Thursday, November 3, 2016

Google Home - first look


Received the Google Home that I had pre-ordered a few weeks ago... Unboxed and plugged it in.

 
 

Downloaded and ran the Google Home app, and in a matter of a few minutes was good to go:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

So far so good. A very preliminary comparison to my Echo - you can speak much more 'naturally' to your Google Home while your command syntax has to be more exact/precise with the Echo; and Google Home starts off with much fewer capabilities in the areas of 'skills' and home automation. I would expect that the latter can be more easily fixed by Google than the former by Amazon! 

A small annoyance, the Google Assistant repeats back your command to you... Seems unnecessary, and for some reason it gets on my nerves. Here, I feel less would be more...

Google Home reviews:

Review: Google Home: Blabbermouth (Wired)
Google Home vs. Amazon Echo: The battle begins (c|net)
Google Home review: In catch-up to Echo, but with promise (USA Today)
Google Home review: The Assistant steps into your living room (Engadget)
Google Home Obliterates the Echo, But It's Got Some Work to Do (Gizmodo)
Google Home review: A step forward for hotwords, a step backward in capability (Ars Technica)

Google Home Forums:
Google Help Home Forum

YouTube reviews:
The Verge
Digit
Engadget
Phandroid
TechnoBuffalo
YouTube search results

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