Google Home vs Amazon Echo: which is the best buy?

Choosing a smart speaker shouldn’t be that hard, but it’s a bit complicating or hard when choosing between the Google Home smart speakers or Amazon Echo smart speakers. Both smart speakers are the biggest competition in the smart home market.

One might lead one with some basic features or design, or even price, the Amazon Echo and Google Home are both great choices for a smart speaker, both smart speakers are the leading ones out there.

Knowing both smart speakers’ similarities and differences would help us make a well-detailed purchase. You have so many features or things you would want to do with it. Like controlling your home device, playing music, asking questions, etc.

Here is a breakdown of what the Amazon Echo And Google Home voice assistants can do, what they look like, capabilities of smart home devices and skills.

Amazon Echo

Amazon has one of the biggest ranges of smart speakers, The Echo 1st generation, The Original which is the first Amazon smart speaker. If you want a smaller or cheaper speaker, then the Echo Dot is your choice. With this, you can have Alexa all around your house, but the sound isn’t that great; it has a 3.5mm jack out. You might want to hook it up with a better sounding speaker.

There’s also the Echo Plus which is great for smart homes, it has a ZigBee Hub inside, which makes it easier to control your smart home devices, like your Philip Hue Bulb or Logic Harmony Remote, Window Blind and so on.

For visual content with Alexa, you can get the Echo Show. This enables you to communicate with your device in a different way. This is great for watching videos, getting recipes and viewing content on security cameras feeds and many more.

Google Home

The Home Original device is the first of the Google smart speaker, the Google Home smart speaker has been competing with the Amazon Echo device right from the release in terms of features. 

The Google Home Mini also competes with the Amazon Echo Dot in terms of size, and it is also cheap enough to have all over your home. And if you don’t like the sound which is quite better than the Echo Mini, Google Home Mini doesn’t have an audio jack. But you can always boost the sound by pairing it up to a better sounding speaker or any Bluetooth speaker.

And then there’s also the Google Home Max, great-sounding speaker if you want a better sounding speaker this is your choice. Google also has a Google Home Hub that also competes with the Amazon Echo show in terms of display. 

So you see the Google Home has been giving Amazon Echo Devices a close gap, even as the Amazon Echo was the first released smart speaker. Let’s look at these devices in and out to see which is the best buy.

Google Home vs. Echo – Design 

The Amazon Echo and the Google Home device are both voice-controlled smart speakers, which enables you to interact with them with your voice. 

The Amazon Echo isn’t great looking compared to Google Home in size and shape, but I like the fact that you can interchange between 6 different covers with the Echo. 

You can also interchange different bottom base covers with the Google Home. These let you customize your devices to fit in your home and also great whenever the device looks old or dirty.

The Google Home top is much simpler and cleaner than the Amazon Echo which got four buttons (mute, activation and volume up and down) on top of it, making it visually less appealing to me. 

Both devices have led lights. The Google home has 4 LED lights beneath its touch surface to act as the assistant’s indicator. The Echo has its LED ring that lights up different colors for different actions around the device.

Google Home vs. Echo – Sounds 

The Google Home and the Amazon Echo device are smart speakers that allow you to play music from your phone playlist or streaming music online. Google Home can play music from play music and Google Cast, while the Amazon Echo can stream music from Amazon prime music. Both devices feature Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn, and many more

Both devices don’t have great sound quality, which I wasn’t expecting to come from smart speakers under $100. The Amazon Echo has a 3.5m audio jack out, so if you need a better or louder sound, you can hook it up to a stereo speaker.

Google Home doesn’t have an audio jack, but it works with Google Chromecast so you can stream shows, movies, and music on your TV or speakers.

On the Amazon Echo, you can play and pause music without making use of your voice, on like the Google Home where you can just tap on the top surface to play and pause music. Which I found very handy if the Google Home is close to you.

Google Home vs. Echo – Voice Assistant/ Query Search

Both devices can pick up your voice from across the room, The Amazon Echo has 7 microphone array at the top, it has beamforming technology; It helps Alexa hear you. Even if it’s in a loud or noisy environment.

Both devices have a way to wake the assistant with your voice, The Echo gives you a button at the top, while with The Home you just tap and hold the top surface and the assistant would wake. You can wake the voice assistants with your voice.

The Google assistant wake word is “Ok Google” and “Hey Google” Amazon assistant wake word is “Alexa”

You can also change the wake word of the Amazon device from Alexa to Computer, Echo, and Amazon.

Alexa is still not capable than the Google assistant in more advanced search quarry’s, but what it still can answer is far more impressive. For-example Alexa knows what sound waves are; It can tell you how much it would take for you to drive somewhere. But for some other quarries, Alexa is still not as capable as Google’s assistant. 

Google Home vs. Echo – Shopping 

This is where both devices really differentiate itself from each other, the google home allows you to shop from google express, which allows you to shop from different partners like Target, Walmart, Home Depot. It’s amazing that you go can order for items on your Google device.

“Hey Google, buy the Google Home Max.”

What this device would do, is it would have the item to your Google express shopping cart, so you have to go your mobile device or computer to actually check out, you can’t buy items directly with just asking your Google Assistant, This is really a turnoff for me.

However, with your Amazon Echo assistant, you can buy whatever items you want directly with just asking Alexa.

“Hey Alexa, order the Amazon Echo.”

Buying things with Alexa from your Echo is very easy and simple. Alexa can order items based on your the same item based on your shopping history. And it’s also easier to cancel orders. 

Both devices can give you, shipping notifications, the Google Home as an advantage here if you make use of a Gmail account. It can easily scan through your Gmail to find your orders.

Google Home vs. Echo – Smart Home/ Home Automation 

One of the basic things you would probably do with these devices is controlling your home device. Both devices work perfectly controlling your smart home device with your voice. 

Comparing these two smart speakers, you might want to know which device, control your smart home devices better, like your Thermostat, Light Bulb, Tv, etc. To our own option, the Amazon Echo beat down the Google Home device, with over 60,000 + compatible devices. 

The Google Home, though, supports many devices, but not as much as the Echo device. But with the Amazon smart speaker, you can connect with a lot more of smart home devices.

Google Home vs. Echo – Skills 

While the Google Home is still catching up on Amazon Echo with third-party skills. Game skills, kid skills, content skills, music skills. For example, you can order pizza from dominos to order an Uber. 

The Echo has what they call routines, this allows you to control multiple smart home devices with just one phrase. For example, you could say “Alexa, good morning” this could turn on your light, turn on the smart plug to your coffee machine, tell you the latest news from your favorite news channel, tell you the weather for the day and many more.

The Home also got a routine, launched in the UK; In terms of options, the two systems are just about equal now. Although the Amazon Echo as an upper hand connecting to more third-party skills than Home device.

Google Home vs. Echo – Calls

Both devices let you make regular voice calls. While with The Amazon Echo can receive calls from other Echo, with the drop-in feature, and on the Echo Show you can make video calls. This is really a great feature if you want to chat or check up on the kids.

Google Home has what they call a Broadcast feature, this allows you to send a recorded message out to all of your Google Home smart speakers. But it’s not quite as great or even useful as the Amazon device feature.

The Takeaway 

The Google Home is fast catching up on the Amazon Alexa feature to feature.

Choosing between the Amazon Echo and the Google Home smart speaker isn’t that simple; Both smart speakers have their merit. We think the Amazon Echo is a better buy than the Google Home device. The reason is it can do a lot more the Google Home, cheaper, more compatible with smart home devices, also comes with varieties of colors and fabric to better fit your home design or environment. Plus, there are different Echo devices you can choose from.

We also think the Google Home voice assistants seem smarter. For voice assistants and search queries, Google Home is a better choice. Especially if you are an Android user or a Google product user.

Let us know which device you have, in the comment below if you have one, if you don’t and planning to get one still let us know, which of the smart speaker you would go for and why.