Alexa or Google Home? Who has tried both?

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nunz

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#1802004 16-Jun-2017 11:03

reven:

alexa gets most things right, adding things to the shopping list can be a bit of a hit and miss with some things.

e.g.
me: "alexa and spray and wipe to the shopping list"
alexa: "ok, adding spray and white to the shopping list"
shopping list: contains 2 items, "spray" and second one "white"

for things like "play [artist|songtitle|genre|etc]" thats all fine. for things like '"turn on [device name]" that works great too. i'd say all those things are about 99% fine, but shopping list is about 70% (but when I read the list I know what i meant).

Timers can be wrong at times too, my wife was asking for "15 minutes" and it kept saying "ok 10 minutes", "NO F*****ING 15 minutes", "Ok 10 minutes". she got pissed off (wife, not alexa, my alexa is never mad at me....)

Google galaxy recognises the f word as well - surprisingly well - i only have to think it and it seems to know :)

tieke

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#1802005 16-Jun-2017 11:03

I've got both, and have them tied into my home automation via home assistant running on a raspberry pi. Generally prefer the Google Home, but a dot is cheaper if you're just trying it out.

As far as the Home having a better speaker, I actually think the Echo is a clearer better speaker especially at low volumes, while the bassier Home speaker improves when turned up. Not really an issue for me as I just get the Google Home to broadcast through my various stereo setups if I want music (via audio chromecasts). I generally prefer the Google Music side of things to the Amazon one too - I like how Google will basically start a radio station based on the song you've requested whereas Alexa tends to be more specific or rely on premade playlists.

I have timers and automation set up for a few things, but still find it handy to be able to speak a command in the lounge to turn on a bedroom heater/blanket etc, and likewise be able to turn the lounge heatpump off from my bed if I had forgotten about it rather than go back up and down stairs to do so.

I've found the voice recognition pretty good on both, although had to rename "hall" light for Alexa as it kept thinking I was saying "home" (I didn't have this problem with Google). Another difference is that with the Home I can ask "Is the heatpump on?" and it will tell me, whereas Alexa doesn't support that, but that might just be a configuration thing.

Whichever you use, the voice interaction they provide is pretty easy to integrate with home automation solutions and it feels a lot better and more natural than using phones etc to control things. (Although I do still have quite a few physical xiaomi wireless buttons around the place to control things as well.)

richms

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#1802117 16-Jun-2017 13:36

nunz:

I think it's an accent issue. Or is Google home / Alexa very limited to specific actions?

"I couldnt find a device or group named disk lamp in richards profile"

Richard rich.ms

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