Thinking of switching from Alexa to Google Home

Posting this because the two devices are constanting changing and upgrading and deserve a new topic every once in a while.

What are your feeling on how the two have progressed?

I’m thinking of switching to google home because my biggest grip with Alexa is it won’t do announcements (without some sort of interaction). I had to buy a second set of speakers to do announcements and it’s just too many things and wires everywhere. Can google home do text to speech from something like webcore without any problems? Just want to know before I invest in one.

No, and not much different than Alexa at all, in fact, I find Alexa routines a lot smarter than the 6 canned that GH offers. Shortcuts, on the other hand are pretty good in GH for one offs. Ditching Alexa for GH doesn’t get you much more. Running more wires to have both, is a better move.

Actually, google home does text to speech a lot better than it used to. If you use assistant relay, you are able to send voice broadcast to google home devices with a simple webcall. They do not interrupt playback of whatever you are already playing, because they are “cast” to the device like they used to be. They also follow the Home’s settings for nite mode and for do not disturb where casting does not. So, I think it is far superior to the echo…but i’m biased. :slight_smile:

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I’m staying with Alexa, just because I’m invested from before GH got rolling… and because my wife hates saying “ok google” or “hey google” lol

In any event, it’s good that they are spurring each other on.

I have both through out my home, I find myself and others using Alexa more for home automation then GH. It integrates better and is not as stubborn as GH with skills enabled.

UPDATE to my previous post. Google Assistant/Home has now custom routines! And following their i/o conference they moved a step forward to give Amazon a run for their money…Now let’s wait for Amazon to catch up.