Alexa or Google in 2023

You will soon have your answer. I think that there is a community integration that may be more feature rich, but I only have personal experience with Alexa and Apple Home. I started switching to HomePods because the integration with iPhones, Apple TVs, Apple Watch, and HomePods is really amazing (and I still build my own PCs and use Windows). I would imagine that you may find Google Home devices the best option for you for the same reasons.

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Damnit, wasn't paying attention, corrected.

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Autopilot typing.... arrrrrgh, fixed.

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Want to show her a video of ours? Our blinds in the bedroom open at sunrise+30 and close at sunset. Also have a good video of our kitchen roman shade using an AM43

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We already have automated blinds in her office and the family room/kitchen. I have them set similarly, open/close AM & PM, and they also adjust mid-day to block excessive sun/glare when it can be an issue.

She overall likes the automations (or maybe I should say is just a little better than "putting up with it") but has refused to date to allow the same in the bedroom. Just not an automation fan...[sob]

I'll wear her down eventually. :wink: The ThirdReality cellular blinds might be the ticket, as they are the cheapest I've seen yet (cheap is VERY important to my wife, at least where HA is concerned) and one user here has said he has both Ikea and ThirdReality cellular, and likes TR better...

No, there are things impossible to do with Google Home (and vice versa). :roll_eyes:

After Google has stopped the support of "smart" IFTTT and the "Dialog API" (edit: बातचीत की सुविधा के बंद होने के बारे में खास जानकारी  |  CA sunset  |  Google for Developers) in August 2022 I was forced to install some Alexa Devices to re-implement variable speech recognation.

So I'm running both systems: Google for TTS in every room, and Alexa for voice controlling my devices/statistics.

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I use Google for voice control of my devices. Works great.

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Not seeing a clear winner here. For those that used both, some preferred and navigated more towards Google Home, and some preferred and navigated more towards Alexa. We prefer Google Home in my house. My mom tried both in her house and swears by Alexa - her sisters tried both and keep telling her Google is much better. Seems to just come down to personal preference.

I will say this, Google home did seem to take a step back after the lost lawsuit, and oddly, I find the (much better sounding/more expensive) Nest Audio's are not quite as good at understanding spoken commands as my Google Home Minis are. That's a bit surprising and disappointing. I can pretty much trigger anything I do in Hubitat with a Google Home voice command, but I'm sure the same can be done with Alexa. I also think "Alexa" is a nicer trigger than saying "Hey Google".

I guess buy one of the cheap editions of each and try them for a month.

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...until you want parameterized voice control, e.g.:
"Set temp in [room] to [n] degrees."

Something which is (still?) possible with Alexa.

I probably didn't fully understand what you meant. Although my Google sets my thermostat just fine, but it may not be what you mean.

I mainly use the Google as a TTS. Something that was a royal pain to do with Alexa. One of my biggest complaints with the Echo devices. If there was a power blip, not an outage, which we seem to get a lot of, most of the time it locked them up. I would have to go around and unplug each one to get them to re-connect.

Having said all that, my house is small and the number of devices is small and the things I do are probably a lot less than a lot of others here. So I probably don't see some of the idiosyncrasies that others do.

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Me too - and this works like a charm! :+1:

I generally want to control a Hubitat device x, e.g. setting parameter y to value z.

With Google Home routines (more or less) I can only control HE Virtual Switches; That would mean to create a Virtual Switch for every combination of x, y, and z.
=> Thousands of possibilities! :open_mouth:

I've been Alexa for years, but with rumors of her potential death, and getting annoyed by her frequent sales pitches, I've bought two HomePod minis to test with. My take so far is that HomePod is noticeably faster to control HE, the sound quality is inferior to most of my Echos, and the lack of an "Echo Speaks" app that works with HomePod is a non-starter. Supposedly HE is working on a TTS app that works with HomeKit. So, I'm waiting to see if that happens. And there are semi-solid rumors that Apple will bring out a non-mini HomePod this year with better sound quality. IMHO, a mixed bag. I don't trust Google with yet more info about me... So Alexa for now, Siri hopefully someday.

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I guess I don't run across that per se. I don't have any Google routines. I do it all in HE, just use a virtual switch in Google to execute the HE routine.

Since HE now has the Homekit integration I have started switching over to the HomePod Minis. Just the TTS to Google. Since we really don't play music I don't notice the sound quality. I did set up 2 mini's on my Apple TV and the sound there is much better than my sound bar.

Okay, so what are they actually getting rid of? The smart home integration isn't going away, nor are routines with custom responses. I have both of those. But, when I clicked on the link to determine if I have any "conversational actions" (https://console.actions.google.com/) it says I have no projects. Is this something that is/was more custom than routines?
I did see this notice, but unless the HE team has dropped the ball, or I just missed a notification, I do not think we are affected:

Not comparing the full size echo, only echo dots. I find that the Homepod mini sound is far better than the echo dot. Much richer. Though none as good as the full size echo. Apple is coming out with another full size homepod this year so I may give that a whirl for our main area.

I know TTS is going to eventually get here for the Homepod according to Bryan, but in the mean time I found a sudo way... Look here... Found a way to sortof TTS to homepod

One thing is clear in our households: The wake phrase "Alexa" false triggers A LOT MORE OFTEN than "Okay, Google" ever did. Just things you'd say in casual conversation, like "I like the weather today" causes Alexa to start telling you outdoor conditions.

That's why we keep the "Wake tone" setting activated on all our Echo devices, so we know when she has started listening for a command (so we can stop talking, lest we inadvertently order more paper towels or something).

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I looked at that, but don't think I want to go to that much trouble. I'll wait till we get it and just use the Google in the meantime.

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The only reason I have a Google Home Mini is because I got it at a great price (free). I only use it for TTS and have the microphone turned off. If I could have totally local processing of the speech, I would consider using the voice command functions, but as long as it has to go out to "the cloud" for processing, there is no way I will use voice commands. I don't need Google or Amazon, or anyone else listening in to conversations in the house.

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