Google Home versus Amazon Alexa

Thanks all, I have decided to buy a Google Home. It works great. Voice recognition is really great! Need to find a a few things how it is working like, when I say turn all the lights off (my variable in BL will not go to Lamps = NO)?? Any tips :slight_smile:

once you have synced homey to Google assistant be sure to rename rooms as well as devices. Each device in GA can also have a nick name.

The trick is to never give a device the same name as a room.

eg if your room is called Kitchen, if you have a device called kitchen light it gets confused when you say things like turn off lights in kitchen because it will turn off all devices it thinks is lights in the room “kitchen”.

I’m still figuring out a lot of this but I think it’s better to not called any device a “light” even if it is one. In any case you can rename them in Google home app independent of Homey

Ok, Will keep that in mind. I have the problem that my light go on based on the LUX. Then a variable will be set in Better Logic to (Lights=YES). Normally when I press a button (to switch of the lights) then a workflow will be started and switch off the lights and also change the Lights var to NO). But now I can tell to Google Home that the lights in the living room need to be off. This works great. But my Better Logic var Lights is not changed. I would like (if possible) that the Google Home can trigger my flow. But I don’t think that is possible… yet:)

The big or ultimate question is can homey adress devices in alexa ? Homey cant address devices in google , only via an odd way , one google home telling the other what do do via the google tts app.

Nope pro google

Sorry what do you mean by ‘address devices’?

I use Google Home in combination with Homey. The collaboration was always a bit chunky. But now, after the update it really works fine. Sometimes Google Home responds in English. I use Google Home to operate various items en Homey to control and adapt these items as function of time and/or environmental parameters. It really works comfortably!

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Control it

It can, you can track the progress of controlling Alexa Devices from Homey Here :

i mean control devices paired to alexa , controlling is something different as letting talk. controllingis not possible with google home

As did I, It is possible to control Alexa Smart Home Devices, such as lights or plugs (or a Diffuser) - from Homey.

what do you mean? I can ask Google to control zwave devices linked to homey

I think you can use a trigger card for a flow “the lights is turned off” (or on). If you use this trigger to set you’re Better Logic variable, you should be fine. And then you can remove this from the flow used when activating a switch, the Better logic value should be in sync with the light automagically. So also when google turns the light on or off the better logic value is changed

That won’t work in combination with Google assistant.

Why not? I think it does…

Hi there. I’m thinking about buying a vocal assistant but not sure wich one. I’ve read this topic and i’m still a bit confused about what can be done.

Here what i want:

  • tell the assistant to launch a flow
  • control devices (zwave/rfcom) with the assistant
  • ask the assistant for device status (ie: “is the front door open?” “what’s the bathroom temperature?”)

Does Echo or GHome do that? What are the supported languages?

Thanks.

Hello,

I know this answer comes very late.

Having the 2 assistants, I can answer some of your questions.
Going through Homey, regardless of the protocol initially used by the device, the connection between the assistant and Homey is made by wifi.
Homey will manage directly with the device concerned according to its own protocol.
The devices managed by Homey appear in both wizards with a few differences:

  • Somfy RTS protocol section: only appear on google home.
    (They can be added on the Amazon Assistant with the Virtual Device application)
  • Fibaro Motion Sensor only appears on Amazon assistant to restore the temperature measurement.

The Alexa application in Homey allows me to add Echo devices and the devices connected to them (for example I have eHomeLife wifi sockets that cannot be directly associated with Homey, this application still allows me to add them in Homey and to integrate them into my flows.

I cannot respond to start the feeds verbally because I never do.

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I bought both of them. I used to use Google Home. It is compatible with Spotify so that I can directly listen to Spotify Music on Google Home. Now, I am using Amazon Music, but Google Home doesn’t support Amazon. So I bought Amazon Alexa. Choose one of them to your requirements.

I use all 3 Google / Alexa / Siri
For me…
Siri is only nice with apple devices
Alexa i use from the beginning and i like, but in my feeling the last time alexa goes down from the performance
Google i start end of last year and i realy like to ask some :wink:

At the end the most of my hardware works best with alexa.
Example Denon Heos, they wrote that all work with but in trues only alexa works today fully. If you combine 2 speakers as stereo you can access in via alexa to the pair. in Siri or Google this dont work today. but Denon work on a update sinces month…
But this is a denon problem. Good Hadware bad software.
Example how denon work:
i order the new soundbar Home 550 and 2x Home 250 as surrounder.
But it is not possible to add the 250 to the configuartion. In the help documentation it is writte. After 2 hours of test i call denon. Answer on the telefone. No this dont work today. And the update will come April. grrr and they work on a update for alexa and google too. but no releasedate …

I use Google Home cuz it is easy to connect Spotify to Google Home to listen to music. And it is also simple to use voice commands to ask Google assistant to control the music playback.

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