Google Home versus Amazon Echo

The high horse brigade

bigmike99 wrote: »

I dont get why its Ironic? just a misspelling!
I donno, In my head Alexa just sounds sexy and cooler to say rather than okay google?!:o
GAssist sounds smoother in follow up replies from what i saw on youtube.

Ok Dougal works, so does ok Goo Goo.

Honestly if you're just starting get a Google home. I've had both and sold my Amazon devices to replace with Google homes. Google is miles ahead in voice recognition and searching features.

bigmike99

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Ok Dougal works, so does ok Goo Goo.

Honestly if you're just starting get a Google home. I've had both and sold my Amazon devices to replace with Google homes. Google is miles ahead in voice recognition and searching features.

i like GooGoo from the italian nana youtube video.
Im looking for prices now and Currys and Harvey dont have it! where do i even purchase it?
The Echo is appealing with the 69.99gbp price tag

If i was going all out with locks and thermostats Id look into it more, But im in rented shared accomdation right now so only using for a couple plugs and bulbs in my room only.
And for daily use as a speaker, Echo Plus has the best speaker. Was also contemplating the echo spot mini screen and pluging a speaker into it but thats just more cables or hassle having to keep charging my BTooth one.

The high horse brigade

bigmike99 wrote: »

i like GooGoo from the italian nana youtube video.
Im looking for prices now and Currys and Harvey dont have it! where do i even purchase it?
The Echo is appealing with the 69.99gbp price tag

Buy from the UK Google store and use parcel motel
https://store.google.com/gb/product/google_home_mini?hl=en-GB
https://store.google.com/gb/product/google_home?hl=en-GB

bk

bigmike99 wrote: »

I dont want to have to buy a seperate Hub. can echo(without plus hub) not change colours of bulbs without one?

First, the hub is only built into the "Echo Plus" model, which costs £140, not the £69 "Echo" which you seem to be looking at.

Second, yes, it is very poor as a hub and you would be much better off using the Hue hub, etc. For instance, with Hue lights, you can only turn them on or off and adjust their brightness, but you can't control their colour or colour temperature as you can with the Hue hub. You also can't use Hue switch or Hue motion sensor.

In other words it is horribly limiting and if you start getting a few Hue lights, you will quickly realise how limiting it is and will end up buying the Hue hub anyway.

bigmike99 wrote: »

They work both the same for spotify?

Yes, Spotify works fine on both Google Home and Echo. Though I again find it better on GH due to the better voice recognition and proper multi-room support

Veloce

Hi all,

I have a question about using google home to play music and what options I have. I am complete newb and haven't bought google home yet

To play music directly from google home, what is the speaker quality of the Google Mini vs the Full Size one? Can either devices 'cast' music to a stereo surround system?

I have a Google Play music subscription (1 listener). Will I need to upgrade to the family pack (i.e. more than one user) in order for my wife to be able to listen to music?

Thanks.

wexfordman2

Veloce wrote: »

Hi all,

I have a question about using google home to play music and what options I have. I am complete newb and haven't bought google home yet

To play music directly from google home, what is the speaker quality of the Google Mini vs the Full Size one? Can either devices 'cast' music to a stereo surround system?

I have a Google Play music subscription (1 listener). Will I need to upgrade to the family pack (i.e. more than one user) in order for my wife to be able to listen to music?

Thanks.

The home is much better than the home mini for sound quality, in so far as I would say, the mini is best suited for a room where you want an assistant rather than a music speaker.

I would not buy the home mini for the primary purpose of playing music.

You can cast from either device to a chromecast device, so a Chromecast audio hooked up to a stereo would work.

Your google play subscription can be used and shared accross all your home devices and all users can use it, but you are limited to playing one track at a time unless you go for a family account

Veloce

Thanks a lot Wexfordman. Very helpful.

wexfordman2

Veloce wrote: »

Thanks a lot Wexfordman. Very helpful.

No Worries, actually, I just re-read my post, and the typos were shocking, Im surprised you could understand it :-)

Anyway, typos fixed now (bloody mobile predictive text).

TheDoc

seamus wrote: »

Can anyone give any insight onto using this in a typical household with multiple people using it?

As much as I'd like to have one of these devices, it's only going to be of limited use if it's all about me and only looks at my calendar, my commute, etc etc.

I grabbed myself an echo dot and if I look back now on the 4 months or so I've had one, it was a bit of a gimmick in my house and for me.

We rearranged the front room recently and only realised yesterday the Dot was unplugged for the last number of weeks. Didn't even realise. Novelty wore of that fast.

I know there is likely things to do in terms of custom setup or little tweaks and the likes, but I literally bought one just as a sort of assistant. Primary purpose actually was to control Kodi using voice and after going through a hellish setup, transpired to be pretty rubbish at it. And I'm way past the days of buying something to then have to go around messing like crazy to have it work to what I'd consider competent.

Wasn't really able to manage or do anything that I thought it would or some people said it could. Simple task like making a shopping list was an absolute chore and was just easier writing it in my phone.

I did like using it for news updates, but even at that was no real way to prioritise "flash updates" so I'd have to sit through **** before it got to what I wanted.

It failed to be useful in anyway with general questions. Sure it was able to return some basic stuff but maybe it was my expectations that it would be scrobbling or scraping the web for answers, but doesnt seem to work like that.

Getting it to just call out the score in a match required fiddling with multiple third party skills, something that google can just throw up in a simple search. Just didn't seem to be able to cope with or give me any of the information I hoped it would, where I'd see the benefits.

The integration with my calendar and work stuff was cool for sure, but there was no option to have multiple sync'd calendars or accounts. I saw an option appear on the Alexa app but got the "not available in your region yet" which became all to frequent.

Using spotify was pretty brutal through it. It's a pretty good speaker, but it was so hit and miss in terms of playing my playlists or songs I wanted, I ended up just using the spotify app on my phone and playing it from the echo.

I'm sure for people into the various home automation and stuff they are brilliant, but thats not me. So I was a use case of just simply using it as nearly a lavish Q&A bot. And it just isn't able to really cope.

Wouldn't say I'm raging over the purchase, I had vouchers so got it in Currys for like €9, and be happy to keep tabs on developments and advancements, but for now just sitting there unplugged : /