Finally going to succumb to gadget envy and get some kind of voice recognition speaker thingy.

No specific uses planned for it yet other than setting reminders, etc. and streaming music.

Obvious big players are Google Home and Amazon Echo, but not sure which to go for? We are an Android / Google household but also have a Prime account. I know that the Echo is probably a bit further on in terms of software / apps right now.

So, those of you with either device, what are the pros and cons? Seen a few third party devices appearing running Google Assistant – are they worth looking at too?

Cheers.

I was undecided a few weeks back and posted up asking the same thing:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/google-home-amazon-echo

In the end i went with the Google Home and so far it’s been pretty good but mainly using it for streaming radio and Spotify along with using it as a kitchen timer. Not really got round to doing other stuff with it yet.

Got Echo + two dots for the family at Christmas – so far so good. Generally been impressed apart from the kids dicking around asking it to play Little Mix very loudly in the kitchen via the ones in their rooms

I’ve been playing about with an echo the last week or so and I am liking it so far. Setting timers for cooking, alarms, reminders, adding things to shopping lists, set it up to change thermostat setting, control lights in living room, listening to radio to name a few things. Barely scratched the surface in terms of what it can be linked to but I’ve went from a sceptic to a convert in the space of a week and now looking at other things to connect to it for a smart home setup.

We now have 4 devices, 2 Echo+ and 2 dots, also 4 LIFX bulbs and 2 hue bulbs as of yet not setup as they’re going in rooms away from the Echo+ so need to find a way get them to work. The Echo+ place an impressive sound certainly good enough for the kids’ rooms.

Just to confuse matters, just picked up, via vouchers and returned gift, a Sonos One (the one with Alexa built in). Has been working very nicely – Echo Dot previously bought on Sonos promotion now lives with older Sonos upstairs. All working really nicely and the sound from the One is lovely. Still getting used to Alexa but we mostly use for radio, Spotify, timers and playing fart sounds for little dd. 🙂

This all feels a bit Betamax / VHS at the moment.

We went Betamax…

All android here* so decided to go with Google Home as (logically at least) should be less hassle in the long run.

*I do have Prime but that’s for the next day delivery, don’t even watch the movies etc.

I’m a Google fanboy anyway. 😉

Got a dot a couple of months ago and G home for Christmas.

The Mrs has prime but prime music on the dot is hit n miss, the play lists are very good, but name an artist and it often starts asking for you to upgrade. And you need the expensive family pack to play elsewhere on other dots etc.

Google home is exactly the same from what I can tell when it comes to voice recognition, tricks etc (maybe better for travel info), only I can say play on this or that amp because I already have Chromecasts plugged into stuff. Also Chromecast has digital audio out, echo only Jack and Bluetooth?

Only other advantage of echo is you can change the name to ‘Computer’, could be a deal breaker for some.

I’ve only just found out that Google assistant understands “hey Google”! 😀

Which rolls of the tongue a little better than ok Google.

I’ve only just found out that Google assistant understands “hey Google”!

And “hey boo boo” if you’re smarter than the average bear

I play BBC radio on mine and use it as a kitchen timer. The kids like to ask it silly questions. Oh and it’ll sing Happy Birthday. It’s not changed my life!

Had a play with alexa at the FiL’s over Xmas. Seemed quite fun but lots of gaps as soon as you push it a bit. Plenty of music that wasn’t available and it kept offering to upgrade accounts. Biggest flaw seemed to be asking it a question. It kept saying sorry I don’t know that. Asking the same question to Google on the phone gave a reasonable answer. Only a brief play but it seemed to do the simple things very well but completely failed at anything more complex.

It’s new tech and I’m sure they will improve. Be interesting to see it develop but I won’t be rushing to buy one

I see that the playing Spotify through a Sonos has now been fully fixed – I can now say ‘play [playlist] in [room] and it works great.

Happy about that.

Got a Sonos One for Crimbo, the one that has Alexa. Bit disappointed with Alexa. Not quite as good as many have said it is, certainly the commands are very limited. Yesterday I asked it “What is the traffic like on the M6” and it was completely flummoxed. This morning I asked “What is the weather forecast for this afternoon” and it just gave me a very high level summary of the day’s weather, so very limited and not that smart. Siri does a much better job.

I personally wan’t bothered about Alexa and unfortunately Sonos prevents you from connecting a Sonos One to a Sonos Play:1 as a stereo pair, which is what I really wanted to do as I’ve already got a Play:1. Ridiculous really as there is no point in having more than one Alexa device in a room. But, alas, I didn’t have the heart to ask the wife to take it back and exchange it as she seemed very pleased with herself that she got me the Alexa version. Oh well, first world problems. I hope Sonos provide this functionality in a future update of the controller.

Picked up 3 x Echo’s before xmas on offer.
Mainly for Spotify, etc.
Latest ones have multi room capabilities and you can set up groups and more. So “Alexa play Spotify everywhere “ or “Alexa play Led Zeppelin in kitchen”
Music search is better using Amazon music but that’s to be expected seeing as it’s theirs over a third party

I’m trying to sync my calendar but Apple are failing to send my second authorisation code. 👿

“Alexa play Led Zeppelin in kitchen”

On Christmas day (after a few beers and with the kids going to bed) I started saying ‘Alexa, play Black Sabbath in Evie’s bedroom’. ‘Alexa, turn the volume up to 8’.

Well it made me laugh.

@wobbliscott – there is an IOS app called Sonosequencer that allows you to create a stereo pair between a Play 1 and a Sonos One. I’ve not used it yet but it may be worth a look? No Android equivalent that I can see though…

Got a Home Mini at Christmas. Integrates well with our Samsung phones and good for setting reminders which then appear on the phone-ditto for shopping list. Calendar items are also searched pretty well. Doesn’t do TV listings however which is a bit of a nuisance. Weather reports and news bulletins very useful and spotify works well. Bit of a learning curve on how to phrase things at the moment.