Smart speakers battle
In our current reality, we live a life full of smart things around us. Intelligence is no longer limited to a laptop or phone only, but now we see smart speakers, watches, smart TV screens, and soon all our electronic devices may become really smart.
With the availability of microprocessors with huge capabilities that can be embedded in almost anything and the development of internet networks, we are now seeing the so-called Internet of Things, which is the connection of almost anything to the Internet and the ability to control it remotely and with absolute ease through voice commands that the voice assistant translates for our home devices to understand.
Smart speakers have started to enter our homes in a very large way in the past two years as home voice assistants, with major companies competing to capture this emerging and successful market. Today, Google, Apple, and Amazon are at the forefront.
We review the beginning of all the options available to the user with their approximate prices, to talk later about the best, smartest, and perhaps the best price.
Start with amazon
Amazon is the pioneer in this field and today owns a variety of smart speakers under the name Amazon Echo, and they are available in three sizes and at a very affordable price.
The price of the little brother (Echo Dot (3rd gen) is only about $30 according to the official Amazon website, while the Echo speaker (2nd gen) comes in a larger size and is priced at about $100, and for a better audio experience, Amazon has the Echo Plus (2nd gen), which is the bigger brother in The series is priced at $ 150, according to the same source, and all devices work with Amazon‘s Alexa voice assistant.
What about google
Google entered the battle based on its Google Assistant voice assistant with three speakers as well and of different sizes, the Home Mini, the smaller size, which is priced according to the official website of Google only $ 50, while the traditional measurement Home is available about $ 90, and Google seeks to target musicians in large size, which it calls Home Max, which is available today for $300.
Where is Apple?
Apple entered the market very late with only one device called the HomePod, including its famous voice assistant Siri. This speaker comes in a size slightly larger than the usual size and at a price of $ 300 without the need to produce a larger size, and Apple dispensed with competing small copies in the battle of smart speakers.
Who is the best among the smart speakers?
It is very difficult to judge these devices and choose the best ones but let’s try:
Sound quality
As for the sound quality in small sizes, we can say that the Google Home Mini is much better than the Amazon Echo Dot, but when talking about the regular size, Amazon outperforms Google, as we find that the performance of the Amazon Echo is much better than the Google Home in the sub-$100 category.
As for the large sizes, we cannot compare the Amazon Echo Plus product with Google Home Max and with the Apple HomePod because of the clear difference between them in price, as Amazon loses and competes with both Apple and Google here and strongly.
The Google Home Max product is distinguished in terms of sound strength and the magnitude of the bass, while we find that Apple excels in the HomePod in terms of sound quality, purity, and distribution over a 360-degree field.
Who is the smartest?
Amazon entered the market early to start developing its Alexa voice assistant to adapt to this type of smart speaker and do the task perfectly and with great intelligence. They are able to understand and execute orders well.
Speaking of Siri, he is well-known and has limited commands that he can implement due to Apple’s privacy policies, but he is nonetheless able to keep pace with his opponents because of his support for a greater number of languages.
Secret weapons
Each competitor among the previous smart speakers has its secret weapon. Amazon has one of the largest online shopping stores, and its voice assistant can buy directly through voice command, while Google seeks to contract with local stores in each country to catch up with Amazon, and we see that the Apple voice assistant cannot make purchases.
Google and Amazon allow the shared use of smart speakers, i.e. multi-user, where Google, after simple training, can recognize a person’s voice and switch to their account automatically, while a direct command must be directed to the Amazon voice assistant to switch to a specific account, and also here Apple prevents multiuser because its speaker is linked With one iCloud account.
And speaking of privacy, no voice is louder than Apple because it uses artificial intelligence only without sharing the user experience with the parent company, unlike Google and Amazon, whose products are linked to multiple services and sites that may cause a threat to user privacy.
Who is victorious?
We can’t conclude that every user has a different way of using smart speakers, so if you want to try this new thing without spending a lot of money, you should buy a Google Home Mini or maybe an Amazon Echo Dot.
If you want a premium audio experience, you may have to go for the big size and buy a Google Home Max or an Apple HomePod, and if you want a compromise, you should buy an Amazon Echo (2nd gen).
