The Amazon Echo Dot and Google Nest Mini are the two entry-level speakers
from two companies dominating the smart speaker category right now, especially
here in the US. They start around fifty US dollars but you can usually get them
for closer to thirty when on sale and they're the easiest way to use your
voice to stream music and media, control smart home devices, and help you with
everyday tasks around your home like setting timers creating reminders and
answering general search queries. The biggest decision that most consumers
face when choosing a smart speaker is which assistant they want to run on that
smart speaker and that'll typically mean that they're going to take a look at the
Amazon Echo Dot and the Google Nest Mini, so now let's dive into the design and
features of these two smart speakers as well as the differences between the
assistants that run on them and hopefully that should help you choose
which one is right for you. First the design the two smart speakers are
somewhat similar in their design they're both small round pucks and are similar
in size where they differ slightly though is aesthetics. Google takes a much
more minimalist approach with the device being completely covered in a recycled
plastic mesh covering and the only button on the device is underneath it
and that's the mute switch. It's actually a physical switch and when the device is
muted the mic is actually removed from power which is different from Amazon's
approach. Their mute button is software controlled but the mics connections are
never physically severed. Now taking a look at the Amazon Echo Dot
third-generation you'll see that Amazon took a different
design approach by having four buttons on the top for muting the Echo Dot's mics,
triggering the assistant, and volume controls at the top. You'll also see four
far-field microphones that Amazon includes. The Nest Mini includes three
far-field microphones that can be found underneath it's mesh covering and in my
testing both the Echo Dot and the Nest Mini hear my commands very well in all
types of different situations and there's not a clear winner between them
in my testing of which one actually hears me best and accurately responds.
Google now even lets you control how sensitive the Nest Mini is to hearing
the hot word, which is the phrase that you use to trigger
the assistant on the device and speaking of the trigger word, for the Echo you can
actually change the trigger word that you can use to trigger the assistant on
the Echo Dot from the smartphone app each smart speaker has a companion app
that you can download on both iOS and Android to enable certain settings on
each device and help you set up and manage the speakers. While you can't see
any buttons on top of the Nest Mini there are a few areas that you can touch
on its surface to control it. When you hover your hand over the speaker, two LEDs
will illuminate where you can tap to increase or decrease the volume. Tap the
top of the speaker to play or pause media currently playing. Now both of
these speakers have indicator lights to help show when the assistant is
listening to you and when it's not. The Echo Dot utilizes its LED ring around
its top which will glow blue when you're interacting with the assistant, it'll
also glow other colors like red when it's muted, yellow when you have a
shipment notification, and green when making a phone call or dropping into a
room with another Echo device. The Nest Mini utilizes four white LEDs to show
you when the assistant is listening to you or when it's not they can turn
different colors as well based on context. Orange for when the Mini has
been muted and blue for phone calls. Now there are two other major hardware
features that make these speakers stand out from one another. The first is the
3.5 millimeter jack the Echo Dot has that allows you to plug it into a more
powerful speaker. You can't do this with a Nest Mini and Google scrapped their
Chromecast Audio product which was a little device that turned any speaker
into a Google cast-enabled speaker so at least you could add in speakers that you
already owned into a speaker group with your Google speakers. Amazon now has a
device that does exactly what the Google Chromecast Audio did and overall Amazon
has a better ecosystem now than Google does, in terms of turning older speakers
into smart speakers that can be grouped with your first party smart speakers. The
last other hardware differentiator that I'll mention is that Google added a
little area on the back of the mini that allows you to wall mount it and use it
as a wall speaker but in order to do that it's got to sound good
right? Well that brings us to one of the largest questions around these two
devices and that's how did they sound. Here's a sound comparison between the
two.
They both sound pretty similar with maybe the Google Nest Mini sounding
slightly more clear and having a little bit more bass but it's close and it is
hard to tell which one sounds better with one having more of an upward firing
speaker then the other. Both speakers allow you to stream music and media over
Wi-Fi as well as over a Bluetooth connection. Alright that's the hardware
of these two speakers now let's dive into the main thing that differentiates
the experience of these two speakers and that is the smart assistant that runs on
each of these devices. The smart assistants on these speakers will likely
be the deciding factor in which one you decide to go with. With the Google Nest
Mini you have the Google assistant that runs on it and then you have Amazon's
Assistant Alexa that runs on the Echo Dot, so first let's talk about some of
the main things that you can use the assistants for on both of these speakers.
I boil them down into three categories: playing music and media, controlling your
smart home devices, and providing you information and /or helping you with
everyday tasks. For playing music and media here in the US both Smart speakers
support Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Deezer, TuneIn and Sirius XM. The Echo
Dot also supports Amazon Music, TIDAL, Apple Music and Apple Podcasts. The Nest
Mini also supports YouTube Music, Google Play Music, and Google Podcasts. If you're
outside of the US definitely check to see what services will run on these
speakers in your home country. Now to listen to music on either of these
devices you don't actually have to subscribe to a music streaming service,
however I do recommend it. It's one of the best parts of owning a smart speaker,
you just tell the assistant on the speaker to play whatever song you could
think of and then boom, it just does it on command, it really is kind of like
magic. Both smart speakers can be grouped with other similar speaker groups so you
can group Google speakers together or Amazon speakers together to create a
whole home audio solution. Alright, now another really important thing that
these smart assistants can help you do is control your smart home devices. Both
work with a large swathe of popular smart home products and platforms like
Nest thermostats, Philips Hue lights, smart blinds, smart robotic vacuum
cleaners, Wi-Fi routers, smart plugs, and home security systems. Both Amazon and
Google also make their own smart home products so if you already have Nest
products in your home or a ring doorbell. It's best to make sure and check that
the products you already have in your home will work with one or both of these
smart assistants. Recently both Amazon and Google started emphasizing local
control with their smart speakers so they have the ability to control your
devices without pinging the clouds, so in theory if your internet goes out you
would still be able to tell Google or the Amazon assistant to turn on and off
your lights and it'll still work. If you'd like to learn more about how to
start a smart home we actually did a video on the channel on that exact topic
so you can click this card here in the video pause this video go watch that
also make sure to leave a link to it in the video description below. We've also
done several videos on smart home products things like robotic vacuum
cleaners, smart lights, smart plugs, etc so make sure you check out the rest of our
youtube channel if you're interested in those types of videos. Alright moving on,
now let's talk about the last major category of how smart assistants can
help you and that is by providing you information and helping you with
everyday tasks. Both assistants allow you to do things like set timers, create
reminders, add things to specific lists, so you could have a grocery list,
Amazon lists, target run list, etc. They also can help you with cooking by
providing you with recipes or helping you communicate with others by making
phone calls, broadcast to other smart speakers around your house, or Amazon
will actually let you drop in to another speaker in your house like a two-way
intercom system. Each assistant platform can work with third-party services with
Amazon these are called skills and with Google they're called Google Assistant
actions. I don't use these on either platform very often but they are pretty
good for a specific type of request so for example I'll ask either of the
assistants to play the local news through a third-party skill from my
local TV news station or a lot of party games also integrate this way with
both assistants so you can play it with your kids and have a blast.
So now hearing all this I'm sure you're probably thinking okay it sounds like
these assistants can actually do pretty similar things what actually is
different about them? Well the biggest thing that
differentiates these two assistants are the services that they are integrated
with to provide you information. Amazon is well integrated with its own services
so for example it'll tell you when you can expect a package from Amazon.com.
The Google assistant is also heavily integrated with Google services like
Google Photos, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Search, Gmail, and the list goes on. As a
company that's business model centers around collecting data to provide and
serve more relevant ads and information to its users, the Google Assistant can
do a lot if you already use a lot of Google services, plus its integration
with Google search means that it's going to be able to provide you with detailed
answers to complex questions that you ask it that you'd normally type into a
Google search bar. Now Amazon's assistant can answer general search queries and
typically it will give you the correct answer however I found in my experience
it will not give you nearly as much detail or context as the Google
Assistant will. Here's a real-world example that I just ran into last week
while cooking. Me: Hey Alexa/Hey Google, should you keep lemons in the refrigerator?"
Alexa: "lemon is best stored in the fridge." Google: "On the website myrecipies.com they say the
best way to store lemons is in an airtight container in the fridge." Or
sometimes the Amazon assistant will completely get it wrong and the Google
Assistant will nail it. Me: "Are there cockroaches in chocolate?"
Alexa: "creamy crock-pot Tuscan garlic chicken from tastemade there are 10 ingredients
would you like to gather ingredients?" Google Assistant: Onthe website NBCNews.com they say most
people who are allergic to chocolate aren't having a reaction to cocoa or any
of chocolates other official ingredients know the flare-ups are most likely
triggered by the ground-up cockroach parts that contaminate every batch." So
given everything we've just gone over which device do I recommend that you get
well my answer there is it really depends, like it depends on several
different factors. One, how integrated are you already into
either Google or Amazon's ecosystems? do you already have smart devices that
would only work with one platform? Do you need your speaker to be able to
physically plug into a better speaker? Which speaker looks the best to you? Both
Amazon and Google offers speakers in different colors and options Amazon even
has a colorful one designed especially for kids and they also have a version of
the echo dot with a clock on it which is pretty neat if you're planning on
putting this speaker on your nightstand answering these questions will help
determine which device you ultimately get and if you have questions about
privacy with each of these devices I'll leave links in the video description
below about the privacy features for each of these speakers if you want to
learn more. Now if you have used both of these assistants or both of these smart
speakers let me know down in the comments which assistant you prefer and
use in your daily life and if you liked this video and found it helpful, make
sure you hit that thumbs up button below and subscribe to the channel to see more
tech product videos like this one. Well that'll do it for me,
I'm Josh Teder for 6 Months Later, thanks for watching.