With Apple confirming that it will start taking pre-orders for its HomePod from January 26, the battle lines are firmly drawn. Amazon with its Alexa got a head start while Google since October 30 - the day it officially launched Google Home - has sold over 6 million units. Apple's entry is set to spice up the market and Tim Cook and his crew might just have another ace up their sleeves. As far as specs, price, features go, here's how HomePod stacks up against Amazon Alexa and Google Home:
Design
Amazon Echo comes in a cylindrical shape and is 5.9-inch tall. You can get them in six fabrics and finishes and the top of the speaker has a light ring which can be used to adjust volume.
Google Home is 5.6-inch tall and also offers six colour and metal shells. The top is slightly sloped and has a touch-capacitive display, four LEDs that give visual feedback. It also has a mute button at the back.
Apple's HomePod stands tall - literally - over its rivals and measures at 6.8-inch. Unlike its rivals, HomePod has bulbous shape and only offers two colours - space grey and white.
Voice Assistants
Siri, Apple's trusted vocal lieutenant finds sanctuary in the HomePod and works like it does on other Apple devices. You can instruct smart home devices, control music or ask questions like 'who's the guitarist' in a particular song. That's not all, one can send messages, play podcasts, check the news weather, et al. Apple's SiriKit offers third-party app support which will enable a host of other apps to work with the HomePod.
Google Home utilises the search giant's Assistant smartly and is more 'conversational'. You can ask all sort of questions and the Assistant is armed with all the answers. It works similarly to how it does on Android devices and will soon be capable of adding multiple users.
Amazon's Alexa plays music, tells you sports scores, weather and also get information from Bing search. Amazon Prime users can order products which they have ordered before.
Smart Home
0 comments:
Post a Comment