Comparing Google Home and Amazon Alexa

Recently, I got two popular voice assistants in my hands. In this review, I will talk about what they can do and what they don’t yet know.

Purchase and installation

Google Home now costs $ 129, the price of Amazon Echo with Alexa Assistant is $ 179. Both, of course, are not sold in Russia. Well, we go to the USA and we buy there.

Google Home is offered in 7 different colors of a rag cover covering the bottom of the device (there is a column). Alex is black and white and in size is significantly larger and weightier than a competitor. Both are made from a nice matte plastic. In my personal opinion, Google Home looks like a sort of stump, while the bottom of Alexa looks like a colander. But tastes do not argue.

But it should be noted, Google Home has a great box, I want to open and close it again and again. Product designers have really tried.

As for external interfaces, Alex has 2 buttons, and Google has a small invisible touchscreen, which I rarely get through. However, these buttons are not needed, because all functions can be controlled by voice.

To connect, you need to download the application (the Alexa application had to be installed as apk, it is not in the Russian store), and set up access to your home Wi-Fi. This is done quite simply, just need not forget to also turn on bluetooth on the phone. After connecting to a home Wi-Fi device, they are quickly linked with the application - and you can see how their engines interpret the received phrases.

A little about security. As is known, "the S in IoT stands for Security". Assistants are linked to your personal account, but do not recognize the voice of the host. Anyone can use them to read your mail and what else you have entrusted to them.

Speech recognition

Recognition of the call pattern ("OK, Google" and "Alexa") is in place, and the recognition of the phrase and the formation of the answer - in the cloud. If we consider them as hubs for managing the smart home, then here lies the fundamental difference between these platforms and HomeKit, which can work offline. I have never had helpers not recognize their name. But more than once it happened to take something else as a name.

Our middle English Russian with his wife Google understands very well. Almost all simple phrases are recognized correctly on the first attempt, which cannot be said about Alex. Below I tried to say a rather difficult word to her:

- Alexa, what's under rubber new riddle?
- Alexa, to bring new rail?
- Alexa, what is an tripper no real?

Ok, simplifying the question

- Alexa, what is interpret priner?
- Alexa, what is an trump renewal?
- Alexa, what is an to pandora?

Head over to the other side

- Alexa, what is a synonym for businessman?
- Business's synonyms include business executive and business person.

Oh well, dear. Who cares, the original word was entrepreneurial.

We lead a casual conversation

Both helpers have a built-in extensive set of predefined phrases and answers. No one to talk about love, about life? Robots at your service. For example, both can be asked to tell me a joke. The set of jokes is extensive, but not one of the jokes seemed funny to me. I think insidious neural networks just pretend to be dumber than they are.

- Alexa, who killed Kenny?
- Oh my god, they killed Kenny!

- OK, google, are you robot?
- I like your friend

- Alexa, what is the purpose of life?
- The answer is 42, but the question is far more complicated

- OK, Google, what is your gender?
- I am all inclusive

- Alexa, does Santa exist?
- Santa

- OK, Google, tell me a story
- One there lived a protagonist and some supporting characters. Together they went on a journey. And it's a dream!

- Alexa, am I funny
- it is a bit hard for me to tell

And here she definitely did not lie.

Search

Alexa sends questions to bing, and where Google Home sends them is easy to guess. Both assistants quite tolerably use Internet search and Wikipedia in response to questions. In my opinion, Google is looking better - it is more flexible to search phrases and more often understands that the search query.

- Alexa, when Moscow was founded?
- Moscow state of establishment was 1147

- OK, Google, what is a greatest number
- According to English Language and Usage, 7 is the smallest and 9 is the greatest greatest number

- Alexa, where is Kilkenny?
- Kilkenny is a city in Kilkenny, Ireland (...)

- OK, Google, which fish is the fastest?
- Sailfish. According to the sailfish, it’s the speed of 68 miles per hour.

So, Boris Borisych, finally develop your doubts, the AI ​​has told us everything.

Features out-of the box

Both are able to tell what is on your Google calendar (but only the Latin spelling is voiced). Mail is not read yet. And thank the robots, see above about security.
Google is able to translate into many languages, Alex - no

- OK, google, what is a 'mother washed a frame' in russian?
- Mother washed the frame

Both are able to stream music from popular applications (pay money), as well as radio and news (for free). As for music, you need to understand that since the data on the piece of iron goes through the Cloud, then streaming it from the phone is difficult, there is no such option. Amazon and Google allow you to download a certain number of tracks to your account in their music services for free and play them from there.

Alexa allows you to shop at Amazon. For purchases, you can set a pin-code so that neighbors are not played.

- Alexa, shopping
- Would you like to shop?
- Yes
- What would you like to order?
- Books
- Voice ordering is exclusively available for prime members. Would you like to have a cart instead?
- Yes

A set of books appears in the application here, you can continue shopping there.

In addition, both have quite a few smart and not very features, such as a quiz game, an alarm clock, a calculator, a measure and currency converter, an explanatory dictionary, and so on.

Features with a tambourine

On December 8th, the launch of the open API for Google Home was announced. It is said that a mechanism called Google Actions will work in early 2017 and will allow third parties to create interactive scripts through which the user can use to access content or services of the provider. Wisely wrote, in general, see how it works in the Alexa Skill Kit, which has existed since mid-2015.

In the Alexa application, there is a skills store developed by various services, such as Expedia or NASA. A skill is an access to services / information of a service through voice commands. It can be connected for free in the store or simply by voice, calling a keyword or phrase.

- Alexa, ask NASA Curiosity rover update

- Alexa, ask what I can cook with tuna and cheese
- here are some more recipes (..)

Links appear in the app. Not clickable arrrrh!

What is cool in the skills is that they are a dialogue that can have quite a lot of development options (as opposed to the IFTTT scenarios, which are discussed further). So far, the number of ratings in skills in the Alexa store is measured in the hundreds, so these are only the first steps in creating voice interfaces. Expedia and Kayak launched their skills, but they do not allow voice to book tickets and hotels, you can only watch prices. Nevertheless, you can book a car in Expedia, order Uber, and there is even one bank skill that allows you to pay bills.

In addition, Alexa and Google have their own IFTTT channel through which you can configure even more functions. IFTTT allows you to make triggers between services like “if service 1 said A, then send command B to service 2”. Almost all Smart Home hardware products, several large retail chains (they only allow updating the online shopping cart) and a million information portals have such a channel. The trouble with IFTTT is that all the recipes for Alex and Google allow you to do something with a voice command (notes on the spreadsheet, post on Facebook, turn on the thermostat), but do not allow you to link back (read notes, read facebook, ask temperature) . Obviously, the developers did not provide the appropriate API, but I do not understand why. Well, if they can read the calendar, they could have voiced IFTTT messages, but no.

Further development

Summarizing, I would say that at the expense of Skills, Alexa now has more options than Google, but all this can appear in it quite quickly. By the way, a year and a half ago, Amazon launched the 100 millionth venture fund Alexa Fund to invest in projects using the Alexa voice interface. The fund already has 10 investments , the largest of which is in Ecobee, a thermostat that either has already overtaken or is about to catch up on Nest sales.

Amazon also has the Alexa Voice Service SDK , which allows you to run the Alexa service on third-party hardware. Google has not yet released a similar SDK, plan to release this year.

In general, the competition of Amazon vs Google in the field of Smart Home promises to be interesting. While Google tried to push platforms and protocols with an unsuccessful Brillo-Weave project, Amazon took the lead with the development of voice interfaces. Google is now forced to catch up, with a delay of about a year and a half. But in the Google asset a better voice library, and in general it is smarter, better programmed, so the situation is close to parity. If you are reading this article for purely practical purposes and you are not an American, when choosing from two devices, I would suggest buying Google, as he understands better and searches better. From the complex conversational interfaces of the Skills Store is of little use, if you can not normally understand.