Amazon Echo Dot or Google Home Mini with Hubitat?

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With Amazon Prime Day active at the mo, there are offers on for both Echo Dots and Google Home Minis.

Which is recommended for integrating best with Hubitat?

I dont have experience with either. Echo Dots seem to have a better mic array, and Home Minis better speakers. And the Home Minis looks will be better accepted by the missus. We use Amazon Prime, and use Android and Google Calendar. Not sure if any of those makes a difference.

We intend to use these purely for voice control and announcements, not music. We already have Logitech/SlimDevices Squeezeboxes for music (at some point will also look to use these Squeezboxes for announcements, if that is possible.)

I'll be picking up my Hubitat from the post office tomorrow, once I paid the import duties, so keen to hear whether Echo Dots or Home Minis are the way to go.

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Both and neither :wink:

Google Assistant (the front end for Google Home devices) is not supported by Hubitat yet. So you can make it work by using IFTTT and Routines, but there is a delay from 1-3 seconds for devices to react, but for some reason a goodnight routine is lightning fast.

There is Google Assistant Relay and that is what I'm using for announcements and a door chime. Really like that part. You can also send silent commands from Hubitat to Google Assistant to control any device that is supported by Google Assistant. That actually does not require you own a Google Home device. You can also send silent commands, but get a verbal response from the Google Home devices.

I cannot do any announcements or silently control devices with an Alexa.

Alexa on the other hand is supported by Hubitat, but only if you're in the US for now. They are waiting for the Hubitat Skill (which is like an app for Alexa) to be approved for countries outside the US.

Everything I control with Alexa (the front end for Amazon Echo devices), is very fast. Off or ON before Alexa can finish saying "OK".

So if you want a device that has a built in integration for Hubitat and you only want to say a single wake word, then get an Echo device.

If you want announcements as well as home control (and your home automation is not too complex for creating IFTTT applets to control everything), then get a Google Home device.

If you want my personal opinion based on my experience, then get the Amazon Echo Plus. Not because it's also a Zigbee hub, that part is useless when you have Hubitat. Get it because it's a reasonable price right now, and it's closest to the original Echo which is very nice because of the volume knob on top, instead of the volume buttons on the Echo 2. But I would also get an Google Home Mini, because it's also inexpensive right now, and the announcement and cast capability is really nice. Also, when Alexa doesn't know something, you just say Hey Google...:wink:

I'm also finding that on occasion, something won't turn off like I expect because of cloud nonsense, and so when I ask the other assistant to do it, it works. Nice to have a backup cloud handy.

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:slight_smile:

The only problem is that it is written in bash scripting (can be found on github) and requires the setup and running of a node server (custom code). I also wrote the controller app and device driver.

The implementation can actually break any day if they change something and the code is messy but I just wanted to see if I could get my echo devices working for announcements.

It’s kinda cool having them announce when somebody arrives home or when somebody rings my Ring doorbell. At least the wife likes it.

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Interesting. Well, yes you need to run a Node server for Google Assistant Relay as well, but that's really not difficult at all. No reason you couldn't run it on a RPi Zero W in fact. There's no bash scripting required for Assistant Relay and the functionality is a supported feature of Google Assistant.

That's not to say that it couldn't suddenly go away some day. It is Google after all. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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If you want to shop by voice, then Echo is the obvious choice. You can use "Alexa, where's my stuff" to get a delivery update. Android is no problem of course (Fire tablets are Android) and Google Calendar is supported for both Personal and GSuite accounts. Google Home on the other hand, only supports personal Google accounts at this time.

Again, if this is your first Echo, get the Echo Plus for the very nice volume knob on top or at least an Echo 2 for the better sound vs. a Dot. I know you say you're not using it for music, buy you may find that it's just easier and so you will use if for music more than expected, and then you'll be glad you have the larger speaker and volume knob.

But buy a Google Mini too! :grin:
They're great for announcements by way of Google Assistant Relay and custom tones via the cast function. Also if you have a Google Cast compatible TV or a Google Cast attached to your TV, you can do the cool stuff they show you in the promo video.

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Thanks for all the info. I've gone for 2 Echo Dot's to try them out. Hopefully the Hubitat skill will be approved in the EU soon.

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Amazon seems to be taking their time on approving these skills. Hubitat was submitted weeks ago. Even the skill for wyzecam was submitted and taking a while.

They must have been focusing on prime day.

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Did you share this somewhere. Would love to use it

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Are there plans for direct Hubitat to Google Assistant/Home integration or are the plans to have users utilize IFTTT?

I want to know before I start placing logic in IFTTT then have to switch it all to Hubitat.

I view Google Assistant Relay as something above and beyond standard integration.

Right now with my ST hub I can voice control many things and that was no effort to achieve.

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Hubitat is working on Google Home native integration...

https://community.hubitat.com/t/custom-hotwords-coming-to-google-assistant/157/6?u=ogiewon

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By your last sentence, it seems your question is the opposite. But the reverse is possible with Google Assistant Relay, which I’m surprised @ogiewon didn’t mention, because he did the excellent work of porting and modifying the driver to allow Hubitat to silently or with feedback, control any device supported by Google Assistant! It’s an incredibly powerful tool.

As Dan said, native integration is coming, but for now IFTTT and Google Assistant routines do the trick. Not as fast as native, but pretty fast. Sometimes shocking how fast it is, despite the three cloud connections.