Amazon Echo adds key Google features before Google Home
Think you know a lot about smart speakers? Let’s test your knowledge.
Only one speaker can connect to your Google account, check your calendar
and allow you to add new events. Is that speaker a.) Google Home or b.)
Amazon Echo?
If you guessed Google Home, you’re a logical, intelligent human being.
If you guessed Amazon Echo, you’re twisted, illogical and, well, also
right.
In a seriously strange series of events, Amazon recently patched Echo
devices to work even better with Google Calendar, now allowing you to
not only to check your calendar but to add new events to it, too. This
isn’t something Google has enabled the Home to do, despite owning the
entire end-to-end ecosystem.
To create a new event, make sure your Google account is tied to your
Echo and simply say “Alexa, create a new event”. Alexa will prompt you
for the date and time of the event, as well ask for a name to label the
event on your calendar.
Ask Google Assistant to do the same thing and it responds “I’m sorry, I
can’t add events to your calendar yet”. Amazon 1, Google 0.
But at least Google can tell who’s talking
While Google Home can’t do much with your Google Calendar (or Gmail,
Drive, Docs, Maps, Voice account, Alerts, Chat, Trends or Google Plus),
it can at least differentiate between different voices – something that
Echo currently can’t do.
While both devices support multiple accounts, Google Home can detect
which voice is speaking and tailor results to that person. It also
allows you to add up to six accounts on a single device, which is pretty
handy in larger households.
Still, none of that makes up for the incompatibility its own first-party
services – a huge failing, and one we didn’t shy away from criticizing
when we reviewed the Home a few months ago. But, that being said, Google
IO is coming up and it's likely to hold a few surprises for the Mountain
View company's smart speaker.
Via Engadget
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David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist Feel free to visit my
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