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Comment by melling | Hacker News Reader

Someone put an Echo Dot in my stocking. I’ve been ranting about these devices for a while and even recently wrote a little blog post:

https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/12/13/voice-as-a-user-inte...

Is it worth getting a Google Mini too? I’m told that it’s actually smarter. I’m going to set up my Echo so I can reorder all the stuff I hate to shop for.

We’ve been waiting half a century for “Voice as a User Interface”. Now we’re only a decade away?

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I would say that the Amazon Echo is generally better at DOING STUFF (e.g. setting alarms and reminders, playing music, adding stuff to your Amazon shopping cart (of course), controlling your TV if you have a Fire stick, etc). Supposedly controlling smart home gear, although I haven't dipped my toes in those waters yet.

The Google Home is generally better at ANSWERING QUESTIONS and providing information. Random queries that pop into your head a thousand times a day (e.g. Who starred in such-and-such movie? Who won the last time the Atlanta Falcons played the Carolina Panthers? etc).

Occasionally though, Alexa will surprise you by answering a question where Google flopped. Either way, like others in this thread, I now have both since they discounted them so low for the holidays. But for the Google, I get by with the "Mini" version... whereas I sprung for the full-size Amazon Echo because I use it for music, audiobooks, podcasts, etc and want the better sound.

I agree and its not really a surprise either... Google has been in the search (Q&A) business a long time.

I actually find ghome to be better for smart home use. The app is a little more intuitive with organization and it is a lot better with recognizing the names of your stuff. Alexa would have trouble recognizing arbitrary names while ghome almost always gets it right.

I started with Echo but ended up replacing it with Google Home because I like it so much more.

Thankfully I am not the only one who thinks this! I had an argument with my brother over IoT devices with Echos vs Google Home products.

Google Home still requires you to use 3rd party apps but you are forced to set up the device in a location in your home/apartment. I can walk into my apartment and say "Ok Google, turn on all lights" and not have to worry about which brand of lights turn on.

When I used my Echo Dot my brother got me last Christmas, I had so many issues with the same command.

You can create “Routines” on the Echo (like IFTTT procedures). You could easily create one for “Alexa turn on all lights” that triggers all of your smart home lights regardless of brand.

And then another one for "dim all lights" and another one for "brighten all lights" and another one for "set all lights to warm white" and another one for...

YMMV but "Alexa turn on my lights" works for fine for my Hue lights. I'm using the Hue skill.

This is the big difference. The GH supports natural language for most things and the Echo requires more rigid or basically commands you have to memorize to use.

I think of our Echo as a command line and our Google homes as using a GUI.

BTW, GH is also a lot easier for old people has been my experience.

And Samsung Voice can't do anything well.

I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. What voice interface system would you like to criticize again?

S Voice by Samsung, found on the Gear S3. It's a watch with a full color screen and a cell modem, an amazing bit of hardware. Voice command does not work well at all though. I would love having Google Now on it.

Have both the Echo and now several Google homes. The Google home is a lot easier than the Echo to get it to do stuff. The reason is the GH does not require rigid language or basically commands you have to have memorized like the echo.

So it is a lot easier to use and especially for kids and older people.

You can talk to the GH more like you would talk to your wife.

I think of the Echo as using a command line and the GH a GUI.

Yep, do it. You’re interested enough to write it up, you should take a look at the home mini.

There are a fair number of people in this thread saying they prefer the dot, which is really interesting to me because I thought the home was the clear winner. Perhaps I need to give Alexa a second chance.

The big upside of the home is it has contextual understanding. “Alexa, what’s the temperature in Celsius” gives me the weather, including full day forecast (cloudy etc) in Fahrenheit. Google will tell me exactly what I wanted to know. I’ve given up on Alexa, but maybe “she” deserves a second chance.

I mean, I just use mine to check the weather. But for 30 bucks, the three seconds I save from not reaching for the phone are kinda worth it, I guess? It reminds me of my first few calendar items too...

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