Google Home versus Amazon Alexa

I guess it depends on what you do. I really hated Alexa (although the voice recognition is good), I don’t use Siri for anything other than settings timers and controlling devices and that really works well.

Ofcourse a lot of devices suddenly have Homekit support because of Homey, that makes a huge difference.

Since we all use Android phones and the google assistant, the choice for Google Home and some mini’s was evident. I was impressed by the speech recognition of the Home from the start, it almost never misses a question or command and if it does it is mostly because the TV is too loud or someone doesn’t speak up hard enough. Given the fact that we all speak English very well, there was no need to have support for Dutch language. Even now we still use English.

We use Google throughout the house for switching WiFi plugs, Chrome-cast controlling, calendar, setting timers and reminders, weather info, intercom etc. I already used it in combination with Homey but the “ask homey” part was a bit unnatural. Since it’s native however, even the wife and kids are getting more used to use the Home for spoken commands to Homey to control Z-wave plugs, lights and flows.

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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.