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Integrated Chromecast and enhanced audio format support demonstrate Google’s belief that the Nest Mini can serve as a competent, if compact, stand-alone speaker, alongside other duties. Home Mini, on the other hand, has a number of exclusive features which you can use with the Google ecosystem. You can cast videos to your TV and control volume and playback with just your voice if you have a chromecast. Echo Dot handles calls a little better than the Google Home Mini right now. In simple words, if you have two echo dot devices at home, you can use them as an intercom. While Home mini does broadcast prerecorded voice messages to other Home Mini devices which is nowhere near the Echo Dot’s Drop-in.
Upgrade your lifestyleDigital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks. Both the Echo Dot line and the Nest Mini line allow you to use their respective assistants to set up voice shopping capabilities. Google Assistant and Alexa both offer routine setup, so that’s no problem. Google’s version is a bit more cookie-cutter, helpful prompts make it easy for beginners. Yet, Google Assistant also offers more complex custom Routine options. In my experience, the basic stuff like alarm, timer, weather works fine on both.
Amazon Echo Dot With Clock (4th Gen) Review
Whether you have light or dark decor, either speaker line will have something complementary. The Echo and smaller Echo Dot are orbs after their most recent redesign, abandoning the cylinder shape of the past. The Echo Dot also has a version with a built-in clock, which both looks nice and is very useful. The Nest Audio, meanwhile, is shaped vaguely like a pillow standing on its end, while the tiny Nest Mini is more like a puck.
Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. The 3rd-Generation Echo Dot is a huge upgrade in both design and audio. While the 2nd-Gen Dot is less expensive, the discount isn't usually more than $10 over the newer model.
Google Nest Hub
Same is the case with music streaming music and Home automation control. Echo Dot 3 and the Home Mini look similar in design with the fabric shell and plastic body. While Echo Dot has retained its 4 button layout, Home mini keeps the profile sleek with capacitive touch buttons hidden under the fabric shell. Keep in mind that, with both Alexa and Google Assistant, third-party speaker manufacturers are increasingly choosing to integrate the voice helpers into their own products.
But the Echo Dot’s microphones simply aren’t as sensitive to voice commands. All in all, the Nest Mini wins for voice recognition, and the Echo Dot wins for music playback. It costs $229 (£219, $349), similar to the original price of the 10-inchLenovo Smart Display. These smart displays are ideal for making Google Duo video calls to friends and family members.
Music (Winner – Google Home Mini)
Stepping down from those models, the Echo Dot has a bit of an edge over the Nest Mini, which has fairly weak bass and midrange. Of course, these smaller speakers are much more suitable for nightstands and desks than serving as a room's main audio device. I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. Google Home comes with the company’s own virtual personal assistant Google Assistant. The service is generally powerful, allowing you to perform a variety of tasks, including turning on your lights and accessing your music.
When you wake the next morning, a statistical breakdown of your slumber will greet you. You’ll be able to see how long it took to fall asleep, how long to rise after waking, and how much you snored and coughed. In contrast, the Google Nest Mini has three far-field microphones for voice detection, as well as a 1.57-inch speaker driver.
Read our full head-to-head below to get a better idea of the specifics. In terms of overall value, the Echo Show’s higher price point matches up nicely with its rotating base, bigger screen, camera quality, and powerful sound. If you’re shopping on a budget and could care less about video calls, the Nest Hub is certainly a more economically savvy contender.
For the Nest Mini, Google Nest doubled the bass and made it possible for the speaker to adjust its volume based on the level of background noise in the room. Although the Nest Mini only has three mics, it does a superior job at picking up voice commands, even from a distance. I tested the speakers at 70% and used an app to calculate the loudness on the dB scale and here are the results. Home Mini on the other is loud but lacks that lower frequency sounds.
Having said that, Alexa tends to be better when it comes to support for a wider range of devices, as well as better smart home integration. So if you have a lot of smart home devices already, Alexa might be your best bet. For a comprehensive picture of all the top smart speaker options, see our roundup of the best smart speakers. If you want better sound, the Echo Dot has a 3.5mm aux output, so you can connect it to external speakers (including battery/speaker combos, such as the Ninety7 Vaux). And both the Dot and the Mini can be connected to external Bluetooth speakers, but those solutions diminish the benefits of having a small, compact unit. If saving money is a priority for you, this is a great time to buy the discounted 2nd-Gen Echo Dot.
"At night, I just say, 'Hey Google, turn off my bedroom lights,' and the room goes dark," she wrote. Google Assistant doesn't have nearly as many third-party plug-ins, but it's much easier to talk to. It can understand different requests more easily than Alexa, and that's very appealing. Alexa has an edge with third-party functionality, thanks to thousands of different skills that can do everything from order pizza to read a bedtime story. It tends to require very specific syntax, though, especially when activating and using most of those skills.
If you have a second speaker of the same type, you can pair them together to create a stereo sound setup. The hardwear calculus changes though when you compare the updated Nest Mini to the Echo Dot . The improvements to the speaker, microphones, and on-device intellegence make that Google/Nest device a no-brainer to buy. While colorful and compact, the microphone and speakers on the Google Home Mini just scream "you get what you pay for" when it comes to quality.
The second-gen Google Nest Hub is smaller than the Echo Show, which may be ideal for those looking for a smart display for a bedside table or crowded office desk. Measuring 7 inches wide, 4.7 inches tall, 2.7 inches from front to back, and weighing 19.07 ounces, the Nest Hub is available in Chalk, Charcoal, Sand, and Mist finishes. However, these colors only apply to the mesh-covered base of the display, not the plastic trim around the screen. If you’re building a cutting-edge smart home from the ground up or are simply looking for a digital display companion to add to your kitchen counter, a smart display is what you’re after. Small enough to be referred to as a tablet , a smart display is designed to be your one-stop, web-connected assistant.
There is no lag in home automation as well (although, has a slight advantage there as it’s compatible with the more smart home appliance). That said, the new generation of echo dot is decent looking and has better audio output and mic quality. But when it comes to asking queries, Google home mini is clearly a winner. Frankly, there's very little difference between the two right now. They're both very capable smart assistants that respond to voice commands and work well with many smart home devices.
Google Home adds a dice roll sound effect which is nice. Both devices can roll multiple dice and give you the total. Lots of kids magazines and annuals have printed board games, now you don't have to go hunting for a physical dice. Google Home has a much more technically realistic voice but both of my children prefer Alexa's voice.
I have both but so far they aren't really integrated with Home Assistant, but merely controlling devices through Wink which are also showing up in Home Assistant. Please bookmark 1redDrop.comto keep tabs on the hottest, most happening tech and business news from around the world. On Apple News, pleasefavoritethe 1redDrop channel to get us in your news feed. As for Google Home, even strong sales in 2017 won’t make a big impact on their revenues, but it will give them a solid presence in the voice-based consumer electronics market.
Amazon Echo speakers
Google Home devices are powered by Google Assistant, a voice-activated assistant that can do various tasks, such as providing information about the weather or setting reminders. These products are pioneers in their class of consumer goods because they set the tone for several other companies like Apple and Microsoft to come up with their own smart speaker products. Seeing as we don’t have a Google Home Mini on hand as of yet, we can only go off of what we saw from Google’s announcement yesterday. However, there are some key design features which set these two smart home assistants apart from one another. Both devices can roll a dice which is quite a useful feature.
We've got lots of them and write reviews and projects that use them. Our programmable robots for kids buying guide is a good place to start if you're not sure what's available. Roby the mBot Meccano robot dog is one of our popular projects and has been with us to lots of events. Our Ozobot LEGO trailer is fab for kids who love LEGO and robots. There's no right or wrong approach really – Google's is simpler, but Alexa's encourages faster and broader development and support from third-parties. Alexa's Drop In feature only works with other Alexa-enabled devices.
Amazon Echo vs Google Home FAQ: quick questions answered
PCMag supports Group Black and its mission to increase greater diversity in media voices and media ownerships. While it supports dual-band Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, it couldn't recognize our Verizon Fios router's 5GHz network. It recognized the 2.4GHz network, and it recognized 5GHz on three other routers, including a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900.
Being able to control our Chromecast device is also handy. It's also important to consider that both devices are gaining functionality all the time. This is great for us as it keeps pushing the technology forward. We've focussed on the features of Alexa and Google Home that kids are likely to interact with. We'll do a fuller comparison of other features once we get access to multiple accounts for Google Home in the UK. Not having multiple accounts is a real blocker in our household.
Third-party services
I will note that its pronunciation of the international team names was pretty good. Alexa told me what events were already listed in my personal calendar. Alexa found many ‘matching options’ but proceeded to tell me the price of Pixel 2 screen protectors.
YMMV, but using Alexa and Assistant side-by-side really show off how much work has been done in a short period of time to call Google Assistant the smartest. Overall, the Google Home Mini does look more aesthetically pleasing, as it would not be an eyesore in any room that you place it in. The same can’t be said about the Echo Dot as it does feature that hockey puck look that is rather dated.
DEAL: You can now grab Google’s first ever
But you can connect the Dot to an additional speaker via a standard 3.5mm cable or Bluetooth. We compared the new Dot with the original and with a JBL Clip 2, an Editors' Choice for inexepensive Bluetooth speakers. The Clip 2 has a considerable amount of lower midrange presence, giving depth and richness to music that's completely missing from both Dots.
Similarly, the Sonos One offers touch controls and it’s got a new six-microphone array to better capture voice recognition compared to the older Sonos models. If you love customizing your phone and don’t necessarily want to turn to third-party apps, then Samsung’s Good Lock might be worth checking out if you own a Galaxy handset. Whenever you activate your Echo Dot, there is a ring of LED lights around the top of the puck to let you know when Alexa is listening to your commands. As for the Home Mini, there are the aforementioned 4 LED lights that also let you know when everything is working, including when you change the volume.
Million Amazon Echo and Google Home Devices Will be Sold in 2017: Voice Report
You can pick up the Google Home Mini in a range of colors, with four flashing LED lights illustrating when it's listening to your commands and showing the volume level. Now in its third generation, the Echo Dot doesn't have the best audio quality in the range, so it's best suited for rooms where music playback won’t be its primary function. That said, you can pair it up with a Bluetooth speaker or another audio device using an AUX jack connection, making it a cost-effective upgrade you can make to any aging Hi-Fi system. However, lots of users who have put the two devices head-to-head believe Google Assistant could be the smarter of the two. Learning experience, and wider variety of voices than Alexa, it has the biggest potential for the future.
Best of all, they both work with some of today’s most popular products, including Nest thermostats, Philips Hue lights, and more. Considering the fact that you can ask Alexa to play music directly, hooking the Echo Dot up to a speaker would definitely a more enjoyable experience. With the holiday season rolling around, many families may consider adding additional technology to their homes. A voice control system is one popular technology to add to your home in 2022.
And, despite its looks, the Echo Show sounds better than the Echo Plus and Echo, though not so dramatically as to forgive it some of its other failings. Resolution is an essential indicator of a screen's image quality, representing the maximum amount of pixels that can be shown on the screen. The resolution is given as a compound value, comprised of horizontal and vertical pixels. The higher the high-frequency response, the clearer and crispier the treble. One of the things I like best about a Google Assistant-powered speaker is that it shares relevant information with my Android phone. So if I ask for the traffic to San Francisco, it tells me and sends the route to Google Maps.
Google’s designers have even spent time crafting Nest Mini’s circular power adapter, which fits neatly in the hand and protrudes from the wall far less than the Echo Dot’s power supply. These are small touches, yes, but they demonstrate a level of design detail and care that’s the hallmark of a great device. The Echo Dot and the Dot with Clock both retain the iconic color-changing LED status ring around their base.
Google Home Mini vs Amazon Echo Dot 3: The Ultimate Showdown
The material used in the body is ABS plastic and it feels durable. The silicone-based rubber bottom on both devices ensure a secure position on the surface and prevent any accidental slips. If you can only afford the entry-level devices, and music remains a top priority for you, go for the Google Home Mini, which sounds a lot better than the Echo Dot. Unless you hook up a Dot to another speaker over Bluetooth or the 3.5mm jack, it's just too thin and harsh to fully enjoy. Most recently, Google released the Nest Hub Max, putting Google Assistant in a 10-inch smart display. It's the first product to come out under the converged brand name of Google and smart home security brand Nest.
The sound vibrations produced by a passive radiator depend on its mass and the size of its enclosure. It is usually used in combination with a woofer to produce deep bass tones. More microphones result in better sound quality and enable the device to filter out background noise. Chromecast built-in is a technology that allows users to stream entertainment and apps from their phone, tablet, or laptop, straight to the Chromecast-enabled device. A key feature of both devices is the universe of smart home gadgets they can connect to and control. The Echo Dot connects to its power supply with a barrel connector, and the Google Home Mini uses a USB power supply.
Amazon Echo vs Google Home: price
Integrated Chromecast and enhanced audio format support demonstrate Google’s belief that the Nest Mini can serve as a competent, if compact, stand-alone speaker, alongside other duties. Home Mini, on the other hand, has a number of exclusive features which you can use with the Google ecosystem. You can cast videos to your TV and control volume and playback with just your voice if you have a chromecast. Echo Dot handles calls a little better than the Google Home Mini right now. In simple words, if you have two echo dot devices at home, you can use them as an intercom. While Home mini does broadcast prerecorded voice messages to other Home Mini devices which is nowhere near the Echo Dot’s Drop-in.
Count me among that majority -- if I had to pick one to listen to my favorite playlist on, it'd be the new Dot. Then again, if you blindfolded me and asked me to tell you which speaker I was listening to, I'm not sure that I'd be able to tell. Smart home routines connect a variety of settings for smart devices under a single command. It’s a great way to prepare a smart house for the morning, set the mood for an evening dinner, get the family ready for bed, and a lot more…all you have to do is set them up. Alongside hardware connectivity, both devices can also access “skills” or “actions” that deliver enhanced features like news reports, recipes, reservation bookings, jokes, quizzes, and more.
Amazon Echo vs Google Home: smart features
A lower weight is also an advantage for home appliances, as it makes transportation easier, and for many other types of products. The number of megapixels determines the resolution of the images captured with the main camera. A higher megapixel count means that the camera is capable of capturing more details. However, the megapixel count is not the only important element determining the quality of an image. An auxiliary input allows you to play other audio sources by connecting them through a simple audio connection like a 3.5mm jack, i.e for MP3 or portable DVD/CD player. There isn't much room in such a small device for large improvements, but somehow Nest pulled it off.
Same is the case with music streaming music and Home automation control. Echo Dot 3 and the Home Mini look similar in design with the fabric shell and plastic body. While Echo Dot has retained its 4 button layout, Home mini keeps the profile sleek with capacitive touch buttons hidden under the fabric shell. Keep in mind that, with both Alexa and Google Assistant, third-party speaker manufacturers are increasingly choosing to integrate the voice helpers into their own products.
Both devices have a broadcast feature that allows you to send a voice message from one unit to other units in your house, much like an intercom. The third-generation Echo Dot has the same easy-to-use buttons on its top as the first one did. Both allow you to review your history of commands, listen to the audio picked up by the speaker, and delete individual commands if you wish.
Having said that, Alexa tends to be better when it comes to support for a wider range of devices, as well as better smart home integration. So if you have a lot of smart home devices already, Alexa might be your best bet. For a comprehensive picture of all the top smart speaker options, see our roundup of the best smart speakers. If you want better sound, the Echo Dot has a 3.5mm aux output, so you can connect it to external speakers (including battery/speaker combos, such as the Ninety7 Vaux). And both the Dot and the Mini can be connected to external Bluetooth speakers, but those solutions diminish the benefits of having a small, compact unit. If saving money is a priority for you, this is a great time to buy the discounted 2nd-Gen Echo Dot.
Read our full head-to-head below to get a better idea of the specifics. In terms of overall value, the Echo Show’s higher price point matches up nicely with its rotating base, bigger screen, camera quality, and powerful sound. If you’re shopping on a budget and could care less about video calls, the Nest Hub is certainly a more economically savvy contender.
While it’s not a big difference, the audio quality and loudness are slightly better in Echo dot 3. The choice really then comes down to the preference of ecosystem as opposed to the hardware. Then Google Home is probably for you, as the two areas are only going to become ever-more-closely linked. Google's natural language understanding is superior too, even if its voice implementation still needs some refinement.
