Google Home is a family of voice-enabled smart home speakers developed and created by Google and powered by the Google Assistant, the company’s AI powered personal virtual assistant. Google Assistant is your personal Google that is always ready to help. Alexa is the Amazon’s answer to Google Assistant and the brain behind the millions of Alexa enabled devices that make your day-to-day lives so much better with voice commands.
What is Google Home?
Google Home has been around for quite some time now. In fact, the line of smart speakers developed and created by Google has been around since 2016, when the first Google Home device was introduced in the United States. Like Amazon Echo, Google Home is a family of voice enabled smart wireless speakers that enable you to enjoy and access the multitude of Google services by a simple voice command. Google Home is basically a voice activated smart speaker powered by Google Assistant, the company’s in-house virtual assistant that integrates with both in-house and third party services to provide you unsurpassed touch-free experience.
Google Home is the smart home access point or hub for the company’s smart home devices, letting you control other Google powered devices such as Nest Thermostats, Chromecast and Nest Cams by your voice. The hub acts as your personal assistant which can respond to your commands – Just say the word and Home does the rest. It can not only play your favorite playlist, but also set up routines, control your smart home appliances, manage tasks, make a phone call, assist with recipes, set reminders, and more. You can also add more speakers for synchronized music playback and do so much more with the hub.
What Is Alexa?
Alexa is the Amazon’s AI powered voice service and personal assistant that’s transforming the way users interact with technology. Like Google Assistant, Alexa acts as a personal virtual assistant through voice command and music playback. First used in the Amazon’s line of smart speakers called the Amazon Echo, Alexa is a smart voice-enabled assistant that lives in the cloud and always ready to help anytime you want and anywhere there’s a stable Internet access and an Alexa-enabled device. Alexa is the voice of Echo and the brain behind millions of Alexa-enabled devices that understand and respond to your questions in seconds.
Like other smart assistants, Alexa controls your music and assists with a lot of things, like stream podcasts, make a to-do list, set alarms and reminders, play audio books, provide real-time weather information and traffic updates, and more. Alexa has numerous abilities called skills, which you can customize to your likings and preferences, so that it can be whatever you want it to. These skills make Alexa smarter than other virtual assistants, helping you plan dinner, track your orders on Amazon, respond to web-based queries, and control other Alexa-enabled devices.
Difference between Google Home and Alexa
Basics
– Google Home is a family of voice enabled smart wireless speakers developed by Google and powered by Google Assistant, the company’s in-house virtual assistant that integrates with both in-house and third party services. Alexa, on the other hand, is the voice of Echo and the brain behind millions of Alexa-enabled devices that understand and respond to your questions in seconds. Alexa is the Amazon’s AI powered virtual assistant that’s transforming the way users interact with technology.
Smart Hub
– While on the surface, Amazon and Google have very similar assistance, but when you dig deeper, it’s a different story, especially when it comes to smart home devices. Both are undoubtedly great smart home hubs, but when it comes to mechanics, Google Assistant is relatively more popular as it comes in-built with all Android devices out of the box. Alexa, on the other hand, holds a lion’s share of the smart home market that supports relatively more smart home devices than Google Assistant.
Routines
– Routines is something Google is pretty good at, allowing you to get multiple things done with a simple voice command. Routines are the best way to command your voice assistant to perform some actions and these can be customized to your liking so that you can make your VA to get things done which saves you a great deal of time. Google allows you to assign multiple voice commands to a single routine which simplifies the tasks you do every day. Alexa also has custom command for routines but it only allows one per routine.
Skills
– While both are heavyweight virtual assistants that are really great in what they do, thanks to their out of the box offerings, Amazon has way more skills than Google has actions. Alexa continues to edge out Google Assistant with its thousands of third-party integrations. You can get Alexa to perform more specialized tasks by adding the most appropriate skills to your liking and preferences, spanning across all categories, including Games, Business & Finance, Education & Reference, Trivia & Accessories, and Smart Home. So, sky is the limit when it comes to skills – you have skills for almost anything.
Google Home vs. Alexa: Comparison Chart
Summary
While both Google Home and Alexa are both great voice-enabled personal assistants and heavyweights in the smart home realm, they have their fair share of differences especially on the smart home side. Google Assistant is definitely the smarter one that handles and answers users’ requests better than any other virtual assistant out there because of one simple reason – it is powered by Google search engine. But that doesn’t make Alexa any less useful. Alexa is a jaw-dropping technology and brain behind millions of Alexa enables devices. Alexa narrowly edges out Google when it comes to smart home integration because it supports more devices and has nearly thousands of third party integrations to make for a seamless Alexa experience.