The connected Indian home was just becoming familiar with Amazon’s Alexa when what should come along but another smart speaker to give us more choice. One can buy Amazon’s Echo Dot, Echo or Echo Plus for ₹4,499, ₹9,999 and ₹14,999 respectively or one can opt for the newly arrived Google Home or Google Home Mini for ₹9,999 and ₹4,999. If you’re interested in a smart speaker, you have a tough call to take because they’re both enjoyable to use and each does a few things better than the other.

The Google Home and Mini smart speakers look quite futuristic and come in ‘charcoal’ and ‘chalk’. They are nice and well-built and were made to be used with interchangeable bases and covers in different colours, but those are not being sold here for now. Four coloured lights tell you that the speaker is listening and these turn a uniform yellow if the microphone is muted using the button at the back. Gently tapping and swiping the surface around the lights brings up touch volume controls and pause and resume functions. There are no other controls on the speakers, which interface with the Google Home app for everything else. The speakers are wired and can’t be carried around on battery. They stay permanently plugged into electricity. There’s also no line-out on these speakers so you can’t directly connect them to another speaker as you can with the Echos.

Multiple voice signatures

You have to turn to the Google Home app on your phone or tablet to set up everything — your Wifi, email and preferences, but this isn’t difficult. Cleverly, Google Home can be voice-matched for up to six people so that when each talks to it, the voice is recognised and actions switch to that user’s preferences. Amazon’s Echo is tied to a user’s accounts but that’s just one user.

The comparisons with Amazon’s Echo devices and virtual assistant Alexa are inevitable. Amazon has had a head start of five months or so in which intense advertising has really helped Alexa become quite a household name. The Echo speakers are also well-built and have an edge in the sound quality department. They sound a bit better and have more drivers for bass. Also, they have up to seven microphones to Google’s two, so they can hear you from further away, from any direction, and even if you whisper. Google in any case needs the voice aloud because it has to voice match.

Consummate conversationalist

Like Alexa, Google’s assistant on the speaker is a conversationalist. And how. Since it has Google search to back it up, it can pull up information on anything from the weather, traffic to news, facts and jokes and stories. Beware, children can use it to finish their homework, though perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. Both will tell you things like “What does the Theory of Relativity mean?” One sometimes gives a more detailed answer than the other. Alexa relies on Wikipedia a lot but also on her own database of knowledge, much of it quite customised for Indian culture. You can ask Alexa a question like “What just happened in the cricket match?” and you’ll get a long answer, while Google Home says “Sorry, I don’t understand that.” On the other hand, Google owns Maps and so does a brilliant job of traffic and location information, which is then sent over to all your devices in case you’re dressing up and will soon head out. Google will tell you how long it will take to get somewhere, but Alexa will only tell you how many kilometres you are from some place and says she doesn’t know your speed of travel.

Google knows all about local businesses and can tell you when a shop closes. Alexa is not aware of these and will say so. Surprisingly, both will respond to a question on what movies are playing around but Google just says here are the movies and does nothing else. Alexa will list them out. This is obviously a glitch or work in progress.

Alexa has some 10,000 ‘skills’, which let you use it to order a cab, have food delivered and a host of other things for daily living. More importantly, it lets you shop by voice from Amazon whereas Google just lets you make a shopping list.

Both Google Home and Alexa’s Indian accent sounds terrible — flat and stilted. I have changed Google Home to US English and done the same to Alexa but at the cost of some compromise in ‘Skills’ in the latter.

How’s my day

Google Home will let you manage your day with schedules, reminders, to do lists etc, as will Alexa. The Google assistant remembers context so that when you ask a question and get an answer and refer to it in a second question, it knows what you’re talking about. Alexa has a peculiar way of not understanding the basic subject about which you just asked a question. For example, “Alexa, what is the weather like in London?” She tells me. “Alexa, what is the weather forecast in London for the month of May?” She says she doesn’t have a forecast for “that location”.

Play that song

Both Google Home and Alexa can play songs for you. Google picks them up from various services such as Saavn and Gaana and with some difficulty on TuneIn. If you have Spotify in use somehow, Google plays your playlist. Alexa picks up music from its own Prime Music and other sources. Neither will play music off Apple Music. The Echo can be easily connected via Bluetooth or cable to other speakers. Google Home needs the Chromecast gadget to play on other speakers which, if available, will also let it play movies and YouTube on televisions. The Echo app shows the Fire TV but can’t play movies by voice command at the moment. Alexa does some Echo to Echo calling and messaging but Google Home doesn’t do this or make calls using your phone in India right now.

Both smart speakers are meant to connect to compatible devices and appliances. Right now, lights are the easiest and easily available. How easy it is depends on which; Philips Hue lights connect with both speakers, although with the Echo Plus this is easiest as no additional bridge is needed. For all others, you have to buy that, and it isn’t cheap and takes a frustratingly long time to update. In India, the Amazon speakers have the edge for home control as they are compatible with more smart home devices. But Google should catch up as no hardware on the speaker itself is needed for most things.

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