With different brands of home activated speakers flooding the market, it is essential to find one that will satisfy your needs and meet the fundamental criteria of music-lovers. These are durability, performance, and cost. So far, the top three are Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Sonos.
Amazon
Let’s start with Amazon Echo which was such a big hit last year. No doubt, Echo is a smart speaker. The voice control feature is perfect when it comes to music, audiobooks or CDs, streaming podcasts, voice interaction, and a variety of home products. Echo connects to the Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA) software, Alexa and responds to that name. Alexa is an ideal option for home entertainment systems.
Amazon Echo is far more superior to other brands because of its wide range of capabilities, extensive support for home devices, the capacity to play widely held music-streaming services, and excellent quality of sound. Moreover, Alexa has a list of over 10, 000 (the latest) “Skills” similar to smartphone applications like calling Uber, reviewing recipes, or ordering your favorite pizza.
The smart personal assistant continues to improve while Amazon.com keeps on adding more capabilities to the platform. For only $49, you can buy the most inexpensive and probably best-selling Amazon Echo speaker that connects your smart speaker to a larger wired amplifier.
Amazon refurbished its Echo collection only two months ago. Echo will always be alluded to as the smartest device in the domain of sophisticated voice speakers. The new Echo is smaller but broader than the previous model which signifies this product is steadier and more durable. This second-generation Echo is a stimulating update to Amazon’s vast range at a significantly low price.
Indeed, it is another tremendous milestone for Amazon to come up with a voice speaker that looks better and costs 40% less than the first version.
Sonos
Yes, Amazon Echo was phenomenal, but there’s another market leader with a foothold in the technology industry. Sonos released its Alexa-powered Sonos One home speaker of late. To be very candid, the speaker sounds right, and it’s not that convoluted.
The speaker’s size is roughly the same and packs a resonant audio quality just like the Sonos Play 1 model (bookshelf speaker). At $199, Sonos One looks determined to outshine its main competitors, Amazon and Google. Using a sophisticated app, the speaker is capable of connecting to over 80 streaming gadgets such as Sirius XM, Apple Music, and Spotify. Sonos boast of an interspersed microphone. It matches the Alexa IPA allowing users’ access to the numerous Skills the platform created over the years except that the Echo can do some things Sonos can’t perform.
You can order pizza or ask Alexa to turn off the kitchen lights but apparently, falters in filing news reports as it can acknowledge your request for telling the news but loses its voice after that. Sonos cannot perform the flash briefing attribute which Echo has. Nevertheless, Sonos One has enhanced sound quality compared to Amazon and functions flawlessly as a major component of the multi-room audio system. It can match up with another speaker for unspoiled stereo reverberation.
Next year, Sonos is poised to integrate Google Assistant as well as Apple’s AirPlay 2. The downside is it costs two times more the Echo and Google without any voice control for Spotify. It does not have any Bluetooth capability either. Sonos remains as the very first stylish speaker that sounds great and expects additional features in the coming year.
Google has made its mark in the market of voice-regulated multiple speakers. It unraveled Google Home, a combination of advanced digital assistant, Wi-Fi speaker, and smart home organizer comparable to Amazon’s Echo. The platform puts together search and voice regulation to this elite category. Thus, this device fits consumers who patronize the remarkable network of Google.
Google Home is capable of linking to various Google accounts, so it is possible to look at your calendar while setting and managing daily reminders in the Keep app. You may also provide details regarding traffic conditions while on the road through Maps Data. The platform can make a distinction between users through the sound of their respective voices. Home guarantees more complete answers than Alexa, but it can’t perform essential day to day tasks like adding new events to your calendar.
There are smart home additions as well as third-party functions like Alexa Skills but fewer than the latter. It does have a substantial advantage though in its capacity to operate as a controller for the multiple room audio configuration of Chrome Cast audio. In short, you can utilize voice commands to stream the same music or podcast to several speakers in separate rooms at the same time. Alexa is not capable of doing this task. In fairness, Google is fast catching up with Amazon. The product costs $130 which is lower than Sonos.
Now that you have seen the advantages and disadvantages of each, it’s time to make a choice and get your smart home speaker.
