
Google Home Is 6 Times More Likely to Answer Your Question Than Amazon Alexa - kbyatnal
http://www.adweek.com/digital/google-home-is-6-times-more-likely-to-answer-your-question-than-amazon-alexa/
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ChuckMcM
Back when Apple was looking over Blekko this was something we tried to point
out to them (and the Siri team). You can't dialog what you don't know.
_Indexing_ the web really helps with that because not only can you pick up a
lot of documents you can get a sense of which ones humans think are more
important than others. To this day I don't know why Apple doesn't have a
search engine team and crawler.

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dunkelheit
Apple has a crawler! [https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT204683](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204683)

Another question is why it is so low-key. I guess the answer lies in some
obscure big-org power dynamics inside Apple.

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melling
I think you need actual humans using it as a search engine to make it better.
Typos, common questions, follow up questions, etc.

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tyingq
Interesting, but no info on the set of 3000 questions. For example, maybe
Alexa is better at the top 100 most asked questions, but Google Home is better
at the long tail.

Odd that there wouldn't be more insight either there, or at the 360i site.

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giveitachance
But if one can't trust a digital marketing agency to backup a catchy headline
then who can one trust?

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amclennon
As an owner of four Echo / Echo Dots in my house, I can say that Alexa is
terrible at answering questions outside of a few common areas (weather, store
times, etc).

With that said, I think the true power of Alexa's ecosystem is it's smart
device integration. I'm sure Google will catch up soon enough, but at the
moment I feel like Alexa still has a sizable lead.

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pound
Maybe I'm an outlier, but turned out I don't care at all for asking home
assistant various questions. I have GH and my usage is mostly limited to "turn
on/off lights" and "set timer". It's just that moments like "we need to ask
what movie someone also starred at" are not really a part of any conversations
we have at home, and if we really need to look some info up we will do it
looking at screens.

Google Home being ridiculously bad at how it works doesn't help either - it
feels like it's getting worse every week. I hate it how it understands me from
fifth attempt now, I'm tired of hearing "I cannot help with that" 3/4 of the
time for the same command or just listening for a minute and then do nothing.
And it's not a matter of dusted mics. And not even starting on all that
nonsense as declaring company name many times a day as a wake word, still
absent reminders and frigging fiasco with shopping lists. Yet another "let's
start with first iteration of product and then move to something else leaving
it half-baked, because ADHD and we can"

(edited typo)

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IgorPartola
Exactly the same with my Echos.

The problem with asking these things questions when you are in a group of
people is that now the whole conversation pauses to hear the damn answer. And
then there is the 5-10 second processing time and the very slow non-
interactive answer. It's just so much more efficient to have one of the people
in the conversation whip out their phone and use Google, then say the answer
when it's ready. Especially if the answer is not "Who was the start of The
Martian" but something like "How closely was Lincoln the movie based on
historical events?"

I will say, I also use my main Echo to play music. It is really nice that way,
though song, artist, and playlist name recognition is atrocious. "Play Top
Hits" and "Play Today's Top Hits" produces completely different result. Don't
you know what I mean Amazon? Don't you know what I mean?

My kids (turning 4 soon) have figured out how to use it too, which is kinda
neat.

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giobox
> and then there is the 5 - 10 second processing time

Almost everything you've described matches my experience with the Echo
exactly, but if there is one thing that it is consistently good at for me
anyway, it's seriously low latency in responding. I've never observed anything
like 5 seconds to process my input, let alone 10. It's been way better than
Siri in this regard.

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jumpkickhit
I really don't like having to voice a query, I'd much rather type it out.

If Elon Musk sold a neuralink brain wi-fi device I'd be first in line for it.
These voice activated search devices though, pass.

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wubbfindel
Why the downvotes on this? I appreciate the thoughts. I think it's a real
shame that Google's assistant isn't available in a desktop client, that can
use either text or voice input.

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mbrookes
Here you go: [https://developers.google.com/actions/tools/web-
simulator](https://developers.google.com/actions/tools/web-simulator) Okay,
not strictly a desktop client, but the same end result.

Similar is available for Alexa.

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pishpash
Well that's not surprising. Google basically ported over Google Now, a mature
product; and Google has data. Amazon had some shopping data, and that was it.

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suyash
Exactly I'm willing to bet 5 years from now, Google Home or whatever version
of this will leave Amazon Alexa in dust.

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phinnaeus
Assuming, of course, that Google doesn't abandon the project for some reason.
Or heaven forbid, try to implement messaging.

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inthewoods
No, no - Google will instead release 3 or 4 non-compatible devices that all do
something rather similar.

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aioprisan
Without seeing the 3000 questions and what categories they fall in, I wouldn't
put too much stock into this article. I use both on a daily basis and Alexa is
far more accurate than Google Home, but again that's my use case, mostly
asking for radio stations, songs, news trivia questions and simple arithmetic.

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sna1l
I asked Google Home: "Is it cold outside?" and it responded: "Sorry, I can't
answer that yet." Seriously!?

This is the same for all of these home devices, but I have to talk to it in
such a robotic manner, and if I deviate at all it won't do what I want. It
definitely has some niceties, but a long way to go to being essential in my
life.

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euyyn
That's weird; the Assistant on the Pixel responds to that with "No, it's not
cold in Mountain View right now. The temperature right now is 29." (and shows
a weather forecast card).

~~~
haberman
I can confirm both of these results: Google Home said "Sorry, I don't know how
to help with that" and Google Assistant on my iPhone answered "No, it's not
cold in Seattle right now. The temperature right now is 66."

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euyyn
Maybe the location of the Google Home hasn't been set, via the Home app? And
so it doesn't know where it is.

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sna1l
Hmm weird, when I ask what's the weather outside, it answers correctly.

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euyyn
I haven't tried, but I think you can tell it to send feedback to the
engineers.

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dpflan
_useless comment_ : For fun, have an Alexa relay its questions to Google
Home...Fact Checking...

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twothamendment
Yes, Alexa is bad at answering random things we throw at it, but making an app
to control what I want to and how is why I love it. I don't trust Google to be
as open.

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tatfat
This headline reminds me of 80s and 90s when folks touted why <pickYourOS> was
better than windows. Ultimately, the ecosystem and network effects matter
more.

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matthewfelgate
No it's not because I don't have a Google Home.

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J_cortes
Did everyone forget GoogleTV? Amazon has a strong presence in the retail
market and my amazon kindle dx is still supported. I'm not wasting my time
with google again.

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navytank
One critical difference: GoogleTV was a platform where distribution (updates,
etc.) were owned by the TV manufacturer. Google owns the update channel on
Google Home.

It's like comparing the Pixel now to early carrier-operated Android phones.

