hello everyone thanks for tuning in again I want to get started with a full
comparison review between the Amazon Echo Plus second generation the first
generation Echo Plus device and of course the Google Home so let's get started by the
end of this you're going to know which one of these devices you want all right
now first things first let's get into the discussion around price these two
devices are a hundred and forty nine dollars u.s. whereas the Google home is
a hundred and twenty nine dollars u.s. they both go on sale quite often I think
you're gonna see some sales here before we get to the Christmas season as Google
pushes hard and as Amazon pushes hard to take more and more of that smart speaker
segment next up when we're talking about devices at this level we want some real
home automation capability and I'll tell you both or all three of these devices
are capable of an incredible amount of home automation they're now both capable
of things like routines and the capability of controlling all these
different home automation devices there are over 20,000 devices and services
that work with the Amazon Echo series of products and with their voice assistant
and there is now over 10,000 devices and services that work with the Google
assistant and of course the Google Home and the Google Home many products there
one thing that is different here between the Google Home and these two devices
the Echo Plus' is the fact that there is a ZigBee hub on board both of these now
the differential between these two is simply put a temperature sensor sits on
this device and there is no temperature sensor here so you can get the room
temperature from this device anytime you'd like
now the ZigBee hub that differential between this these two sides of the
table here that differential I think really sets apart these two in terms of
home automation what happens here is you can connect directly to Samsung
smartthings sensors and singled light bulbs both of those are ZigBee enabled
or ZigBee protocol all device types and so they can connect
directly to these ZigBee hubs and whereas the Google Home really doesn't
have that capability we've been told in the past that it has the capability for
z-wave protocol but that has never been enabled and we've never seen Google kind
of head down that path so as of right now there's a big differential over here
what that means is you have to buy the hubs for Samsung smartthings and for
singles light balls if you want them to work here now finally in terms of
automating your life or home automation ultimately the voice assistant is really
important and there's no comparison here these two devices have the same voice
assistant and I'm not going to say the name but that voice assistant is exactly
the same on both of these devices so nothing to really talk about here what
happens over here on the Google assistant side of things is things like
Google duplex the capabilities that this has in terms of being accurate and just
the services that Google has access to so for example the Google Finance or
Google News those different services on top of their search capability whereas
Bing is being used for search here and there's some other services being used
for stocks and things like that but ultimately the services are so complete
over here and like I said Google duplex is going to push this device so far
ahead in terms of its voice assistant that I just don't think Amazon can keep
up one other thing to talk about when we
talk about home automation the Amazon application here and I'm not going to
say that application name but that application is excellent it's just
undergone a redesign and I think they did a great job with it
having said that the redesign that Google just put out for the Google Home
application I think there's a couple of things they need to change in terms of
some settings and availability of certain things but when I
at the capability that you have with this application it is incredible right
off the main page of that application and by far this is the better
application I don't really care if I end up with an extra hub in my home what I'd
say overall is that I like the Samsung smartthings hub anyways
I like integrating that here with the Google Home and so I don't mind having
that ZigBee hub communicate with all my ZigBee devices
it was nice initially to have this capability but ultimately in the end I
don't think that makes or breaks this home automation discussion what I think
does is the accuracy and the capability of the Google assistant so ultimately in
the battle of home automation it's coming here now in terms of speaker
quality and that might be the most important thing for a lot of people here
the three devices are all capable of producing great sounds there's not a
device here that you're going to listen to and think that's no good but there is
a differential here between these two products this had a 2.5 inch woofer and
a point eight inch tweeter this has a three inch woofer an apointment 8 inch
tweeter so now the increase there gives this a much deeper sound in terms of the
bass and the lower frequencies it what I think is it rounded out this device even
more and then the capability of pairing an Echo Plus second-generation not a
first-generation with another and an Echo Sub gives you that 2.1 speaker
system that really cannot be matched over here the other thing is to my ear
overall this is a better speaker than the Google Home this is a very clear
device but when I'm just listening to music I find myself now trending towards
the Echo Plus 2nd generation now of course it always helps if you hear the
actual battle go on here so hang on let me put you through a demo
these three speakers to my ear this is the best speaker out of the three and
when you compare it or when you add it to an Echo Sub and another one of these
devices let me tell you the sound quality is excellent
one other thing to talk about in terms of audio if you wanted to connect to a
second speaker a Bluetooth speaker is available on all of these devices but
the Amazon Echo Plus both of these devices has a auxilary port on the back
so a 3.5 millimeter auxiliary port that can go out to another speaker so you
have the ability to either use this speaker or go out to another in a couple
of different methods with these Echo Plus devices whereas the Google Home
only has bluetooth capability now for most people that's just fine but if you
have kind of an older speaker with that sort of connection you have that ability
to use that with your smart home capabilities now the next discussion
around music and multimedia is really the access to different services so
right here what we have access to is Amazon music Spotify and then here in
Canada we have tune in and there's other radio services those are the services I
have here in Canada on Amazon music I know there's more in the US and there's
more capability in other countries or different services but what I found over
time is that Google is moving ahead and they're integrating more services so
Deezer is available over here pandora is available in certain countries over here
we now have YouTube music growing instead of Google Play Music it seems
like Google's maybe moving on from that but they seem to have a
you more services there the other thing is you have access to Amazon Prime video
within this system so if you had an Echo Show that Amazon Prime videos or movies
they're really that service just doesn't do it for me there's not enough on there
and there's some nice new content but I'd rather have integration with the
services that YouTube provides mainly YouTube so you can watch my video for
example on YouTube on a Google Home hub now or a Lenovo smart display so to me
just that simple integration of YouTube over here puts Google ahead in terms of
multimedia and access to music services as well so in terms of music and
multimedia what I'm finding overall is that I have access to enough over here
with the Google Home that I'm happy with it
but for those people that are real you know you really want to hear your music
and you want a full speaker system I think you're gonna want to come here I
don't see Google addressing this anytime soon and they're not really a hardware
company so overall I'm not sure if they're going to go out there and create
a bunch of subs and and other speakers and other things I think they're relying
on their partners to do a little bit of that so for for my money if you're
really looking for sound quality come here either of these two devices are
going to be great that speaker theater system the 2.1 system has not been
promised here so if you want that capability don't go out and get an old
Echo Plus first generation go for a second generation no in terms of look
and feel I think it's pretty clear that this is a pretty menacing device to be
honest you can't stick that in the middle of a room and have it not be the
center piece you can't stick it in the middle room and not have people looking
at this metallic finish here on the device and ultimately I just think it's
too big now moving down here you can see that these devices are
very similar in height they're very similar in width and ultimately they're
very similar in finish we have the cloth design on both of these Google has a
little bit more shape to their device and then they have a little bit of this
other finishing the the kind of the plastic finishing now overall when I
look at this this is starting to look a little bit dated I'm glad I could change
the colors out with some of their different accessories there but this is
starting to look a little bit dated and I think this device here looks the
best out of the three and you know the matte finishing on the top here all of
the design around this you can even tell the lights are less obtrusive basically
compared to the first generation I like the finishing of this device
entirely so for my you know from my perspective here this is the best
looking device and if I had to pick a second and be here with the Google Home
alright so there you go now the ultimate discussion is which of
these are you buying and still for my money because this is a highly highly
software based device the Google Home is still my choice I'm still gonna pick it
almost every time but what I'll tell you is from this device to this device
Amazon has made this a lot closer and again I think their voice assistant is
going to improve based on the new microphones and obviously they're
learning constantly in terms of their voice assistant and it is getting better
their access to 20,000 other smart home devices and services is unparalleled
they're still ahead of Google in that regard they have a lot to offer and this
has become very very close so I think at this point my only distinction is really
that Google assistant versus Amazon's voice assistant there and that drives me
here in the discussion so what do you guys think let me know go ahead leave
that down in the comments below if you'd if you have any other questions of
course I always answer comments from you guys so go ahead leave them below
and I'd love to get to them anytime otherwise make sure you join the channel
here guys as I go through more reviews and more demos and tutorials for how to
set these devices up in your home how to integrate them and ultimately how to
automate your life so thanks for watching everyone we'll see you next
time