SMART AMPS

With voice control, app control, streaming, external inputs and power, smart amps offer a just-addspeakers plug-and-play multiroom zone. But how well do they work, and how do they sound?

So, are you a Google Assistant person or an Alexa person? Or does the whole idea of keeping an ‘always listening’ device in your home just give you the privacy wobbles?

All three of the smart amplifiers in this group can be addressed via Alexa. While it’s the obvious choice for Amazon’s own product, Alexa also has the advantage of allowing special skill sets to be downloaded for specific equipment (although Google is now fighting back with ‘Actions on Google’).

So when IHS Markit reported on the rise of voice assistants at IFA’s recent Global Press Conference, they showed us these two charts from data relating to 2018 (left).

The first shows the ‘reach’ of the main voice assistants (Bixby is Samsung’s version), and Google Assistant is very much in the lead in terms of accessible devices in the global market, with Alexa far behind in terms of numbers.

But when IHS started asking people about how often and when they use voice assistants, rather than merely counting devices, the story was different — Google still leads, but Alexa is closer behind. IHS’s conclusion was that consumers crave interoperability, and currently only Alexa is meeting this need.

Apple’s Siri gets a surprisingly good score both ways, and the rise of AirPlay 2 should cement that position. Two of the three smart amps here allow Siri voice control when streaming via AirPlay 2.