Google Home: Advantages Over Apple HomePod, Amazon Echo

Google Home might not be the most popular smart home speaker available today, but it does have some features that make it more appealing to use compared to the competition, particularly Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s HomePod.

The attractive thing about the Google Home isn’t its $99 price tag (although it really is cheaper compared to the HomePod). It’s the abilities the Google Assistant has. This digital assistant reportedly does three things that Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri can’t do at the moment.

Here are three advantages the Assistant-powered Google Home has over the Siri-powered HomePod and Alexa-powered Echo, as per CNet.

The ability to receive three commands in a row

Currently, Siri and Alexa are only capable of taking one command at a time. Users will have to wait for these digital assistants to finish doing one command before issuing another.

Google’s Assistant, on the other hand, is able to take three commands at the same time, and be able to do them all given the time. Users can simply say “OK, Google” followed by three commands (“turn off the lights, set the volume to three and play my favorite playlist”), and wait for Assistant to do them.

Play music via Wi-Fi

Most smart home speakers use Bluetooth to connect to devices. Google Home uses Bluetooth as well, but also allows users to connect to it using Wi-Fi. This means users can use the Google Home smart speaker to play music even when their device is well beyond Bluetooth range.

More voice options

Google Home offers 10 different voice options that users can choose from. These include male and female voices speaking in American and non-American accents. Assistant’s voice can be changed by opening the Google Home app, tapping on the personal icon in the lower-right corner, then tapping on “More Settings” under the Google Assistant heading.

After this, users will need to tap on “Assistant” from the menu bar at the top, followed by “Assistant Voice.” Users will then be presented with a list of voices to choose from.

These are some of the things that the Google Assistant does that Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri can’t do just yet.