Echo Dot vs Home Mini

alexvevo

Hello there,
I've got a Google Pixel 3, and am looking at buying a Philips Hue starter kit from Currys (reduced to £115) that comes with an Amazon Echo Dot or Google Home Mini, depending on which bundle option chosen. I was wondering if there is any impact in what I should go for. I also use an iPhone and have a Mac, but wondered if the Pixel would interact better with the Google Assistant or if the Echo Dot works just as well with it? The Echo Dot overall seems to win out in review comparisons aside from quality of asking Alexa questions, but that wouldn't be the reason why I was getting the speaker. Basically I'm wondering if there's any integration Google offers by going for the Home Mini given I'd have a Google phone, or if it's worth going for Alexa instead.

TL;DR - does the Pixel 3 integrate with Home Mini better than it will with Alexa?

RumRat

You'll get different answers depending on what eco system each has bought into....
I bought into Google and have 6 around the house (2 mini and 4 Home) and there is also an echo dot that's now in a desk draw.
IMO if you are getting the pixel phone then it's a no brainer the integration will be better.
Small things like asking the mini for directions as I'm leaving the house, by the time i'm getting into the car they are already on my phone and ready to go.
I'm sure I didn't give Alexa a fair go, but, as you say, asking questions was a lot more painful than with the mini. As for sound quality, the old dot lagged miles behind the mini, but, the new one has caught up and taking personal taste into account, they would probably now be equal.
Choices eh? who'd have em?
Good luck....

ballyblack

Quality of getting correct answers?

The Google Home wins out in my experience of both

Takmon

I have both and the Google Assistant is the best overall for commands and questions but the Amazon Echo isn't a bad device it's just abit more limited.

Personally I wouldn't go for the Philips Hue because they are just bulbs and when someone turns off the Light switch it defeats the purpose of them.

I would look into replacing the actual light switches themselves with smart switches, then they can still be used manually and it works out far cheaper (mine were around £12 per switch).

RichardD1970

Takmon wrote: »

I have both and the Google Assistant is the best overall for commands and questions but the Amazon Echo isn't a bad device it's just abit more limited.

Personally I wouldn't go for the Philips Hue because they are just bulbs and when someone turns off the Light switch it defeats the purpose of them.

I would look into replacing the actual light switches themselves with smart switches, then they can still be used manually and it works out far cheaper (mine were around £12 per switch).

Which ones did you get? Was looking at bulbs etc, but that sounds a much better solution.

Takmon

RichardD1970 wrote: »

Which ones did you get? Was looking at bulbs etc, but that sounds a much better solution.

I have the Sonoff switches, I've had them atleast 10 months now and never had any issues even after power cuts. These do need a neutral wire to operate and this isn't something that is installed as standard in house wiring. If you don't have a neutral wire you can get one's that don't need them but they are around £30 a switch I think and also need a hub.

alexvevo

Thanks for the replies all. By the sounds of it the Home Mini is the better smart speaker to get then, but I think I'll research the light switches compared to Philips Hue as well. If it works out as being cheaper then that's only a positive in my book for getting the same function from a system.

capital0ne

Why do you want all your conversations listened to and recorder by Google or Amazon?

Mind boggling really - especially as Amazon admitted to eavesdroping!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/04/11/amazon-employees-listen-thousands-customer-alexa-recordings/

"Amazon customers have complained that their privacy has been violated after it emerged that the company employs hundreds of people to listen to recordings of them speaking to their Alexa devices.

The company can listen to audio from all Echo devices, including the millions of UK households which use Alexa.

Employees in Romania, India, Costa Rica and the US are given recordings of some people speaking to their Alexa devices in order to verify that the virtual assistant is correctly understand them, according to Bloomberg."

Takmon

capital0ne wrote: »

Why do you want all your conversations listened to and recorder by Google or Amazon?

Mind boggling really - especially as Amazon admitted to eavesdroping!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/04/11/amazon-employees-listen-thousands-customer-alexa-recordings/

"Amazon customers have complained that their privacy has been violated after it emerged that the company employs hundreds of people to listen to recordings of them speaking to their Alexa devices.

The company can listen to audio from all Echo devices, including the millions of UK households which use Alexa.

Employees in Romania, India, Costa Rica and the US are given recordings of some people speaking to their Alexa devices in order to verify that the virtual assistant is correctly understand them, according to Bloomberg."

It looks like you have complete misunderstood the article and how these devices work because no eavesdropping occurs and if it did it would be easy to check and it would be big news.

What happens is that everything you say after the wake word is sent to the Amazon server to process the audio and respond to the commands. This isn't a secret and it's pretty obvious this is how the devices work (that's why they need online connectivity to respond). You can also access every recording on your account yourself so nothing is being hidden.

Sometimes the devices are unable to understand the command and sometimes they ask if the information they gave answered your question. So it also pretty obvious that the recordings get reviewed to improve the service.

RumRat

There are around 200 million devices in homes all over the world....Only a complete idiot would think that individuals are spied on and that your every word is recorded and logged against a personal file, STASI style.
The Genie is out of the lamp now and nothing is going to put it back. Might as well enjoy the benefits (not expecting everyone to see any) and have a little fun along the way.
Life's far too short to worry about if's and maybe's.......

Doshwaster

capital0ne wrote: »

Why do you want all your conversations listened to and recorder by Google or Amazon?

So how are Google/Amazon supposed to improve their speech recognition without sampling many actual interactions with their devices?

If you consider where speech recognition is now compared to 5 years ago there has been an incredible improvement but that can only be done with a huge training set of data from people of all different languages, accents and ways of speaking.