Alexa or Google in 2023

NO!

Never, ever, ever. :rage:

Or maybe I'll give her my old iPhone 6P (old work phone) and tell her it's their newest model. :wink:

Actually she's an Android loyalist, so I'm (I hope!!) safe there...

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Do they run Android?

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It's twisted, but ...

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Well this has gone a bit off topic, but thanks for all the input.
The original question was about Alexa vs Google home.
I like the look of the Google home as it seems better at general queries than Alexa and is certainly better than a HomePod, but to get back to my question.
Can Google do everything (and more) that Alexa can do in HE?

(HomePod is not an option for me)

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I am not doubting you, but she can’t even tell time or connect to my phone’s Bluetooth without an internet connection. HomePod minis have actual processing power.

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I'm with you. I have held a grudge against Apple going back to the days of Apple IIe some 40 years ago. I never liked their "we know what is best for you" philosophy. Thus, you have to use their hardware, there operating system, and the software they sell or approve.

Microsoft and Google are getting almost as bad with their Microsoft Store and Play Store. Fortunately, you can install 3rd party software. I am always tinkering with my network, computers, and tablets to get them operating just the way I want. Thus, Hubitat is a good fit for my way of doing things.

When Intel first developed their new AX210 chip which supports WiFi 6e and the new 6 gHz band, the driver was designed to work with both Windows 10 and Windows 11. However, Microsoft decided hat by restricting the new band to Windows 11 users, they could force some Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11. However, the hardware requirements for Windows 11 were made artificially high to force people to purchase be computers. They are becoming like Apple in that regard.

When I purchased my first voice assistants, I purchase both an Amazon Echo device and a Google device. Both were in their infancy back then. I liked the Echo device better and have now upgraded to Echo Show devices, including a couple of Echo Show 15s. I do have a Chromecast media player, but typically use either Roku or an Echo Fire Cube for streaming. Since I am so heavily invested in Echo devices, I hope the server support does not go away.

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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.