After the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC17), there is tons of news flying around about Apple’s HomePod. Its features are already challenging game changing devices like Alexa, EchoDot, and obviously Google Home. While discussing this to some gadget freaks and gurus, I felt like Google Home (GH) is going to be the ultimate winner in the long run.
Don’t believe me? Just explore the features below to acquaint yourself with what I am trying to say.
Hardware
Google Home offers the most mutability, offering a multitude of colored bases to allow you to customize the look of your speaker. Although Homepod provides slightly better hardware than the Google Home, still when it comes to the price, Google Home is worth it.
Price
Google Home has been priced at $129 (£129 / AU$170), which significantly surpasses its close rivals. Thus again, it’s kind of win-win situation.
Chromecast and Google Home
- Music
If you've got a Chromecast audio, then it’s kind of a plus point for you because with it, you can simply ask Google Home to play music through the speakers it's connected to. Meanwhile, the Echo is limited to playing music on its own speaker, and the EchoDot can only be connected to a single speaker at a time through either Bluetooth or a wired 3.5mm connection.
- Videos / Streaming Services
Google Home does, however, have the advantage of integrating with Chromecast in a video sense. You can easily play shows from Netflix, YouTube and other supported apps using just your voice.
Google Home’s Integration with Google Services
Additionally, GH integrates with a number of Google's other services ranging from planning routes using Google Maps to translating using Google Translate. It will also draw from your Google Calendar and sync as per your choice.
Performance
Google Home is slightly more clever and performance-oriented than its other arch rivals. It will recognize different users by the sound of their voice alone. You just need to train the speaker to recognize each person's voice by saying your own familiar phrase- “OK Google" or "Hey Google" a few times, but after that point, you shouldn't have to worry about anything.
Google Assistant - Power Behind the Home
Google Assistant, the software powering Google Home, is new and loaded with new features. In addition to that, the technology is based on the work Google has already put into its Google Now voice search functionality.
This prior research, in addition to Google's impressive search abilities, means the speaker has a lot of information at its disposal. Google Home can, for example, correctly guess a song that's described in the vaguest of terms.
If you have any alternate thoughts, please update me in the comments. Cheers! :)