Echo vs nest: Which is better right now?

Which is better right now?

Google’s first smart speaker, the Home, was released in 2016. At launch, many people were disappointed with its capabilities versus the Amazon Echo. With subsequent speakers though Google has made a huge number of improvements, including better audio quality, ever-growing smart home control, and the option of smart displays.

Things have changed so much that Google Home is now a platform, not a device. All of Google’s speakers and displays are now the under the Google Nest brand, which also includes things like doorbells and thermostats.

Amazon hasn’t kept its arms crossed of course, so the Amazon Echo vs Google Nest battle rages on. Keep in mind this is just a general comparison of different Echo and Nest products, meant to help you decide which ones might suit you personally.

Amazon Echo vs Google Nest: Aesthetics

Google Nest

Adam Molina / Android Authority

Looks may not matter much with speakers and displays, but they’re not irrelevant. Google tends to stick with minimalist designs, perhaps best illustrated by the Nest Audio (above). They also tend to have more color options ― newer Nest devices can come in colors like blue, pink, green, and orange, depending on the model, which can go a long way towards blending in with décor.

Google tends to stick with minimalist designs.

Nothing is too flashy, which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on your tastes. In fact there are often few buttons or switches on most Google Nest devices, and the Nest Audio and Nest Mini hide everything but their mute switch using touch-sensitive surfaces. Otherwise you’re expected to use apps and your voice, or sometimes a touchscreen in the case of Nest Hub displays. All Nest products use lighting and animation to ensure you know what’s going on.

Overall we think Google Nest designs are the most elegant, though some people might prefer something more futuristic to show off.

Amazon Echo

Adam Molina / Android Authority

So how do Echo products stack up, visually? It depends on which of the company’s many models you get, but Amazon tends toward the flashier side. Newer Echo speakers come in spherical shapes, which make them pop wherever you place them, and those light rings are nothing close to discrete.

As for displays, the Echo Show 5 and 8 sport a relatively modest “alarm clock” look, but the Echo Show 10 is a pivoting screen on a cylinder, and the Echo Show 15 (below) is a wall- or stand-mounted product built to be a home hub. The 10 and 15 are sleek in their own ways, but conspicuous no matter where you move them.

Amazon

Amazon Echo vs Google Nest: Music and entertainment

A more important point in the Amazon Echo vs Google Nest matchup is the music and entertainment options available. While both platforms can stream major services, there can be conspicuous gaps depending on which direction you go.

When it comes to audio, Google plays nicely with services like YouTube Music, Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Deezer, and more. Of course, Amazon drops YouTube Music in favor of Prime Music and Music Unlimited, but thankfully Echo devices also support the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, iHeartRadio, Sirius XM, and others.

There is a growing gap in speaker quality when you compare equivalent models. The Nest Mini doesn’t sound as good as a 5th gen Echo Dot, for instance, and the 4th gen Echo gets louder than a Nest Audio. There’s no Google equivalent at all for the high-end Echo Studio. Even so, we still love the Nest Audio, and if you want to fill your whole home with music, both platforms allow you to group speakers and/or create stereo pairs.

A problem both ecosystems still suffer from is sometimes being unable to hear keywords when playing media. This is a difficult issue to solve, and both Amazon and Google have made continual efforts to improve. You can usually make yourself understood by getting closer to a speaker and/or shouting.

Nest Hubs not only have Netflix, YouTube, and other apps, but support for any mobile app with Google Cast.

Both Google Nest and Amazon Echo devices can control TV platforms without a remote, using technologies like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Google Cast, or Miracast. The technology works best with first-party streamers such as the Chromecast and Fire TV Cube, or TVs based on Google TV or Amazon’s Fire TV. Google Cast is almost universally supported though, so Google has the edge in this area.

Both Google Nest and Amazon Echo have non-streaming entertainment options like games, jokes, and singing songs. Most of the games aren’t anything to write home about, mind, and the jokes and songs are just meant for quick fun. You can safely ignore these when shopping.

More critical for some people will be video support on smart displays. Echo Shows come with a small selection of pre-installed apps such as Netflix and Prime Video. If you want to watch something like YouTube, you’ll normally have to do it through a web browser unless you have an Echo Show 15, which supports native Fire TV software. Nest Hubs not only have a bunch of pre-installed apps, YouTube among them, but support for any mobile app with Google Cast, which is a massive collection at this point.

Amazon Echo vs Google Nest: Personal assistants

If you want to use your device for more practical things, Google Nest and Amazon Echo have many similar features. They can both, say, tell you the weather forecast or where a nearby business is located, though Google enables more flexibility on the second point. If you ask follow-up questions, Assistant can give you travel times for multiple modes of transportation.

In each case news can be fetched from various sources, such as NPR in the US. You can additionally get updates on sports scores, and ask general information questions, such as the distance to the Moon or who the current Canadian Prime Minister is.

We will say that Google has the upper hand in this department, simply because it can scrape the entirety of its famous search engine. Whereas Amazon depends on major sources like Wikipedia or IMDb (the latter being an Amazon property), Google can go beyond if a question is too obscure. The only drawback is that this can sometimes produce odd results.

Nanoleaf

One of the biggest benefits of a digital assistant is controlling smart home accessories such as smart lights. Both Amazon Echo and Google Nest can link with brands like Philips Hue, Ecobee, and Nanoleaf. You can control accessories individually or in groups, and often automate them to the point you don’t have to lift a finger. Direct voice control still involves repeating yourself occasionally, but it’s worth it when you can turn on lights and air conditioning while holding a heavy bag of groceries.

Both Amazon Echo and Google Nest can link with brands like Philips Hue, Ecobee, and Nanoleaf.

When it comes to productivity, Google Nest tends to be limited to first-party services, such as Google Calendar for events, and Google Duo for most calls, though you can also use Zoom on the Nest Hub Max. Amazon is a bit better at third-party support. That includes Amazon, Skype, and Zoom for calls, and direct links with Apple, Google, and Microsoft calendars. Both assistants work fantastically for things involving your kitchen, like timers and (on smart displays) recipes.

In 2023, Amazon and Google each allow multiple profiles on a single device, enabling personalized data such as separate calendars and music accounts. If you’re an avid Amazon shopper, Alexa devices definitely have a leg up. You can not only order with your voice, but get personalized shipping and delivery notifications.

Both platforms identify users via voice, and on smart displays with cameras, their faces. While there are privacy concerns, both Amazon and Google promise that facial recognition is handled entirely on-device, so no data has to be sent to the cloud when you sign in that way.

Amazon Echo vs Google Nest: Smart home support

Strictly speaking Amazon Alexa tends to have a greater range of compatible smart home accessories, but most products that support Alexa also support Google Home. The companies have even become a little nicer about supporting each other’s lineups in recent months, though Amazon’s Ring products are best used with Alexa, and Google Nest accessories are best with Home. You may not be able to exploit all features otherwise.

These compatibility issues should hopefully become moot in the future thanks to Matter, a recently-launched networking protocol. The tech allows accessories to work on any platform so long as they have the Matter label. It’s going to take time to roll out necessary updates, and things like security cameras aren’t supported yet, but expect the 2024 smart home market to be radically different. Amazon and Google have already added Matter to their most recent speakers and displays.

Amazon Echo vs Google Nest: Verdict

Which reigns supreme? It might sound like a cop-out, but the answer depends on your specific needs and preferences. Both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses, so it’s really a question of what you value and what you can put up with.

It’s important to think in terms of platforms instead of specific hardware. Many of us, especially Android users, rely heavily on Google services and Google Assistant, which can make integrated hardware naturally appealing. On the other hand, some are very invested in the Amazon ecosystem, particularly people who exploit their Prime membership for frequent shipping or services like Prime Video and Prime Music.

It’s important to think in terms of platforms instead of individual speakers and displays.

It’s possible to combine multiple platforms in the same home, but that should be avoided whenever possible. You have to double the time you spend on software setup, and it can get confusing remembering where devices are located, which accessories they control, and what services they support. That’s especially true if you have guests or family that are unfamiliar with smart home concepts.

If you want to experiment, you might try buying both an Echo Dot and a Nest Mini. Neither costs very much, so it won’t set you back, and you can test how Amazon and Google’s platforms fit into a real-world lifestyle. 

Amazon Echo vs. Google Nest: Which Smart Speaker Is Best?

The Amazon Echo and Google Nest Audio aren’t just speakers, they’re platforms. While their physical hardware doesn’t get updated very often, the services that power them—Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant—are in a constant state of change. When you choose an Echo or a Nest, you’re choosing one of those voice assistant ecosystems.

The speakers themselves don’t make that choice any easier, because both are quite good; the Echo has been our Editors’ Choice winner for a long time, but the Nest Audio is a close runner-up. The Echo’s bass is a bit better and Alexa can use multiple wake words, but the Nest Audio sounds quite clear and Google Assistant is easier to talk to thanks to more flexible natural language recognition. In the sub-$50 price range, the Echo Dot has a clear edge over the Nest Mini in audio quality, but even those two smaller speakers work well for what they are and offer the same choice between voice assistants.

So, which smart speaker is right for you? Let’s break down the most important aspects to help you decide.

Alexa vs. Google Assistant

Amazon Echo

Both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have developed into excellent voice assistants, and now largely function very similarly to one another. Either assistant can answer questions, control smart home devices, and even check your calendar and email (unless you use G Suite for your work schedule and mail; Google Assistant still doesn’t work with it).

Alexa has an edge with third-party functionality, thanks to thousands of different skills that can do everything from order pizza to read a bedtime story. It tends to require very specific syntax, though, especially when activating and using most of those skills. It makes Alexa a bit hard to talk to unless you get used to phrasing requests how Alexa wants to receive them.

Google Assistant doesn’t have nearly as many third-party plug-ins, but it’s much easier to talk to. It can understand different requests more easily than Alexa, and that’s very appealing.

PCMag’s Angela Moscaritolo illustrated this point in her review of the second-gen Nest Hub smart display:

“At night, I just say, ‘Hey Google, turn off my bedroom lights,’ and the room goes dark,” she wrote. “When I give Alexa that same command, the virtual assistant responds with, ‘A few things share the name ‘my bedroom lights,’ which one did you want?’ When I say, ‘All of them,’ Alexa asks, ‘Did you mean my home?’ After this I reply, ‘Yes,’ before Alexa says, ‘OK,’ and does nothing.” 

Alexa leans heavily on Wikipedia for general knowledge queries, while Google’s search is more comprehensive. One area Alexa beats Google, predictably, is in shopping-related queries—Alexa really wants to help you buy things from Amazon.

Google Nest Audio

Both can do things like spell words, set timers, and read you the news. Google Assistant is more conversational: It will often remember what you were talking about or let you carry ideas throughout a conversation. For instance, if you ask, “Who was the leading actor in Taken?,” you can follow up with, “What other movies was he in?”

The Echo has multiple wake word options, but only one female voice. You can alert it with “Alexa,” “Amazon,” “Echo,” or “Computer.” The Google Home only has one wake word option, “Hey Google,” but it has both male and female voices.

Which Smart Speaker Will Look Best In Your Home?

Amazon Echo Studio

Do you like spheres, or do you like rounded rectangles? The Echo and smaller Echo Dot are orbs after their most recent redesign, abandoning the cylinder shape of the past. The Echo Dot also has a version with a built-in clock, which both looks nice and is very useful. The Nest Audio, meanwhile, is shaped vaguely like a pillow standing on its end, while the tiny Nest Mini is more like a puck.

Whether you have light or dark decor, either speaker line will have something complementary. The Echo and Echo Dot are both available in black, blue, or white versions; the Nest Audio comes in black, blue, green, salmon, or white, while the Nest Mini has black, blue, salmon, and white models.

The larger Echo Studio is the most limited, style-wise. The keg-shaped smart speaker only comes in a grayish black.

How Do Smart Speakers Sound?

Google Nest Mini
(Photo: Zlata Ivelva)

The discontinued Google Home Max was easily the loudest first-party smart speaker out there, but it’s no longer available. Now, the Echo Studio is by far the strongest in terms of sound quality, with powerful audio and the ability to fill a room with directional sound thanks to its angled drivers.

For the midrange models, the Echo and Nest Audio sound similar, with generally good audio quality that can easily fill a room. The Nest Audio lacks a bit of bass, while the Echo doesn’t have much treble finesse, but both still offer high-quality sound considering their size and price.

Stepping down from those models, the Echo Dot has a bit of an edge over the Nest Mini, which has fairly weak bass and midrange. Of course, these smaller speakers are much more suitable for nightstands and desks than serving as a room’s main audio device.

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Both platforms support a small handful of third-party music services, plus their own; Echoes integrate with Amazon Music, Nests work with YouTube Music, and both play well with Apple Music, Pandora, and Spotify. Of course, you can also connect your phone to any of these speakers via Bluetooth and stream whatever you want directly.

Echo vs. Nest Smart Home Integration

Both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant let you control smart lights, smart locks, and smart thermostats.

The smart home brand gap between Alexa and Google Assistant has closed, and almost all major third-party smart home device manufacturers work with both. However, Blink and Ring are owned by Amazon, so their devices only work with Alexa. While Nest is owned by Google, Nest thermostats and cameras still work with Alexa.

Both Alexa and Google Assistant let you combine your devices into rooms, so you can say commands like, “turn on the living room lights.” They both also support Routines, which let you combine multiple actions into one command.

The Echo and Nest speakers both link up to TVs using their associated streaming sticks. If you buy a Chromecast or a Fire TV Stick, you can tell them to open Hulu or play a show. Several smart TVs, including models from Roku, can be set up to be directly controlled by either voice assistant.

The Best Smart Speaker for You

Amazon Echo Dot

Both voice assistants are neck and neck, though we give Google Assistant a slight edge thanks to its better natural language recognition. It doesn’t have the number of third-party skills Alexa does, but it’s still robust, and easier to talk to.

For pure audio, Amazon has superior sound with its larger and smaller speaker options, as the Echo Dot sounds better than the Nest Mini, and the Echo Studio no longer has any competition from Google in the form of the Home Max. The midrange speakers, the Echo and the Nest Audio, are similar enough that we put them on equal footing.

The best smart speaker for you ultimately depends on what you plan to use it for. If you want a voice assistant that’s easy to talk to, a Nest speaker will be better. If you want the best sound quality, go with an Echo. And, of course, any smart home devices you already use should be factored into your decision.

Finally, if it’s a smart display you’re after, head over to our story on the Amazon Echo Show vs. Google Nest Hub.

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Wasp’s nest against Georgia

Georgia is seething again. After a short break, the square in front of the parliament is again filled with protesters demanding the resignation of the prime minister.

There is a feeling of constant, enduring deja vu, and this is very bad – in the last nine years, without exception, all protest actions ended in nothing. The model has always been the same: some resonant event that caused a storm of general indignation, and thousands of citizens who spontaneously took to the streets. Enthusiasm, pride in the high level of self-awareness on the part of the active part of society, the belief that “the regime is in its death throes and soon it will end”…

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The cross approach of the “Georgian Dream”

However, in the following days, everything unfolds far from being so rosy – activity drops, and a week later we see a picture that is an indicator of defeat: a rally continues in front of the parliament building, and cars drive along the roadway. If you are holding a protest action and there are so few of you that you cannot block traffic, as they say, take your overcoat and go home.

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Without exception, all protest actions in Georgia lack the main thing – mass character. Not to say that they are not crowded – not at all, from time to time quite an impressive number of people gather for them. But, given the complexity of the task – a peaceful change of power, this number is not enough.

Many advocates of an immediate revolution often recall the saying about the 2% of the active population who carry out the revolution. At the same time, they completely forget the second part of this phrase – “with the tacit consent of 90% of the population.” But the trouble with this is that the opposition does not have 90% support, and even the most anti-government polls show this.

Will it be different now? Will civil society and the opposition succeed this time? Doubtful, though never say never.

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Who is responsible for the death of Lexo Lashkarava?

The authorities still use the same hackneyed argument – ​​“Misha will come”… In fact, this slogan has become outdated many years ago, but it gives legitimation to the supporters of the authorities. So that they can vote for jerks and pests, without being embarrassed to look at themselves in the mirror after that. Through simple auto-training, they convince themselves that they are voting for power solely so that “Misha does not return.”

In fact, the main voter of Mechta is the administrative resource, an unprincipled swamp that doesn’t give a damn about Misha, or Bidzina, or anything in the world, except for their worthless work and beggarly wages… But, of course, no one will admit to such things loves – for these cases, the immortal slogan “Misha is coming!”

However, being a participant in the protest action that took place on Sunday, I consider it wrong to focus on the political side of the issue. I also consider shameful the behavior of almost all opposition leaders, including Mikheil Saakashvili, who, in their statements, lay the main responsibility on the prime minister and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but at the same time carefully avoid an unfavorable topic for them – the role of the church in the events.

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“Georgian Dream” turned to the coup

This is simply outrageous – the organized criminal group of the GOC has crossed all norms and boundaries, practically officially organized and led the most shameful pogroms for the country, and politicians are still trying to avoid sharp corners and ignore that it is the patriarchy, and not the stupid and incompetent government, that is the main culprit of the absurdity in which the country has found itself in recent days.

The Church has almost announced the beginning of a completely new era – “after Ilia II”. The patriarch, who has always been an ideal cover for the fascist essence of the GOC, is still alive, although not to say that he is very healthy, but in fact, decisions in this mafia group are already made by others.

Today, the time has come for younger, fanged, vicious, devoid of even that ostentatious virtue that the still acting patriarch has. All the formalities and annoying little things like the Christian teaching “love your neighbor” and “thou shalt not kill” are thrown aside as superfluous. The new leadership clearly demonstrates that they will beat if it is necessary to kill and try to return the country to complete subjugation.

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From pulpit to politics

The Institute, which has been strangling Georgia for the past 1600 years, does not intend to go into the shadows and do its own thing – to read prayers and bow down… And if until recently they were the same pogromists, agents of a hostile country and corrupt officials, but on voluntary In the beginning, now the masks have been thrown off…

The GOC is the only institution in Georgia that has not changed a single gram in 1500 years. Do you want to know the real, and not invented, history of your country, how it was governed and what were the morals of the elite? Well, there is nothing easier – look at the GOC and imagine it 300 years ago, without TV, without public opinion, without the international community, without the Internet… Complete and absolute darkness.

The GOC deprived Georgia of a thousand-year pre-Christian epoch – we know practically nothing about how our ancestors lived before the 4th century, all signs of the pagan epoch were mercilessly destroyed, temples were destroyed, and references in history were erased.

With fire, sword and propaganda, the GOC convinced its own population that it was the basis of the Georgian national identity, although in fact it roughly appropriated this identity for itself and continues to do so now.

Any attempt by would-be oppositionists to wriggle out of clear and unambiguous assessments, to shift all accents towards the government and not to spoil relations with the clergy, is an absolutely unacceptable moral compromise. If now, still in opposition, not burdened with the need to make decisions, they are afraid of worsening relations with priests, what will happen if they come to power? Elections must be won all the time, almost once a year…

At the heart of this primordial fear is a national misconception that the position of the GOC can be decisive in voting. 90% authority of the GOC is a fake, a ritual, a tribute to the traditions of the past, nothing more. Priesthood has no real impact on the everyday life of citizens – which, in fact, was the reason for such incredible anger.

It’s time for the Georgian political class to finally understand this – the decisive factors for winning the elections in Georgia are administrative resources, money, propaganda, compromising materials, indifference of the population, etc. In this list, the position of the GOC is one of the last places …

The events of July 5 clearly showed what, in theory, should have been clear to all sane citizens: there will be no real, lasting progress in Georgia until this hornet’s nest is either uprooted or rendered harmless…

The opinions expressed in the “Position” and “Blogs” sections reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the editors
Echo World Guide