Amazon Echo vs Google Home: Knowledge
Before we jump into anything else, let’s tackle how clever Google Home and Amazon Echo really are. They are called smart speakers, after all.
First up, maths. Ours isn’t great at the best of times, so an instant helping hand is very welcome.
Both Alexa and Google’s Assistant can handle pretty much any sum you care to throw at them, from basic multiplication to square roots and percentages.
General, simple queries seem to be in the bag for both assistants too. Asking the weight of Dwayne Johnson, for example, returned successful results, though Alexa went above and beyond by automatically offering the big man’s weight in both imperial and metric.
Make things a little more complicated though, and Google’s Assistant easily comes out on top.
When asked who won the first World Wrestling Federation championship, Google Assistant not only gave us a name, but explained how the original belt and Intercontinental belt were merged in the early 2000s to form the heavyweight championship belt. That match, by the way, was between HHH and Kane. Talk about detail, eh?
As for Alexa? No idea. Totally stumped. We might as well have asked a piece of charred toast.
What about funner things though? The sort of questions curious young minds might ask?
Asking both AI assistants if snakes can climb up walls – a question that plagued us as young children – for example, results in a very satisfactory answer from Google’s Assistant (yes, some snakes can climb walls, if there is sufficient grip on offer), but Alexa had no idea what we were talking about once again, offering no help whatsoever.
Alexa occasionally matches its Google rival, and gave us a solid answer when asked if there was water on Mars, but it fails pretty miserably compared to the Google Assistant almost every single time – including the query “do insects have brains?”
While it can go to to toe with Google’s Assistant for simple word definitions too, it’s clear that Google’s gigantic, all-powerful search background definitely gives it the edge if you’re after a hands-free search engine.
Winner: Google Home – if knowledge is power, Google Home is the Hulk of the smart speaker universe