Amazon and Google are once again in a head to head battle to hold a strong foothold in the consumer market. This time showcasing Amazon Echo Dot and Google Home.
Amazon Echo Dot can be considered as a "mini me" version of Amazon Echo, which was launched last year. So which won is taking the lead?
Design
Google's device has a wine glass shape white body, in contrast to the Echo's hockey puck type structure.
As per CNet, Echo Dot comes in color black and white. Home, meanwhile has an interchangeable base with three fabric colors ( Mango, Marine, and Violet) and three metal colors (Carbon, Snow, and Copper.)
Multi room audio
Multiple Google Home devices can be used both as a group speaker, which is in sync, or one at a time.
With the help of Chromecast, Home can support non-Home speakers or launch a video on a Chromecast-connected television.
Meanwhile, express.co.uk states that thanks to Amazon's Echo Spatial Perception, if you have more than one Echo Dot in your house, Alexa is clever enough to respond from the speaker nearest to where you are standing.
Translations
As wired.com announces, Alexa is unable to do spoken-word translations. It'll only send the translated word or phrase to the Alexa app, but won't help you pronounce it.
Google Home gives spoken-word translations for both individual words and phrases, so you can ask it how to say "meatball" in Japanese, "I have a ballpoint pen" in German, or "déjà vu" in French. Google Home can also tell you what certain animal sounds like.
Skill sets
Knowyourmobile stated that as of now, Amazon is sporting rather large performing tasks, thanks to wider third party developers.
Both Home and Echo Dot can do day to day tasks like updating your calendar, making a shopping list, making a to do list, checking flight statuses, etc.
But Echo Dot can also do things like order a pizza, call an Uber, play specific games, so on. It can do over 900 tasks at the moment.
Third party support
Again beating Home, Echo Dot has support from third party smart home devices such as IFTTT, Philips Hue, Nest, Ecobee, SmartThings, Lifx, Big Ass Fans, Insteon, Belkin WeMo etc.
As of now, NYTimes says, that Google Home only supports Nest Thermostat, Samsung's smart home devices and Philips Hue lighting devices.
Bluetooth Support
Wired.com further states that 'Google Home only does the voice-request-over-Wi-Fi thing'.
With Echo Dot you can stream music via Bluetooth as well as a 305mm cable connected to your existing speaker, according to express.co.uk.
Although Echo Dot does have a built in speaker but it is not as strong as the Echo's.
This is a deliberate action from Amazon, since the idea is to cut the cost from Echo. With Echo Dot you have to hook it up with your own audio setup.
Handles multiple accounts:
Google Home doesn't support multiple accounts. Tasks like calendar requests will get registered on that one Google account which you have used to link your Home during the setup process.
Echo Dot can register several users in a household and can switch between profiles when asked.
Editing lists
You can make a list of various things via both Google Home and Amazon Echo Dot.
But if you miss anything or need to delete items from the list, you have to do it manually through their respective app- Keep list app for Home and Alexa app for Echo Dot.
Voice commands to edit or delete stuff from a list don't bode well in both Echo Dot and Home, states wired.com.
Price
Google Home costs $129 while Amazon Echo Dot costs $49.99. Amazon also offers a 6-pack Echo Dot and a 12-pack Echo Dot deal.
