The Apple HomePod was unveiled at the company’s WWDC held 2 days back, which would now add the HomePod to the likes of Smart Virtual Assistant Speakers already available in the market (Amazon Echo and Google Home).
Just like Amazon Echo and Google Home, the Apple HomePod is an always-listening smart speaker that will stream music, answer your questions and will control your smart home. The Apple HomePod has been positioned as a smart speaker first, but interestingly the HomePod bears a lot in common with both the Amazon Echo and the Google Home.
So can the newest player (Apple HomePod) in the market challenge the incumbents like Google Home and Amazon Echo? We do a comparison of features to find out!
Contents
Google Assistant (Google Home) or Alexa (Amazon Echo) or Siri (Apple HomePod)?
The personal voice assistants in all these three speakers differentiate them from the hundreds other Bluetooth and Wi-Fi speakers available in the market. On a practical note, all of them work almost the same way. They simply use voice recognition to understand the query and respond to them by fetching information or data from the internet or connected local devices. You need to connect the speakers to the internet, and they will send your queries to Google, Amazon or Apple servers respectively, and they will send an appropriate response back to the speaker. Though each one works smart and apt, Google Home is an inch ahead because of Google’s own enhanced search results.
How Smart is the Music Streaming?
Streaming – Both Google Home and Echo supports direct Bluetooth Streaming and on-device Wi-Fi streaming (Plus, Chromecast streaming for Google Home). HomePod streams Apple Music and AirPlay 2 (only from supported devices like iPhone and iPad).
Integrated Music Services – Google Home supports third party apps like Pandora, Spotify, Youtube Music, Google Play Music and Amazon Echo supports Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify. Though HomePod only supports Apple Music and nothing else.
Which is the best in-home Smart Assistant Among the three?
All the smart speakers act as the Home Hub, and HomePod will let you control your all your HomeKit enabled lights and other accessories. Sadly, Apple HomePod will control the HomeKit-enabled lights and accessories and not others. So if you go for an Apple HomePod, you will need to first have HomeKit enabled accessories. The Apple HomePod only works with the Apple HomeKit.
On the other hand Amazon Echo and Google Home supports almost all smart home integrations. Both Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home’s Google Assistant will be able to power a swath of compatible home automation products and are directly linked to big home automation companies like Nest, Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings and WeMo.
Productivity
Both Amazon Echo and Google Home has ambient LED notification lights atop, which will give you a lighting up for some quick flicker. From notifications for delayed flights to pre-set reminders to upcoming appointments to traffic updates and what not, both Echo and Home stand out to offer you something you will need on a daily basis. On the other hand, Apple didn’t mention of any such productivity feature for their HomePod at the WWDC.
Verdict
HomePod is the largest of the three, measuring 6.8 by 5.6 inches, the smart speaker will have an array of seven tweeters with a primary woofer. It’s likely to be the more powerful than both Amazon Echo and Google Home, but in terms of features, productivity and support, both Echo and Home will give a hard time to HomePod.
Pricing Comparison
Apple HomePod quite expensive than the other two – and that too by a fair margin. You buy 3 Google Home’s or 2 Amazon Echo’s for the price of one Apple HomePod!
Here is the pricing
- Google Home – $129
- Amazon Echo – $179.99
- Apple HomePod – $349
Conclusion
Given it’s price and features ( or lack of it), it seems very difficult for HomePod to challenge Google Home or Amazon Echo. But go tell that to Apple Fanboys, who, I am pretty sure, will buy these in big numbers!
Apple HomePod will release in the month of December this year, and Apple might add some more features keeping the competition in mind.
Amazon products are quite expensive.
I am using Google Assistant from the launch date and I can say it is better than Apple’s Siri.
Let’s see, how this loud device is going to compete with Echo and Google Home.
Time will tell but at $350 and with weak AI just do NOT see this be successful. Apple last speaker was also $350 and lasted on the market for 18 months before pulled because of weak sales.
We have had an Echo since it launched and now several Google Homes (GH). The GH AI often times just blows me away. The Echo is excellent at turning the sounds of your voice into words but that is where it ends with the intelligence. Google takes it one more step and actually uses AI to try to understand the words.
This is why the Echo has commands you memorize and the GH you just talk to it like a human. So if do not know the song name with music the Echo has a command of “Song goes like” that you memorize. Working on DIY project in daughters room and telling me about Ed Sheeran performance at the Grammys the night before and she says “hey google play sheeran grammys” and it plays. Our Echo was always my toy and the GHs get used by everyone I suspect because of the lower friction that there is nothing to memorize to use. You plug it in and just talk to it like a person.
BTW, everything is like this with the Echo versus the GH. So when I talk to the GH it knows me and gives me my stuff. It knows by the sound of my voice. I get YT Red for my music for example. Wife talks to the GH and gets her Spotify account. The Echo instead has a command you memorize and tell the device to switch accounts. For security the Echo uses a passcode versus no need on the GH.
It is hard to imagine this space not going to Google ultimately. They started working on the basis, really, in 1995 and the Assistant is just an extension. It is what Google is as a company.