Google Home vs. Amazon Echo: Which Smart Speaker Is Better?

Overview

Google Home and Amazon Echo are the frontrunners of smart speaker technology with voice assistants. Both speakers are fairly similar—they both allow you to play music, control the lights, or ask questions about the news and weather—and both can connect to a number of smart home devices. There are also multiple variations of each device in case you need something bigger, smaller, or for kids. Figuring out which one is right for you depends on what you’re looking for.

Here, we’re looking at each of the Google Home and Amazon Echo devices to help you narrow down the choice.

The Google Home smart speaker is easy to use and easy to speak to. Using voice commands with the Google Assistant is more conversational, so you’ll almost forget you’re chatting with artificial intelligence.

It also integrates with a lot of smart home devices (though not quite as many as the Echo), allows you to add up to six different accounts, and has the ability to recognize voices. So if you ask the Google Assistant to add dinner and drinks to your calendar, it will recognize your voice and add it to your calendar—and only yours.

>>Read our full review of the Google Home.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to integrate all your smart devices—from your lights to your locks—the Amazon Echo should be your pick.

It has a ton of integrations and works with everything from smart thermostats like the Ecobee4 to smart locks like the August Smart Lock. You’ll have to speak super clearly though: In our tests it recognized only about 8 out of 10 of our commands.

>>Read our full review of the Amazon Echo.

The Google Home Mini has all the same features as Google Home, but it’s less expensive and has a lower-quality speaker. It’s a great choice if you’re leaning toward Google more interested in a digital personal assistant than speaker quality.

You’ll get a better speaker out of the Amazon Echo Dot than with the Google Home Mini, plus the ability to plug it into a larger, more powerful speaker with the audio jack. Amazon also offers the Echo Dot Kids Edition that can play music, read stories, answer questions, and give your little ones access to educational content for $69.99. It also automatically filters explicit songs and acts as a two-way speaker—so you can tell the kids it’s time for dinner without shouting up the stairs.

Google Home Max has clear sound quality with dual speakers, giving you access to your favorite music from YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, and more. It also has additional ports, so you can connect your Apple or Android smartphone or another device.

The Amazon Echo Plus is a smart speaker meant to fill your room with high-quality sound. It also comes with a built-in Zigbee hub. With that hub, the Echo Plus’s compatibility is expanded to include brands like Philips Hue.

The Google Nest Hub Max is a great choice if you’re looking for a bit of visual aid when it comes to smart home integration. It has a 7-inch LCD touchscreen display where you can see and control all your compatible home automation devices and stream video on YouTube.

It also doubles as a digital photo frame. So when you’re not using it, you can set it to feature your favorite photos.

The Echo Show has a 10.1-inch HD screen, so you can make clear video calls to anyone with Skype, the Alexa app, or another Echo device with video, like the Echo Spot. You can also stream movies and television series from Prime Video and Hulu.

The Google Home app is modern, intuitive, and user-friendly. Setting up your Google Home hub is pretty straightforward, especially because the app gives you step-by-step instructions. Here’s a short video that can take you through the process.

The Amazon Alexa app has a lot of different selection screens, and navigating them isn’t as straightforward as it is with Google Home. Still, setting up the basics is quick and uncomplicated.

Both Google Home and Amazon Echo offer excellent products. These smart hubs are versatile and easy to set up, making them a good fit for most homes—whether you’re super smart-home savvy or not.

If you’re looking for smart home automation, go with Amazon Echo.

The Amazon Echo devices have more comprehensive compatibility with smart devices and let you customize your smart home experience.

>>View Amazon Echo devices.

If you care more about having a personal digital assistant, we recommend Google Home. Google Home products are intuitive and user-friendly with cool features like voice recognition and multiuser support.

>>View Google Home devices.

Select imagery for Google from @madebygoogle Instagram