WHY YOUR NEXT SCREEN COULD BE YOUR SMARTEST

SMART DISPLAYS ARE YOUR NEW TICKET TO THE SMART HOME OF SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS.

SCREENS ARE A fact of life. You have one in your pocket, you probably use one at work, and you almost certainly have at least one of them at home in your living room. But the major tech titans are betting there’s room for at least one more screen in your life courtesy of a new category of gadgets called

Smart Displays.

Smart Displays are a natural evolution of the Smart Speaker segment popularised by the Amazon Echo and Google Home. They’re more or less the same type of device, enabling you to leverage the powerful AI voice assistant platforms of Google or Amazon, only with a screen attached that adds visual information.

The extension makes sense. Certain types of content are better represented visually, such as weekly weather forecasts, recipes, smart home controls and music playlists. While other content, namely photo/video playback and video calls, can only be shown properly.

While Smart Displays look similar to tablets and use the same voice assistant technology baked into your smartphone, they’re a completely different breed of device. Designed as ‘stay-at-home’ assistants, they’re essentially waiting at your beck and call to do something for you – all you need to do is “say the word” (which is “Ok/Hey Google for Google

Assistant Displays, and “Alexa” for Amazon devices).

Smart Displays have a simplified on-screen interface that’s underpinned by a sophisticated, AI-powered voice assistant platform. Using natural language voice commands, you can do a multitude of things: check your daily commute to work, play music, listen to the news, control your smart home devices (such as lights, smart locks and smart security cameras) and look up information on the internet – among other things.

Smart Displays have multiple built-in microphones that are far more receptive than your smartphone’s, with some opting for ‘far-field microphones’ that are sensitive enough to hear you from another room. The screen is typically supported by a fixed position stand with integrated speakers.

There are currently two platforms being used by Smart Displays: Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Thanks to Google’s extensive knowledge graph and multiple assets across maps, video, calendar, web search, movie rentals, language translation and more, Google Assistant is highly self-sufficient, and can handle almost any query you throw at it.

Google Assistant also boasts some extra tricks that Amazon has yet to match, such as native YouTube and Stan video streaming, the free, ad-supported YouTube Music service, and an impressive Interpreter mode that can translate bilingual conversations in real-time for 27 languages. You can also take advantage of Chromecast support to sending audio and video from compatible smartphone apps (including SBS OnDemand, Foxtel Go and Plex) to the Smart Display.

Amazon Alexa, on the other hand, is a better fit for power users who don’t mind getting under the hood and doing some tinkering. While it can’t do as much as Google Assistant out of the box, it’s more extendable courtesy of more than 100,000 Alexa Skills and two built-in web browsers. The former work much like apps to extend the platform’s functionality, while the latter enables you to access the mobile versions of websites, including YouTube and Facebook. Note – while you can access the webpages for Netflix and Stan, it kicks you over to the app store (which you can’t access on a Smart Display) when you try to play video content.

Both platforms continue to add new features on a regular basis, and major innovations

introduced by one side are typically picked up by the other relatively quickly. For now, the two have parity when it comes to custom routines, which is where you can group several tasks together into a single voice command. Saying “Good morning” for instance, could trigger your smart lights to turn on, your smart kettle to start boiling, and your favourite news stations to come on.

Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant both understand context, which means you can ask follow-up questions that implicitly refer to the original subject. For example, you could say, “Ok Google, when is my next appointment?” and instead of having to follow this up with, “Ok Google, where is my next appointment?” you could simply ask, “Ok Google, where is it?.” Even better – an optional feature on both platforms removes the need to say the trigger word before you ask follow-up questions, making the conversation flow far more natural.

If you’re a music fan, you can use a combination of smart displays and smart speakers to create an inexpensive multi-room audio system. This means you don’t have to miss parts of your favourite song as you’re moving throughout the house – all of the devices can play the same song simultaneously.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Can’t decide which Smart Display is right for you? The simplest way is by looking for a

Smart Display that supports the online services you’re deeply embedded with. Funnily enough, Spotify is the only music service that’s equally supported by both platforms, while Netflix is the only video platform that’s mutually excluded.

If you’re a hardcore Google user, then a Google Assistant-powered Smart Display is probably your best option, as you’ll be able to hook into your calendar, photos, maps, Google Play movie purchases and rentals, YouTube history and other data in a far more seamless manner. Google Assistant also supports Stan, Apple Music (via Chromecast – and only if you’re using an Android phone), Google Duo voice calls, videos purchases/rentals via

Google Play TV & Movies, and Telstra mobile phone calls (although the latter is exclusive to Google-branded Smart Displays).

On Amazon’s side of the fence, the ‘plain Vanilla’ Alexa devices gets you access to Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, Audible audiobooks, Skype, Apple Music and Apple podcasts. Of course, if you’re toting a Facebook Portal, you also get access to video chats on Facebook and WhatsApp, along with video streaming on Facebook Watch.

The other way to choose a Smart Display is understanding what your primary use for it will be. If you’re simply looking for something to stick on your bedside table to play quiet music and get you out of bed in the morning, a smaller and cheaper smart clock device (such as the Amazon Echo Show 5 or Lenovo Smart Clock) will do the trick. If you’re a keen music fan, then a larger device with better speaker, like the JBL Link View, will do you justice. Alternatively, if you’d like a Smart Display that doubles as a home security camera, the Google Nest Hub Max is your only option.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the privacy implications of using a Smart Display. While it’s nice to believe our voice commands are all magically interpreted on the fly using AI, the truth is that voice commands are recorded and sent to Google and Amazon’s servers, where they’re often processed and analysed by humans to improve the AI voice recognition. The situation gets dicier once you consider the cameras built into the Smart Displays, and the possibility they could record your movements.

Ultimately, you’ll need to decide whether how much of your privacy you’re willing to sacrifice in the name of convenience. If it’s any consolation, all of the Smart Displays include privacy buttons/sliders that let you deactivate the mics and cameras when you’re not using them. Both Google and Amazon also let you delete your voice recordings online, and while Google has gone on the record to say they’ve halted human transcriptions for now, Amazon has gone a step further by enabling users to opt out of manual (i.e. human) voice recording reviews.