Amazon Echo vs. Google Home | Important Buying Criteria

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Gained early experience with automation technology in the private and industrial sector, can turn his living room into a movie theater with one voice command and is the owner of this website. He is happy to share his accumulated experience with every new article.

Key Takeaways

Google Assistant is much smarter than Alexa
Alexa has more skills and knows more about products and shopping
Alexa is compatible with more smart home providers
The Echo devices have better sound

What is a Voice Assistant?

Voice assistants are being used by more and more people in everyday life. They are used in many different ways: to read out content from the Internet, to play YouTube videos and other media, and as an acoustic “remote control” for your smart home. The goal of voice assistants is to combine as much information, services and devices as possible in a single central control system. In this way, our language acts as a new interface between us humans and technology.

The actual processing of voice signals works as follows: Everything you say is initially only registered and internally processed by the voice assistant, provided it is switched on and ready for operation. Only when the assistant “hears” a special code word does it react and the actual voice control is activated.

This activation can also be recognized by certain light effects that light up with the help of LED elements on the respective device as soon as you speak to the assistant. If the device is not connected to a Wi-Fi network or connected to a power network, it will not respond to your voice commands. You can also “mute” your voice assistant by pressing the mute button.

The most popular and high-end home-based voice assistants currently available on the market are called Google Home and Amazon Echo. Since Google Home was introduced only a short time after Amazon’s assistant, it initially seemed like a copy of the competitor. In return, however, Google Home was able to score from the beginning with a huge knowledge base, which allowed the answers to pretty much all questions with the help of the voice assistant. Thus, both systems have their strengths but also their weaknesses, which will be presented in the further course of the article.

What Makes a Good Voice Assistant?

User interface: Good sound quality, powerful voice technology and a modern design – these are the aspects that are at the forefront when choosing a voice assistant today. Together, these factors form the user interface of the assistant and have a significant influence on how much users enjoy using the device. However, performance is by far the most important factor, as it ultimately determines the quality of your voice assistant.
Usage patterns: With the individual functions that a voice assistant brings as features, it is of course first important to determine what you want to use the device for in detail. Is reliable information, such as traffic jams or weather reports, or general knowledge important to you? These can usually be answered quickly and correctly by a good voice assistant, so that you do not have to search for the required information in the browser of your smartphone.
Speech function: If you are looking for a specific piece of information, all you have to do is speak your question out loud and within a few seconds you will receive your answer as a voice response. Of course, this is only possible if your assistant is turned on and connected to the Wi-Fi network. However, in order for this process to work smoothly, a good and continuous implementation of knowledge databases, as well as a technically flawless speech recognition of the assistant, is necessary.
Third-party apps: Another criterion for the perfect voice assistant is the possibility of using third-party apps via the respective device. These include, in particular, music streaming services, cooperations with various suppliers or online shops as well as numerous service providers who want to make their own apps known with the help of voice assistants such as Google Home or Alexa. As a user, you benefit from such partnerships because they ultimately mean more functions and features for your voice assistant.
Smart Home: Ideally, you can control most of the electrical systems in your home with the help of voice assistants. This vision of a comprehensive networking of real and virtual objects is also referred to as the “Internet of Things”. The technical development towards the smart home is being specifically promoted by voice assistants such as Google Home and Amazon Echo, which makes collaborations in this area particularly frequent.
Compatibility: The more devices in your home are electronically networked and centrally controlled, the more likely it is to meet the requirements for a smart home. Voice assistants such as Google Home and Amazon Echo can support you particularly well. If you want to use your voice assistant to conveniently and intuitively control your air conditioner, your coffee maker, the lighting in your home and many other devices, you should make sure when buying that the respective voice control device is designed for such use and linked to the corresponding third-party apps.
Organization and data maintenance: You can recognize a good voice assistant by how well it can record, store and meaningfully reproduce information in your sense. This includes voice recognition, which allows assistants in the U.S. to determine whether this is “their” user or a family member based on their voice and can automatically perform the data or functions relevant to that person without being asked to do so. But good quality voice assistants are also designed to integrate calendars, lists and reminders.

What is the Difference Between Digital and External Voice Assistants?

Digital assistants include devices such as Siri from the manufacturer Apple or Cortana, which was developed by Microsoft. These mainly serve as organizational tools.

In contrast, external voice assistants are designed as stand-alone devices whose primary task is to digitally connect the user with their living environment. With the help of state-of-the-art AI technology, these voice assistants are self-learning, the voice function makes them seem “human” and the networking with one’s own smart home makes them highly practical and convenient tools to set up one’s own home for maximum comfort with minimal effort.

The first external voice assistants on the market were devices from the manufacturer Amazon. In the meantime, however, Google has also recognized the value of virtual assistants and has also launched its own variant of the versatile voice assistants with “Google Home”.

Both assistants thus also function as a smart home system. But which of the two voice assistants is better? In the following, both systems are examined for their respective functions and advantages. This is followed by a direct comparison of the two models.

Amazon Echo

The Amazon Group was able to secure a clear market advantage with the Echo as the first home-based voice assistant. Due to the possibility of promoting the product via its own shopping portal, it has also been able to successfully expand and defend this advantage so far. Compared to other voice assistants such as Google Home, Amazon Echo is clearly superior in terms of the distribution of its products in users’ homes.

Check Price:

AMAZON*

Amazon invested several million US dollars in the development of the world’s first voice assistance technology. The voice of “Alexa” was recorded in Gdansk, Poland. The name of the voice assistant is a tribute to the library in Alexandria, which in ancient times was considered one of the most extensive sources of knowledge.

The hardware with which the use of the voice assistant “Alexa” from Amazon is possible is called “Amazon Echo”. This is now already available in the 4th generation as well as in different variants. These are the most important ones:

Echo*
Echo Dot*
Echo Show in 5*, 8* 10* and 15* variants

Echo Auto is also a version of the device that you can use in your car while driving. In addition, there are numerous extensions such as “Echo Input”, “Echo Buttons”, “Echo Connect” and many more that you can purchase to make better use of the numerous functions of the smart speaker system.

Check Price:

AMAZON*

Amazon Echo – Technology and Design

Amazon’s Echo voice assistant either looks like a cylinder or has an almost spherical shape in newer versions. It is available in black and white. There are numerous holes on the lower half of the device, which are used to transmit the sound.

Amazon Echo is basically a speaker that is controlled with the help of Alexa, the actual voice assistant. However, since it is not possible to control the Echo in any other way than via Alexa and the device represented the first introduction of such software on the world market, the name Amazon Echo has become established for both the device and the voice assistant, or smart home system, and will therefore also be used in this article.

If the voice function of the Echo is active, you can recognize this by a glowing blue LED ring in the middle of the device. The Echo can be controlled both with the help of the voice function and manually via integrated buttons on its surface. Among other things, you can adjust the volume or activate the mute function.

What are the Main Features of the Amazon Echo?

As the world’s first voice assistant, it’s hard to imagine many households without “Alexa” or the “Echo” speaker that helps control it. In addition, Amazon has of course been able to significantly improve and expand its smart speaker since its initial release. The most important functions of the Amazon Echo are presented below.

Voice function

The voice function is certainly the most important feature of both voice assistants. Here, the two systems Google Home and Amazon Echo differ significantly from each other.

Amazon Echo can clearly score in the area of technical equipment: Here, the voice data is picked up via 7 microphones simultaneously. In this way, noise can be optimally extracted from the input. Speech recognition also works better with Amazon’s voice assistant and the speaker can be understood well even with loud background noise.

In terms of sound quality, Echo of lags a bit behind its competitor when it comes to playing music directly on the device. However, Alexa’s “voice” sounds less mechanical than that of the competition and the sound is slightly louder overall than Google Home.

Although the voice intelligence of Amazon Echo does not quite reach the quality of Google’s assistant, it responds better and more competently to some requests than Google Home. Especially when it comes to shopping and product information, you can expect more accurate and faster information from the Amazon Echo. For other questions, however, the software still has clear problems understanding the user and formulating the answers grammatically correct.

Media playback

With Amazon Echo you can use many popular music streaming services like Amazon Music, Prime Music or Spotify. The device can also activate any radio station on demand and access your private music database via Bluetooth connection. It is compatible with your Amazon Fire TV and can therefore also process voice commands to YouTube or Netflix.

You can not only play music, but also videos, movies and even audio books with your Echo via voice control. In this area, Amazon Echo is clearly ahead of its competitor Google Home in terms of flexibility and versatility.

Third party features

In this area, Amazon Echo offers far more possibilities and the number of external providers that work with the manufacturer continues to grow. There are now more than 10,000 different “skills” that you can activate for your Echo on the Amazon website. Among them are many helpful apps that you can use to control your smart home or for individual information, such as package tracking.

So far, the Amazon Echo is virtually unrivalled when it comes to collaborations regarding smart home services. However, it is likely that Google Home will quickly follow suit in this area as well.

Data protection

To use the Amazon Echo, you need a customer account with Amazon. The Amazon Echo Show also displays a lot of your personal information.

Personal Assistant

The personal assistant in the Amazon Echo can not only make calendar entries for you and create to-do lists, it can also read out directions or the current movie program on request. This puts the Echo one step ahead of its competitor Google.

In terms of search algorithms and the development of artificial intelligence for the voice assistant, however, Amazon Echo is currently not the pioneer. However, this fact is hardly noticeable in daily use. Overall, the voice assistant is the Amazon Echo’s greatest strength and also its strongest technology.

Google Home

Compared to Amazon, which was first to introduce and implement external voice assistants, Google was slow to follow with its Google Home product.

The name “Google Home” has been replaced by “Google Nest” since 2019, but is more commonly used in common parlance so far, and will therefore be retained in this article. The voice assistant that is controlled with the help of the Google Home is called “Google Assistant”. Like Amazon’s “Alexa”, it too can process voice commands and respond to a wide variety of requests with the help of voice output.

Google Home now also has several variants, which include a display as well as various smart speakers. In detail, you have the choice between the standard device “Google Home”, the variations “Google Home Mini” and “Google Home Maxi” as well as the newer variants “Google Nest Mini” and “Google Nest Hub”. Depending on the variant, the smart speakers are more suitable for listening to music, playing videos or the convenient and discreet placement in the house to control your smart home.

Google Home – Technology and Design

The design of Google Home is essentially similar to the Amazon Echo, but it is a bit rounder and more compact overall and the speakers also look less flashy. A clear plus point here is the weight of the device, which only weighs about half as much as the Echo. Google Home is available in several different colors and materials, whereby the upper part is always made of white hard plastic.

The Google Home’s user interface is also different from its competitor Amazon Echo. It has a button that operates the microphone as well as a touch-sensitive surface that can be used to issue further manual commands. With these features, Google’s voice assistant can clearly score points in terms of its design and technology.

What are the Main Features of Google Home?

The voice assistant and the smart home system of Google Home offer you a diverse and individual user experience. The most important features are presented in more detail below to enable a comparison between the Google Home and the Amazon Echo.

Voice function

The voice function of Google Home is superior to that of the Amazon Echo in many respects, even though the latter has only been available on the market for a comparatively short time. Although the device only has 2 sound sensors compared to 7 in the competitor, both voice assistants hear the commands of their users equally well in neutral situations without strong noise. Both Google Home and Amazon Echo can be activated from a distance with the help of the respective code words.

Google Home’s sound quality has a slight advantage over the Echo. If you play music directly through the device instead of connecting it to external speakers, it has slightly better sound quality than Amazon’s speaker. In return, Google Home is quieter overall and the AI’s voice sounds a bit more mechanical than the competition,

When it comes to voice intelligence, Google Home could clearly prevail over Amazon’s voice assistant despite its “latecomer status”: The voice AI is much better at remembering past conversations and doesn’t get rattled as quickly. This advantage is mainly due to the fact that Google clearly invests in a better understanding of speech in its algorithms.

The voice intelligence of Google Home is best used for general knowledge questions and information. The speech recognition is continuously optimized. However, the latter also applies to the competitor, so the competition for the better voice intelligence will probably continue in the future.

Media playback

Google Home also allows the use of music streaming services, but integrates its own like Google Play Music and Google Chromecast. So if you already own a Chromecast device, the Google Home voice assistant is clearly the right choice for you. The individual Google services communicate beautifully with each other and together offer you a wider range of multimedia features.

However, Google Home has one disadvantage compared to the Amazon Echo: It is not Bluetooth-enabled. Therefore, speaker boxes or other mobile devices can only be connected with the help of a cable, which makes the connection more reliable, but also less flexible. Therefore, Google Home still has some catching up to do in this area.

Third party features

Although Google Home so far offers significantly fewer features from external companies than its competitor, there are also some skills that you can use with the voice assistant for easier control of your smart home. These include apps like Phillips Hue, Nest, and Samsung SmartThings. You can also connect your Google Chromecast device to your TV and control it by voice as well.

Because the Amazon Echo has been on the market for much longer, the connections to other business partners of its manufacturer could already be expanded and deepened. It is very likely that Google will also catch up in this area in the foreseeable future.

Data protection

Also, to use Google Home, you must first be registered on the Google platform with a customer account. Some users find this disadvantageous, as it allows Google to collect even more personal data about you while you are using the smart speaker.

Personal Assistant

Although Google Home lacks some skills that are included in the Amazon Echo voice assistant, this device also has numerous functions that make your everyday life easier. Google Home can read messages aloud, create lists, and add appointments to your calendar on your voice command. Of course, Google’s massive data sets also put it in a better position to create a more detailed user profile and respond accordingly.

The voice assistant is also the central function of Google Home. Due to its high intelligence and comprehensive knowledge, Google’s assistant can definitely compete with Echo’s on this level as well, even though it is still comparatively new on the market.

Google Home vs. Amazon Echo – Comparison Chart

After we’ve introduced you to the individual features of the two smart speakers, here’s a tabular overview of the advantages and disadvantages of both devices in a direct comparison:

Feature	Amazon Echo	Google Home
Speech Recognition	Reliable speech recognition despite background noise thanks to 7 sound sensors	Only 2 microphones, therefore less good filtering of background noise
Voice Output	Fluent, with natural speech sound	Rather mechanical and less natural sounding
Sound	A bit too weak for playing music	Fuller and rounder sound
Search Algorithms	General knowledge questions cannot always be answered satisfactorily	Very good search algorithm implementation and high information density
Language Intelligence	Partially unsure of grammar and follow-up questions	High linguistic intelligence and reliable answering even with several follow-up questions
Third-Party Apps	More than 10,000 skills available, especially useful in relation to smart home technologies	Less choice of third-party apps (actions), but with the help of Google Chromecast also versatile usable
Shopping	Excellent product and shopping information	Less well designed for information on shopping and online products
Bluetooth	Yes	No
Smart Home System	Good networking with most smart home providers	Only the most important Smart Home providers are integrated
AI Technology	Sufficient for basic functions	Allows invidual adaptation to the respective user
Start Word/Phrase	Alexa, Echo, Amazon, Computer	OK Google, hey Google
Multimedia Services	Amazon Music, Prime Music, Spotify, TuneIn, YouTube, Audible, Amazon Fire TV, Deezer, Netflix	Google Play Music, Google Cromecast, YouTube, Spotify, TuneIn, Deezer, Netflix
Data Privacy	Amazon account required	Google account required

Summary: Amazon Echo vs. Google Home

Origin and features: Even though the smart speaker Echo from Amazon came onto the market before Google Home, it can now score points with many functions that the “original” does not have. This is due to Google’s extensive knowledge database as well as the continuous development of AI technology within the company. In this way, Google and Amazon are engaged in a continuous battle with their respective voice assistant systems, in which they continue to optimize the respective device and make it attractive for customers.
Technology and design: Although tastes differ, the majority of customer reviews suggest that the Google Home is ahead of the Amazon Echo in terms of design and technology. This is mainly because Google’s device is smaller and lighter overall, as well as offering multiple design options when ordering. Overall, however, both devices integrate well into an existing home decor due to their compact size and unobtrusive appearance.
Voice function: Although the voice function is clearly the focus of both systems, there are some differences between the Google Home and the Amazon Echo in this area. For example, both assistants respond reliably to the use of the respective code word “OK Google” or “Echo” or “Alexa”, at a distance of up to 15 meters and respond quickly to requests. However, the Echo manages to filter out noise from a conversation a bit better than Google’s device.
Sound quality: The sound quality of both speakers is about the same. It is perfectly sufficient for voice commands, but it is recommended to use more powerful external speakers for playing music on both the Google Home and the Echo.
Voice intelligence: The voice intelligence of Google Home is much more advanced. However, it always depends on the respective subject area. While Google Home has a greater general knowledge, Amazon Echo can react better to product and shopping requests. Overall, it can be said: The Amazon Echo is better at hearing speech, Google Home can understand it better.
Media playback: Both Google Home and Amazon Echo are real little entertainers that can play videos on YouTube or your current favorite music with the help of voice control. However, the Echo has a clear advantage in terms of flexibility, as it is also Bluetooth-enabled compared to the Google Home and can therefore be wirelessly connected to many other devices. In addition, the Echo can also play audiobooks on Audible without any problems.
Third-party apps: Both devices offer the possibility to link additional services with the voice assistant via so-called skills or actions and to control them via them. Especially in the smart home area, this leads to an ingenious possibility of networking and linking individual devices and systems. It can be clearly stated that the Amazon Echo currently has significantly more cooperations with external providers than is the case with Google Home.
Data protection: Voice assistants such as Google Home or Amazon Echo are often criticized because they can be used to collect and permanently store a lot of visitor data. With both systems, a customer account with the respective provider is necessary for use. Basically, both devices are rated similarly in terms of data protection.
Personal Assistant: The voice assistant is the core and most important technology of both providers. While Amazon Echo has more individual features in this area, Google also has some advantages with its knowledge database and the significantly better developed AI of the voice assistant. Overall, Amazon Echo can score as a versatile consumer assistant, while Google Home scores as an intelligent knowledge assistant.

FAQ

What models of Amazon Echo are available?

Amazon now offers a total of 5 different Echo speakers and 3 smart displays. In addition, there are also a lot of accessories to buy.

What models of Google Home are available?

Google Home comes in 3 different versions (Google Home Mini, Google Home Max, Google Nest) and with a smart display (Google Nest Hub).

Which device is cheaper, Amazon Echo or Google Home?

Speakers with the voice assistant Google Home are usually much cheaper than those of the competitor Amazon Echo. However, the functions and features of this device are less versatile.

Conclusion

When choosing the perfect voice assistant, many points must be considered. Both the voice function and the technical and visual design play an important role. In view of the increasing spread of various smart home technologies, compatibility with other applications is also an aspect that has a major impact on the decision.

The Amazon Echo is strongly oriented towards online sales and knows the consumer behavior of its users particularly well. This allows it to respond very specifically and efficiently to requests concerning certain products or services, giving it a certain competitive advantage, especially in the US, where many products are now purchased online.

In addition, the Echo is networked with a constantly growing number of third-party providers and enables users to use their functions via the voice assistant with the help of so-called skills. This is particularly important in the smart home sector and ensures that Amazon’s device almost has a monopoly position. But many other features can also be used in this way with the Amazon Echo, which allows a wide variety of applications and makes the system very popular with many people around the world.

The Google Home product has a slightly different focus. It aims to communicate as naturally as possible with the user and is constantly learning new things with the help of artificial intelligence in order to offer the user the most individual and positive experience possible. In addition, the assistant enables quick and competent answers and information in numerous fields of knowledge through access to Google’s almost infinite knowledge database.

Google Home is not really inferior to its competitor in terms of design and sound quality. However, it has significantly fewer additional features compared to the latter and therefore does not offer the same flexibility for smart home use, for example, that the Amazon Echo does. On the other hand, the Google Home is significantly cheaper and offers customers who already have other Google products a clear advantage in terms of the variety of possible uses.

Whether Google Home or Amazon Echo – ultimately you have to decide for yourself which features are particularly important to you when buying a voice assistant and make your choice based on that. One thing is certain: In the future, both manufacturers will continue to optimize their devices to provide you with the best user experience.

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