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Amazon Echo vs Apple HomePod vs Google Home: the battle of the smart speakers

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Amazon Echo is the original, but Apple’s upcoming HomePod will have a few tricks of its own.
It’s gotten pretty crowded in the smart speaker market as of late.
After Amazon created the product category with the Amazon Echo, Google was quick to follow up with its own version, the Google Home. Earlier this year Apple also entered the race with the Apple HomePod.
But that’s not the end of the story. Although each player has its flagship smart speaker, there are now numerous variations of each. Amazon has, amongst others, the mini Echo Dot speaker and the screen equipped Show, while Google has the Mini and Max versions of the Home.
So which of these three speakers deserve a spot on your mantle? We’ll break it down feature-by-feature in a second, but first let’s review what smart speakers are and why the three biggest tech companies in the world are making them.
Smart speakers are first and foremost a home for the voice assistants they house. Sure you can control them with a phone to get them to play music like a Bluetooth speaker, but fundamentally they’re made to be interacted with through your voice.
Building Siri, Alexa and the Google Assistant into your household speaker makes a lot of sense. Although it’s often embarrassing to start talking to your phone in public, the same social pressures don’t exist in the home where you can be as weird as you like with your new robot pal.
Google established itself with voice automation on phones, but it was Amazon who was the first to build a voice assistant into a static home speaker. Google followed up with Google Home, a smart speaker that made use of the company’s own Google Assistant voice technology. And now, two years after the Echo’s launch, Apple has entered the fray with the Apple HomePod, an internet connected speaker that establishes Apple’s Siri voice assistant in your home.
Amazon has an early lead, but don’t underestimate Google or Apple, which have been steadily developing their voice assistants on mobile for years now.
So which one should you buy? Here’s what we think about them so far.
Aesthetically speaking, the Google Home and Apple HomePod are very, very similar. They’re both air freshener-shaped smart speakers that are bulbous and relatively unobtrusive.
As of its 2017 refresh, the Amazon Echo is now much more versatile. It’s available in fabric, wood, plastic and metallic finishes. The Google Home, meanwhile, is always a fabric and plastic construction, although it offers a multitude of colored bases to allow you to customise the look of your speaker.
The Echo comes with a remote in the US, which is interesting when you consider that all of that basic functionality can be accessed by uttering a few words. Still, should you ever find yourself out of Alexa’s earshot, having a remote with a built-in microphone will prove handy.
The Apple HomePod, from what we know, will be the middle-child in terms of design. It’s going to stand at 7 inches high – making it taller than the Home and shorter than the Echo – but have a bit larger circumference than either.
As well as the flagships, both Google and Amazon now offer different versions of their smart speaker.
Amazon’s lineup is the most varied, ranging from the budget Echo Dot, to the premium Echo Plus. There’s also the screen-equipped Echo Show and Echo Spot. Check out a full comparison between them in our Amazon Echo lineup explainer.
Google’s Home lineup has also expanded significantly with the addition of the budget Google Home Mini and premium Google Home Max. The rumors of Google putting out a screen-equipped device have yet to come to pass.
So which one, you know, actually sounds better? Well, from the hardware specs alone, it sounds like Apple’s HomePod will be the real winner. It has a 7-beam forming tweeter array and a hefty subwoofer on its underside. That’s compared to the built-in 2.0 inch tweeter and built-in 2.5 inch woofer on the original Amazon Echo, and the 2 inch driver and dual 2 inch passive radiators on the Google Home.
However, with the addition of the Amazon Echo Plus and Google Home Max the dial could shift significantly.
In terms of hardware, Apple might win out over the other two but we’ll just have to wait until we hear it for ourselves later this year. For now, we’d have to give the hardware crown to the Home for its versatility and sleekness.
If you want a smart assistant in your home for as cheaply as possible, then the Echo Dot or Google Home Mini are the speakers to go for. Both cost just $50 / £50.
Stepping up to the standard models of each speaker, the Google Home costs $130 / £130, while the new Amazon Echo costs $99 / £89. The HomePod is the most expensive of the three at $350.
Finally, the Amazon Echo Plus costs $149 / £139 while the Google Home Max will cost $399.
So who has the best price? As you can see, Apple’s out of the running here, but whether Google or Amazon is on top is a bit of a push. If you’re looking for the dead cheapest smart speaker then they’re both pretty equal. But if you want a cheap smart speaker that actually plays music at full volume, Amazon looks like it might have the edge.
While they seem about the same on paper at this snapshot in time, Google and Apple have the potential to blow Amazon out of the water thanks to the massive library of existing services they have at their disposal.
Apple has a half-dozen popular devices that we all have in our homes already –including iPods, iPads, MacBooks and iPhones – which means it should have no problem integrating into our lives. Google has tons of software that it could tap into like Gmail, Voice and Docs, but it for some reason hasn’t done so yet.
Let’s break it down, feature-by-feature.
Amazon might have Prime Music, but Google not only has its own rival service, Google Play Music, but even offers integration with the Google Cast ecosystem. Both devices support the third-party service Spotify.
Apple, the relative newcomer, has so far only announced integration with Apple Music.
While there’s definitely parity between which software the smart speakers can access, video content differs much more.
Only Amazon has devices equipped with screens, meaning that you can ask Alexa to play videos from various services. As of late September 2017 these services unfortunately no longer include YouTube.
Both Google and Amazon’s devices allow you to play content on an external TV. Google achieves this through integration with its Chromecast lineup, while Amazon has added this functionality through its Fire TV.
If you have a Chromecast Audio then 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 Echo Dot can only be connected to a single speaker at a time through either Bluetooth or a wired 3.5mm connection.
In theory this should give the Google Home the edge, but in practice its Google Cast functionality could be better. Once you’ve got it casting to a speaker it won’t remember that this is the case and it will default to playing music out of its own speaker unless you specifically tell it to continue to cast the next song.
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, however again in practice this could be better since you’re unable to specify particular episodes and it will default to picking up where you left off. Not bad when you’re marathoning a series, but less than ideal if you’re just dipping in.
Google Home integrates with a number of Google’s other services, from planning routes using Google Maps to translating using Google Translate. It will also draw from your Google Calendar, which is a handy feature.
However again, while there’s potential here, Google Home doesn’t make nearly enough use of this functionality. You can get basic directions by car on Google maps, but it can’t handle public transport and definitely doesn’t do email.
Meanwhile, Amazon has an ever-growing list of compatible apps including Domino’s Pizza, Just Eat in the UK and Uber, allowing you to either have your pizza delivered or request a ride over to the store to pick it up yourself. Support is good, but these apps feel like they add fun side-functionality rather than core productivity services.
Although Google Home has more potential in this area, at the moment the three smart speakers are more or less equal.
Of course, music and services are just two parts of the smart speaker equation. If you’re buying a Home, Echo or HomePod, you’re also looking for a smart assistant to help control the burgeoning field of smart appliances that are making their way into homes now.

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