Amazon Echo vs Google Home

Jim Martin compares the two digital assistants

Amazon’s Echo has only just gone on sale in the UK, but Google’s Home may not be far behind. On the surface they are pretty similar: both sit there listening for your command and can give you a news and weather briefing, manage your to-do list, turn your lights on and off, and play music, radio and podcasts. We compare the two.

Price

In the UK, you can buy the Echo for £149 from Amazon, though we don’t yet have a confirmed price for the Home. We’d be surprised, given the current trend for new products to cost the same in $ and £, if Google doesn’t sell the Home for £129 inc VAT (don’t forget US prices don’t include tax).

Amazon also offers other options, such as the Echo Dot (£49), which does everything the Echo does but requires a Bluetooth (or wired) speaker if you want anything other than voice feedback.

Not sold (yet) in the UK, there’s also the Echo Tap ($129.99) which is a portable, battery-powered Bluetooth speaker with Alexa built in. You tap the microphone button to speak your requests.

Design

Google might not offer any other devices with the Google Assistant yet, but the Home is at least customisable. The bottom section, which acts as both the base and speaker grille, is interchangeable and Google will offer several colour options, plus the choice of fabric or metal designs. If we know one thing, it’s that people love to customise products to match their décor.

The Echo (and Dot), on the other hand, only come in black or white. However, neither is offensive and the dot is so tiny, it’s unobtrusive.

Since both gadgets are predominantly controlled by voice, you’ll rarely need to touch them, but they both have microphone mute buttons if you need to have a particularly private conversation. Not that we have any issues with privacy. Amazon, for example, says that the Echo will only send

recordings to its severs for processing when you say the wake word Alexa.

Features

Below is a brief summary of how the assistants stack up against each other. Viewed like this, it’s easy to see that Google Home has some advantages over the Echo. Even if you buy multiple Echos there’s no synchronisation between them. You can’t tell the Echo in your kitchen to play soothing music on the Echo Dot in the nursery upstairs, for example. With Google Home, you can.

Another big advantage is that the new Google Assistant (first seen on the Pixel XL) is much smarter than any other digital assistant out there. Not only can it search the web and get information,

but it can also follow a series of questions without you starting from scratch each time. For example, you can say “what’s on at the cinema in Bexleyheath” and then “how long will it take me to get there”. Assistant knows what you mean by “there”. This is just one example of the Assistant’s artificial intelligence at work.

Alexa isn’t nearly as smart. She’ll tell you a joke if you ask her to, but is baffled by questions such as “How many toes does a cat have?”, responding only to say she doesn’t understand the question.

Google also has the huge advantage of its existing ecosystem: Gmail, calendar, maps, Android and other services. We’re yet to see exactly how this will work, but assuming you already use these things while signed into your Google account Google Home should seamlessly be able to add doctor’s appointments to a certain calendar, and even warn you that traffic is bad so you leave earlier to avoid being late.

Okay, so this is nothing new – Siri can already do this on an iPhone – but it isn’t difficult to see how

useful it would be to have the Google Assistant in an always-listening device.

Google Home can also talk to Google’s other gadgets including the Chromecast, Chromecast Audio and also any speakers which support Google Cast, such as those from Sony and LG. Using a Chromecast, you can say to Google Home “show me pictures from my holiday to Spain” and it will tap into Google Photos and display them on your TV.

This all sounds great if you own such devices, but Amazon takes the lead when it comes to integration with services and your existing smart home kit. The simple fact that the Echo has been around since 2014 means developers have had plenty of time to make their apps and hardware work with Alexa and, since the Echo didn’t have any competition to speak of, they were happy to spend the time doing it.

We’ve spoken to several manufacturers who all told us the same thing: it’s really easy to build Alexa compatibility into apps. This has meant that there was a decent catalogue of so-called Skills to choose from in the UK version of the Alexa app, even on launch day. Amazon has also shown that it’s committed to adding more skills, and there has already been an update since the Echo’s launch in September which adds the ability to order products from Amazon (Prime members only) and check the football scores.

You can also check your commute and find out if your train is late, and give your EDF electricity and gas meter readings to Alexa.

When Google Home launches, it will be on the back foot in terms of integration. It will need more

than just Google services and a few big-name gadgets like Philips Hue bulbs to get on terms with the Echo.

Obviously, the more compatible smart home kit you have, and the more compatible services you already happen to use, the more useful Alexa (and Google Home) will be. But even if you don’t there are thousands of skills you can enable and have plenty of fun with, from Cat Facts to games and even a Just Eat skill which lets you re-order meals from takeaways (though sadly not create a new order by voice).

Verdict

So which is better? That’s a tough question to answer right now as Google Home isn’t even on sale yet, and there’s no confirmed UK release date. So if you’re itching to get something right now, the Echo is your only choice. There’s no doubt that the Assistant in Google Home is smarter and more capable, but there’s support for more services and IoT gadgets on the Echo, although time will tell whether the situation remains that way. The bottom line is that it depends on what you want a voice assistant to do for you. If you’re happy with Alexa’s weather and news briefing, ability to control smart lights and thermostats plus keep you entertained with music, then you’ll love an Echo. If your desire is to play music on multiple speakers in sync and perform web searches, then Google Home will do the job. Don’t forget, though, that the Echo Dot is a veritable bargain at just £49 – you can buy two and still have change compared to buying one Google Home.