Google Assistant vs Alexa for Home Assistant

Configuration Voice Assistant
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Hi, the most recent topic on this argument that i’ve found is dated 2018. A lot has changed in 2 years on both assistants, so i think that it may be usefull to compare them again.

Now i’ve only 1 google home mini, and i’m about to choose if going on with google family or switch to amazon world.

I think that google is better in understanding commands (example turn on this and that), at the same time it overthinks some command (you cannot name a light simply “light”, otherwise google will turn on / off all the room lights, not only the one named light and so on)

For home assistant “notification”, i’ve setup assistant relay with home assistant integration and it works, however having every sentence starting with “message from xyz …” is quite annoying. Some of you know if there is a better method? (tts cast is not an option since it will be stop any music playing at the moment of the notification). In alexa world i’ve seen that is a native TTS function, where also the emotion can be specified, if someone confirm to me that this is not stopping the music is probably a point to alexa.

For voice commands, i’ve seen that google assistant integration is quite straightforward (i’ve duckdns + lets’encrypt and a “test” project on action console for the real integration. Is the amazon integration as easy as the google one? Does someone have tryed both and can show differences?

For things “unrelated” from home assistant, i’ve seen that google assistant is quite good in answering quick questions going straight to the point, while alexa seems to catch informations only from a few services with less precision. Moreover google supports follow ups while alexa seems to not support them (correct me if i’m wrong).

Me and my girlfriend are already using android phones and most of google tools (calendar, keep, contacts, photos etc), so for us stay with google seems to be the more comfortable thing to not have to sync almost everything.

For multimedia, it seems that now is a tie, but google have just relased the new chromecast with google TV, wich (at least from first reviews) it seems better than fire stick and thinked to be a “multimedial hub” joining all supported services toghether.

I’m not a native english speaker so sorry for mistakes,please let me know what you think and if you have tested both, what let you choose. I think that this can be helpfull for many people

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was just wondering the exact same

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do you have something to add on what i said?

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I am currently testing an amazon echo avec 1,5 year with google integration.
first thing I can say is that Alexa seem more restrictive for streaming music on it comparing to google.
I can understand that YouTube music do not work with it, but there seem to be only amazon music, Spotify and a handful of other. comparing to almost every app for sound that directly cast on the google home. or just directly the sound of the cellphone.
keep in mind that it’s an opinion base on just 1 hours of testing
will update when i will have more time for testing

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I can confirm that TTS can be performed on Alexa devices without “stopping the music”. It lowers the volume of the music, does the TTS, and then raises the volume back up.

I can also confirm that there are more media options with Google. For me, I only play music via Alexa, and I only use Spotify, which works fine. If you want something other than that or Amazon Music, then you’ll have to look deeper into whether it’s supported. Chromecast/Google Devices is more open about this process, so more things are supported.

For other “Home Automation Stuff” I find Alexa to be better. For instance, I can get information about alarms that have been set on the Alexa device as well as information regarding which device was spoken to so that things like “turn on the disco lights” can work in any room, as long as you write an automation smart enough to read all the sensors and figure out which room you’re in. And of course, you’ll need disco lights in every room, but who doesn’t already have that. :slight_smile:

For me, Alexa made a lot more sense as a auxiliary device to Home Assistant. As a stand-alone device, I think Google works better and offers more features. So, in my house, there’s an Alexa in every room and a box full of Google devices in my office.

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Thanks for all the explaining. Good question!
I really like more opinions in this.
I am leaning towards alexa in the Netherlands now, but still in doubt. It doesnt support dutch (which I can live with) but if the automations and smartness of that is better. Fine.
Any experienced people pro google point?
Very curious
Thanks

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I am still pro google after 4 month.
but I think it depend of how you use a vocal assistant with your home automation.

most of my programming is done on HA and I just use Boolean variable to communicate when a google routine is fired like good morning of good night. you can tell google that these variable are in the bedroom or the kitchen. you can even specify the name and the kind off switch it is. so if you say turn the light on it will turn that variable too. I fond it more simple than using attribute or creating a skill, but its because I have learn it that way.

you can have a google routine called red alert that trigger a Boolean variable in HA.
or you can do the same thing asking Alexa to ask albert(my HA) to run red alert.

you can give HA a sensual british accent with google cloud service. I did not find that with Alexa.
you cannot link your tradfri bridge directly to alexa (but if you connect them by zigbee to HA that work)

I did find one thing that was working on Alexa that I did not réalise yet on Google: the music follow you thing. but in a 4½ apartment its not really a problem.

I think that if you began setting up with either one you can mostly achieve the same result it really depend on your situation. we can probably do a business just suggesting what is best for home automation in that or this case. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’ve been using HA with Alexa for about 1 year now. I’m using haaska to connect the two.

So far, I’m happy, ‘Alexa turn on the kitchen lights’ works well. Most of my automations are done with Node-Red, not in HA.

Recently, I’ve gotten some Zigbee door sensors, Amazon won’t use them to trigger Routines (so Alexa won’t say “someone is at the door”).

The con’s:

  • Randomly, Alexa services won’t work correctly
  • The Alexa app sucks, trying to control spotify through it is awful
  • Sometimes, when I tell Alexa to ‘Make the light {insert some color}’ everything works correctly, but Alexa yell’s at me “I don’t know what went wrong”

I’m currently investigating Google Home, I’ll probably set it up and just us it from the app until I decide to go one way or the other.

p.s. setting up the Haaska stuff is not trivial

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Hi.
After testing both systems with Home Assistant and mainly living with Google for about 2 years now, I decided to share a bit of my insights too.
Bear in mind that I use(d) both systems in German and via Nabu Casa.

Setup
The basic setup with HA is for both very quick and easy if you use Nabu Casa. But Alexa is not very usable without the Alexa Media Player and can’t compare to Google without it. If you are used to set up custom components via HACS this is not a big issue, but that’s not for every new beginner.
The manual setup is comparable in difficulty. A lot of steps but managable, if you can follow instructions.
Winner: Google

Entity Integration
You can natively use most device classes including scripts and scenes for both. You can also use custom commands via routines to trigger scripts with both. No winner here.

Smart Home Control with HA
Google: You can use commands very intuitively and use different phrases for the same result. Grouping works great. I find it annoying to use the long wake word for every command and to get those long answers back.
Alexa: You need to be more sepcific what to say to her. She has difficulties to understand which e.g. light you are meaning if you don’t specify one. If I put blinds into a room group they are being closed if you turn off the light (see here for more info). I can’t issue a command to stop the blinds (at least natively).
Winner: Google. This is the main reason I don’t use Alexa.

TTS/Notifications
Using Alexa Media Player and Alexa Actions she wins by far. Google is restricted to casting TTS messages. TTS is difficult to set up if you want proper voices via Google Cloud and not just the standard Google Translate ones. For Alexa no further setup for TTS needed. Google always uses a wakeup sound which some people might find annoying and stops media playback completely. Google doesn’t support Actionable Notifications.
Winner: Alexa (by far)
Disclaimer: Alexa Media Player uses an unofficial API with workarounds. Google uses the widely standardized cast feature. Something to bear in mind for the future.

Intents
You can use Intents for both. Setup takes for both a while but is a bit easier for Google. You need to use a invoke phrase for both. But Google always says “starting test {my service}” before replying which makes it in my opinion unusable.
Winner: Alexa, but I don’t like either one.

Smart Displays
You can cast lovelace dashboards to Nest Hubs! Echo Shows support text notifications. But don’t take my word here, I haven’t tested much and don’t own a Echo Show.
Winner: Google

Voice match
Customization based on voice only realy works on Google. Pro: You can use for example seperate Spotifiy accounts (without manually changing them) and different things can be triggered in HA by the same routine for different users. Con: You need to set up routines in all apps for your home members seperately. And if that doesn’t work (like in my wife’s app) this is annoying. And if Google doesn’t recognize your wifes voice (when e.g. editing the shopping list) this is more annoying.

Using both
I used both in parallel for some time. It is completely possible but might get confusing. When you configured HA to a point where you can control your Fire TV with Google Assistant you feel like you just created Frankenstein’s monster :sweat_smile:

Non HA-related functions
Here a few notable things which may influence your decision, but are not related to Home Assistant:

  • TV: Fire TV offers better search functionality over more platforms than Android TV, but doesn’t support casting
  • Phone/Car: Alexa is imo unusable on the phone and in the car. That’s why I need Google anyway.
  • Music streaming: both integrate best with Spotify and ok with their own platforms (Prime Music/Youtube Music). Prime Music is terrible on Google. Youtube Music I think doesn’t work on Alexa.
  • General information / trivia / searches: Alexa is quite stupid. Google takes advantage of it’s great search engine.
  • App: Alexa app is terrible and with Google you need to find out what relates to Google Home App and what to the Assistant settings, but who uses that anyway when you have that great HA companion app?!
  • Intercom: Using the speakers as intercoms works better with the Alexa drop ins, where you can have a conversation. With Google you can only send messages.

What is best for you?
You want an execution system? A vocal UI for Home Assistant that will do exactly what you tell it to do? Go for Google!
You want Home Assistant to talk back, ask questions and communicate with you? Go for Alexa!
Still undecided? Buy a 3rd party speaker that supports both.

I don’t love either voice assistant and my plan is to automate my house to a point where I won’t need one as much as I do now. But for now it’s Google in my home.

If you have any further questions don’t hesitate to ask :slight_smile:

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As far as the “message from”, there are other ways to send notifications to google. Uncle Bobs google assistant relay will also have the “message from”. But you can send regular tts directly to either a HA group (slightly echo’d through the house) or a google group (you get the DONG and then the message).

I’ve played with this for months and finally created a smart script to funnel all TTS messages through which uses a combination of all 3 methods depending on if a speaker is ‘busy’ or not. It has been working very well for me.

I would put this in the CON area as its much more difficult to announce on google devices without disturbing currently playing things but it is possible to do as I have done.

EDIT: Oops I didn’t realize this was an old thread. :slight_smile: Sorry for hte bump! :slight_smile: