Smart speakers are all the rage these days. The voice assistants from Mountain View and Seattle in the US are engaged in a battle to dominate our homes in India. Smart speakers are an extremely divisive product category with some people swearing by them and others seeing them as redundant and just a fad. Nearly six months after the launch of Amazon's Echo lineup of smart speakers, Google has brought the Google Home and Google Home Mini to India. The Google Home and Amazon Echo are priced at Rs. 9,999 and can be bought online via Flipkart and Amazon India respectively. Both can also be found offline at Croma, Reliance Digital, and other retail outlets.
Amazon Echo vs Google Home: Design
In terms of design, both smart speakers are as different as chalk and cheese. While the Amazon Echo looks and feels industrial, mechanical and utilitarian, Google has gone for a softer, more rounded, and homely aesthetic with the Google Home. Both smart speakers are immobile and powered by proprietary power adapters.
The Google Home has a very minimalist, simple and inconspicuous appearance. The top half is made of white plastic and the bottom is a removable panel covered in fabric. While Google offers a variety of bases with different metal and fabric finishes in Europe and the United States, Indian buyers will have to make do with the one that comes in the box
The Amazon Echo has a very basic, no-nonsense design, with its entire front fascia covered in fabric. There are four buttons and an LED ring on the top. While there is no mistaking the Amazon Echo for anything other than a portable speaker, many of our friends thought the Google Home was a fancy lamp or air freshener at first glance. Google itself says that the Google Home's design was inspired by glasses and candles.
This approach is carried forward to the controls as well, with the Echo having mechanical buttons and the Google Home sporting a touch panel and four LEDs that give visual feedback. The multi-function button on the Echo can be used to bring up Alexa without saying anything, which comes in handy when the device is within arm's reach. The Google Home can be silenced by tapping the touch panel once, which is an incredibly convenient feature and one we sorely missed on the Amazon Echo.
When it comes to smart speakers, privacy is a big concern for many people. The Google Home and Amazon Echo are fundamentally linked to your Google and Amazon accounts respectively, which can put some people off. Even though both companies claim that nothing is sent to their servers till the trigger words, ('OK Google' in the case of Google Home and 'Alexa' in case of Amazon Echo) are spoken out loud, many folks are still wary of Amazon and Google listening in on their conversations. To address this, both speakers have switches to disable their microphones.
Amazon Echo vs Google Home: Capabilities
The Google Home and the Amazon Echo harness Google Assistant and Alexa respectively in order to play songs, answer all sorts of questions, tell you sports scores, look up the weather, and even tell the occasional joke.
While the Amazon Alexa app is more intuitive at times and has a flashier user interface, the Google Home application is more stable. There is a perceptible delay when changing settings in the Amazon Alexa app, which becomes a little infuriating at times. Setting up both smart speakers is extremely simple though. As long as you have a fast and reliable Wi-Fi connection, both apps will recognise the smart speakers in a jiffy and walk you through a few simple steps.
Both Alexa and Google Assistant handle basic basic tasks - such as setting reminders and alarms, suggesting restaurants, answering trivia questions - with ease, with the latter having the distinct advantage of being more conversational and context-aware. As a result, conversing with the Google Home feels more natural and fluid as compared to the Echo, which feels stilted and mechanical at times.
Asking Google's smart speaker "Who is the Chief Minister there" after asking about the weather is in New Delhi yields the name of the CM of Delhi. You can then take things a step further and ask "Which party is he from" or "How tall is he", and the Google Assistant understands that you're referring to the same person and responds accordingly. Alexa simply lacks such contextual understanding of text flow. That said, the Google Assistant has the propensity to default to Google Search for too many queries. It also won't let you place calls or send text messages via the Google Home. The Amazon Echo in comparison can be used to call your friends (with an Echo device or Alexa app installed), provided you give Alexa access to your contacts. It also does a better job with local queries, especially those related to Bollywood and can even read your Kindle books aloud.
Another advantage of the Amazon Echo is 'skills', which allow third-party applications to add functionality to Alexa. Over the last couple of months, Amazon has put in place a robust ecosystem of these skills, tying up with players across multiple categories. In India, these include Uber, Ola, Ixigo, GoIbibo, Freshmenu, Cleartrip, UrbanClap, and Jet Airways. As such, the Echo can be used to book cabs, order food, book flights and hotels, and even book an electrician.
Alexa's voice sounds more natural than Google Assistant's Indian accent, which comes across as forced and robotic. The Google Home has the ability to recognise up to six different users and give different responses to each of them. The Echo in comparison adopts a 'one-for-all' approach.