Google Home vs Amazon Echo: A Guide to Choose Perfect Smart Speakers for Yourself (2020)

The advent of mainstream “smart” devices started with smartphones, and today you have so many smart appliances available at your disposal, from smart TVs, smart washing machines, smart refrigerators to smart air conditioners, and you can even automate most of your home’s basic functions as well to call it a smart home! Well, that topic is for another day!

In this article, we’re going to discuss two of the most popular smart speakers out there – Google Home and Amazon Alexa. Most of you face a dilemma when it comes to choosing between these two devices, as the competition between the features of both of these is definitely cut-throat, and not to forget with every update, both Amazon and Google try to introduce more and more functions to lure more people into buying their product! We hope that after reading this article, you will be able to make an informed decision for yourself, so let’s begin!

Although there are many variants available now for both Google Home and Amazon Alexa, for this post, we’ll compare the two primary products from each category, i.e. Google Home and Amazon Echo.

Google Home comes with dimensions 9.63 cm x 14.28 cm (width x height), while Amazon Echo comes with dimensions 9.9 cm x 14.8 cm (width x height), so if we talk about the compactness, Google Home is the clear winner here.

Also, please note that while Google Home weighs just about 477 gm, Amazon Echo weighs about 1.3 kg, which is almost three times that of Google, so for those you who want to buy the device based solely on their compactness can go with Google Home without thinking twice!

Google Home supports up to 44 languages including English, Hindi, German, Dutch, Danish, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, just to name a few, while also providing country-wise dialect support for English, French, Spanish and German. Alexa, on the other hand, supports around 15 languages, which include Hindi, English, French, German, just to name a few with dialects for a few languages.

For most Indian users, English and Hindi would suffice, however for those of you who are learning a new language or are interested in getting a device which can support a wide range of languages, Google Home is the clear winner! But for people for whom just English and Hindi are enough, check out our next points!

This would largely depend on the type of devices you want to operate with Google Assistant and Alexa, respectively. Although a majority of the smart devices support both Alexa and Google Assistant, you can still find some niche products which are compatible with either of the two devices and not with both of them.

The biggest irony with smart speakers is probably the volume levels they come with – Though not the same quality, but for regular users, there doesn’t seem to be a significant difference in the quality of sound and volume levels of Google Home and Amazon Echo; as their prime function isn’t just to be a regular speaker (obviously!), so you can’t expect those amazing beats or those very high-volume party mashups!

Now, to overcome this, both of these come with Bluetooth support, through which you can easily connect your external speakers with either of these devices. But Amazon Echo comes with an additional 3.5 mm jack as well, so in case your external speaker doesn’t have Bluetooth connectivity, you can readily buy an AUX cable and connect it to Amazon Echo seamlessly!

Both the devices will provide you with answering basic questions and commands such as for calling, getting news updates, booking a restaurant, playing music, etc. Although developers at both Google and Amazon have toiled hard to bring more and more features to these smart speakers, Amazon would be the clear winner here, which boasts of having more than 30,000 skills, and there’s another interesting feature that Alexa provides you with, i.e. any regular user can also create a customised skill for Alexa, which can be shared with users worldwide. It can be availed through Skill Blueprints. How cool is that? In contrast, Google only provides this skill or feature-adding for developers. Developers can create a smart home action by creating an API particular to their need, which well, isn’t for everyday users.

Here, Google Home takes the trophy most of the times as it is generally available at a significantly lower price than Amazon Echo. Presently, Google Home is priced at ₹ 8,999.00 (MRP: ₹ 9,999.00) on Flipkart while Amazon Echo (3rd Generation) is available on Amazon for ₹ 9,799.00 (MRP: 9,999.00).

There is one very important thing to note here that both of these devices also offer their miniature products, which come with slightly lesser features and skills. Google offers Google Home Mini, which can be bought from Flipkart for ₹ 3,399.00 (MRP: ₹ 4,999.00) while Amazon offers Amazon Echo Dot that can be bought for ₹ 3,499.00 (MRP: ₹ 4,499.00) from Amazon.

Smart speakers are definitely worth the hype if you’re building a “smart-tech” ecosystem for yourself. From helping with the most mundane tasks such as setting reminders, making grocery lists, so on and so forth, these can help you greatly with controlling other smart appliances around your home such as CCTV cameras, smart bulbs, refrigerators, etc.

The choice between Google and Amazon is definitely not an easy one as both of these will keep providing newer and newer offerings to users to make their products even more worthwhile. If you’ve always been a Google-person, then you mustn’t think twice before going for their smart assistant, but if you want to try something new, something more advanced perhaps (not belittling Google Home in any way here), then Amazon Echo might just prove to be the right option for you!