Echo Dot 3rd Gen - very nice

[brians]

I am in process of moving from Google Home to Amazon Alexa (Of course I will keep both because never know... Google may come out with something compelling). I always thought the Echo Dot was cheap looking compared to my Google Mini, and especially the larger Google Home I have, but I bought one to test anyways. I have to admit that the blue LED is nicer than Google's tiny LEDs you can't even see but otherwide the thing is pretty ugly.

I just picked up a couple of the 3rd gen dots today. Pretty nice and far superior to the old 2nd gen dots, nicer than the Google minis and even would go as far and say is better than the larger Google Home for sound quality. I don't have a full size Amazon Echo to compare but I have even read that the new dots sound better than those.

 

Edited October 13, 2018 by brians

[asbril]

1 hour ago, brians said:

I am in process of moving from Google Home to Amazon Alexa (Of course I will keep both because never know... Google may come out with something compelling). I always thought the Echo Dot was cheap looking compared to my Google Mini, and especially the larger Google Home I have, but I bought one to test anyways. I have to admit that the blue LED is nicer than Google's tiny LEDs you can't even see but otherwide the thing is pretty ugly.

I just picked up a couple of the 3rd gen dots today. Pretty nice and far superior to the old 2nd gen dots, nicer than the Google minis and even would go as far and say is better than the larger Google Home for sound quality. I don't have a full size Amazon Echo to compare but I have even read that the new dots sound better than those.

 

Other than look and sound quality, how do they compare in usability ?

[LarryM]

Why didn’t you get the new Plus?

 

 

 

[brians]

3 hours ago, asbril said:

Other than look and sound quality, how do they compare in usability ?

Pretty much the same for basic control - turning on/off a light is no different except the trigger word (I prefer saying Alexa over Hey Google or OK Google)

Now as far as more complicated features... Google Home uses Rooms and Alexa uses Groups. There are pros and cons to each implementation and neither is perfect - you have to tweak each one to how you like. I decided for each room to place common lights (ie. main lights) in a group along with an echo dot. When I am in a room talking to that dot and say "Alexa, turn on the lights" it only turns on the ones in the group. This makes it easy to remember and doesn't affect other things in the room like lamps, fans, outlets etc. Google home Rooms work well also but are different... in some ways better but here is a problem I had in Master Bedroom: when I walk into my bedroom and say "Hey Google, turn on the lights", I don't want the ceiling fan, closet, bath fan, bath light, outlets all turning on along with the main light so the solution is to take those out of the room which sorta is contrary to idea of a room. Groups make more sense to me since they are independent of rooms. You really have to experiment with both to understand the differences.

A feature which makes Echo more attractive at this moment is its routines and now ISY portal can present pretty much anything as a device, which can trigger these Alexa routines. There is more discussion of this elsewhere. As far as using Alexa to tell me notifications, I honestly think its more of a novelty right now... realistically the odds of me being near one of my Echos when something happens and hearing it is not very high, and even if I am then there is a chance I am not paying attention and would miss understanding what it said.

More useful is making custom Alexa commands which can trigger things on ISY. If you don't have one already, I would highly recommend picking up a cheap dot version 2 (they are on sale now) to experiment with this feature so you can experience firsthand. For example, in reference to above bedroom problem: in ISY portal present a program as a switch and use spoken like "bedroom bath".  Since program is setup as a  switch, turn on runs then, turn off runs else. and program will do exactly what I want by turning on or off bath light and bath fan, and could even put some logic in the ISY program, could have play bath time music etc. Just say "Alexa turn on bedroom bath". Additionally could make an Alexa routine with a custom voice command like "Alexa I am going to have a bath" and get this routine to turn on the program switch which also runs the program then.

I use iOS. Alexa app is much nicer... Google needs to learn how to use colors other than white. But since I started using Alexa last month it seems to have evolved significantly so maybe was a good time to get into it now. I have seen the recent update Google Home app and how it shows rooms and light bulbs but it still is plain looking to me.

 

 

 

 

 

[brians]

3 hours ago, LarryM said:

Why didn’t you get the new Plus?

 

 

 

Because I don't intend on using them to playback music at all. I can buy around 3 dots for price of one Echo plus which give me more coverage to place more around the house. I only care about home automation. I don't really sit around and listen to music, but if I did then I would get a Sonos One. I am an Apple user and subscribe to Apple Music... at least with a Sonos One I could airplay to it and Sonos also supports Apple Music using Sonos app.