[Electronics-Talk] Google Home is the personal assistant

[Brad Hodges]

Greetings:


I think that people may have misunderstood a reference to the Google 
Home personal assistant along the way. It performs some of the same 
functions as the
Amazon Echo, aka Alexa. I have both devices and find that they differ in 
both their strengths and weaknesses. A small version of each appears to 
be commonly available for $29.99.


My quick thought is that if you're technically adventuresome and have a 
few extra dollars installing and comparing one of each will prove to be 
an interesting exersize. If you can only choose 1, I think I would give 
the nod to Echo. There are many more Echo users so your chances of 
getting help is better than from the far fewer Google Home users you 
might know.


Note, for Google Home, you want to install both the Google Home and 
Google Assistant apps on your iPhone. Also note, Google Home provides 
surprisingly good toll free technical support.


Each device offers a variety of "apps" which provide specific functions, 
calling a Lyft ride or playing Jeopardy for example. On Echo these are 
called Skills while on Google Home they are referred to as Services. 
Note, if you really appreciate a comprehensive, perhaps exhaustive 
weather forecast, the Weather Sky Skill for Echo, from Dark Sky is truly 
amazing.


Brad Hodges