Adroit Market Research - Industry Insights

Smart voice assistants are expected to “recognize” speech, “comprehend” words and make corresponding “responses”. Large array of market players have plunged in this technology to enhance customer experience and build long-lasting relationships and brands. But the leading ones are: Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home. There is a specific factors that sets these two smart speakers apart. This is a comparative case study between two prominent smart voice assistants that is Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home which are in a long-term fight for supremacy. This study highlights and studies both the speakers on different parameters like frequency of use, Different Models Available and other factors.

What is Smart Voice Assistant?

The rapid development of speech recognition technology has successfully replaced mouse, keyboards and touch panels with speech in human-machine interaction. The smart voice assistants should not have confined boundaries, rather they are expected to “recognize” speech, “comprehend” words and make corresponding “responses”. This luxury add value and convenience which drive the consumer’s actions and their decision-making. Large array of market players have plunged in technology to enhance customer experience and build long-lasting relationships. But the leading ones are: Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home. There must be some specific factors that set them at top. This is a comparative case study of two prominent smart voice assistant companies, Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home which are in a long-term fight for supremacy. We will compare both the speakers on different Parameters:

Frequency of Use:

If a user is precise of every smart-home control and they are a frequent user of Amazon prime, then Amazon’s Alexa platform is the best option in a smart home. Among all the Alexa-enabled speakers available in the market, the category-defining Amazon Echo is most preferred. The Echo has crossed the Google Home in the race of smart speakers and Echo is present in its second generation. The distinctive features it inculcate are: wide smart-home device support, depth of capabilities, slightly superior sound quality and ability to play the most popular music streaming services.

Addition to its built-in features, Alexa consists a big list of “skills”, similar to smartphone apps that has various capabilities such as ordering pizza, calling an uber or reading recipes. All skills are not that useful but comparatively Echo has higher skills than Google Home. Echo is constant on the graph of improvement by continuously adding abilities.

On the other-hand, Google Home has voice-control expertise and benefits of Google’s search. In addition to that, Google let a user tie in multiple accounts, so that they could check calendar, report traffic conditions using maps data and manage and set reminders in Keep. When the google home’s user are different, device can recognize it by sound of their voice. But, Google isn’t that capable in performing daily tasks as Alexa is. But, it has third-party “Actions” and some smart-home integrations compared to Alexa skills. It serve as a controller for a Chromecast Audio multiroom audio system. That infers users can use voice commands to stream or podcast the same song to other speakers in different rooms at the same time.

Variables and Different Models Available

Amazon caters its customers with several other Alexa-enabled smart speakers along with its standard-model Echo. The Echo Plus with a built-in Zigbee smart-home hub; the portable Echo Tap; the smaller Echo Dot, good choice when user wants to connect it to own speaker system; and the video-enabled Echo Show, along with fashioned-focused Echo Look and the smaller Echo Spot.

Options are available in Google Home too, video-enabled Google Home Hub, a budget-oriented Google Home Mini or higher-end Google Home Max with an integrated speaker system.

Music

buying a smart speaker, if the user’s priority is listening music, concern arises whether the speaker aligns with streaming services. In that case, both Google and Echo works appropriately with Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify and TuneIn. But Google Home is best when the user has subscribed to Google Play or YouTube Red. If a user has got subscription to Amazon Prime Music or Audible or subscribed nowhere, then Echo is the best option.

Best at Answering Questions

Benefit of Google’s Home over Echo and Alexa is Google. The Home system have more answers for questions, provide more contextual information with longer answer. In a research conducted where testers asked 5,000 questions to each device and Home attempted to answer 60 percent questions while Echo attempted only 20 percent. Answers given by both the devices were 80 percent correct.

For instance, Home answered when questioned about smartest dog but Echo remain silent. While asked about best Bluetooth speaker, Home had no answer and Echo recommended a Bose model. Both the speakers are equal in calculations such as counting population of China. Google may answer better when asked about the recipe of roasting a chicken but at the same time Alexa has 300 skills about cooking.

Video

In 2017, Amazon launched its first ever camera-enabled Alexa device, the Echo Look, which was followed by Echo Show and Echo Spot. Both of them have built-in screens where videos could be watched in addition to the standard smart speaker capabilities. Google also released a video-enabled smart speaker called Google Home Hub in 2018. The Home Hub doesn’t have a camera like Echo models. However, Home have a special dashboard view that allow a user control all smart home devices from a single screen and step-by-step recipe library.

Privacy and Concerns

Both the Home and the Echo feature always-on microphones but have a mute button when a user want privacy. As voice-controlled speakers, they have to be alert for a human commands which infers these devices listen sound within their hearing range. When the speaker catches its wake word, it starts taking action by sending a recording of the command. When command is received by cloud servers, they translate the command into action. Hence, instructor is able to listen music or get an answer in an instant. However, here raises privacy issues as the speakers are continuously listening and recording it.

But, at last both devices have their own pros and cons like Google Home is minimalist and compact and sounds better than Amazon Echo but its capabilities are confined when it comes to localization. Whereas Amazon being the pioneer in this market, made good use of it and do better job with local querie