life examples on what they use it for (or limitations)?

Buy a Sonos One and try both!

Mmh, Does it support Dutch? And then I need to find a sponsor as this is of course much more expensive.

Google is in Dutch yes.

I have both, Echo wins. Speech is awesome and also controlling devices works

Google Home is dutch thats nice but no voice support (native) and broadcasting doesnt work.

The latest Google assistant and Homey has native support no?

Errm, i think you might have missed something the last 2 weeksā€¦

Is this already live as I though it was promised some ware around the summerā€¦

I have it in Dutch yes.

They are currently both really similar,

  • Google just released is new 2019 line up, Amazon donā€™t release theirs until November
  • New google line up (specifically the nest home) is cool, but scarey
  • google has your facial ID
  • Amazon & google have your voice print
  • Google is much better at contextual questions
  • Alexa is getting support for conjunctions (Google already has it?)
  • Google are A-holes and once your hooked into the eco system may trap you into it. (re: what they did with nest).
  • The echo spot is perhaps the best smart home device I own.
  • Saying ā€œHey googleā€ to active the device is REALLY lame.

Really its personal preference, people talk about using the system which you have the devices for - which is wrong. When buying new devices make sure they work in BOTH systems. Then you can always change later on if one of them becomes clearly superior.

my preference is Google assistant/home but I think this forum tends to be pro Alexa.

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The biggest reason iā€™m pro Alexa is that i can send notifications from Homey to my Echo device.

Not doable on GHome

Nice. can you use Homey to trigger Alexa to do things?

Controlling Alexa smart home devices from Homey and triggering alexa routines is currently in ā€˜testingā€™.

Odd I have had opposite experience in this forum, iā€™ve found people to be more pro google. I think it has something to do with language support in Scandinavia

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This sounds tempting, and the Google assistant is working with the Google App or Sonos?

I bought an Amazon echo gen 3 just to try it with Homey, but hated it and sold it again. There arenā€™t so many supported devices (if I remember correctly, my curtains, airconditioning and thermostat werenā€™t manageable with Alexa, lights didnā€™t work 30% of the time).

I also didnā€™t like the Alexa app on my phone. And had troubles with Spotify. I could ask Alexa to ā€œplay music by Afrojackā€, but not ā€œPlay music by Daft punkā€, Michael Jackson or around 10 other artists that I asked. Which I found weird.

I think Google home is the better choice at this moment, although I didnā€™t test that. Siri / Homekit also works very well, also in Dutch!

but with limited functionality, you cant use alexa routines with the sonos one

I fully agree!

pro Alexa :heart_eyes:

See its all completely anecdotal ā€¦

Toms Guide released an update to their head to head this week : you can read the full article here

Spoiler : Google and Alexa ended up both with 26 points (and siri sucks).

Thereā€™s still no one-size-fits-all winner among voice assistants. Your best pick is the one that succeeds at the categories most important to you and works with the devices you want, in the ecosystem you use. And with the rapid pace of innovation in all of these technologies, itā€™s hard to go wrong by spending time with any of these voice assistants ā€” even if none of them knows when exactly my bus will get here.


Just to back up what @azid said be really careful with ā€˜third partyā€™ devices ā€¦ in my experience they lack a lot of the refinement of ā€˜officialā€™ items. (Ecobee cant use spotify (just amazon music/radio/pandora), Netgear Orbi (harman/kardon) cant be in a music group, Sonos One cant use routines).