Why You Should Consider Two Voice Assistants for Your Home
I taught my dog French because people at the dog park yell “sit”, “stay” and “go away” so often that your dog won’t listen to you when you say it. Choosing a language or word that only your dog knows means he is more likely to hear you and respond to you above the noise of the crowd. It turns out that the same idea can make multiple voice assistants work together, rather than against each other, in your home. I’ve had Google Home running in my home for years, and I can’t count how many times a day Google and I interact to turn on the lights, start the coffee maker, water the plants, lock the doors, or turn on the heater. . I recently invited Alexa to join a party and was glad that they didn’t really get in each other’s way and ultimately made my home more efficient and comfortable.
Why You May Need Two Helpers
Typically, it makes sense to choose one ecosystem for your hubs and voice assistant. If you’re an Apple user, Homekit and Siri are for you. When it comes to Android, you have Google and Amazon , and which one you use is largely a matter of personal preference—most products that work with one will work with the other. But I’ve recently discovered a number of products that work with Alexa but not Google, such as my Brilliant wall hub, my Amazon TV, and even my Samsung TV (which, it should be noted, comes with Samsung’s “Bixby” voice assistant). “, which I didn’t like , but you can switch to Alexa).
But also, each ecosystem likes its own products, and if you change products, your hub may be less suitable. I switched from Spotify to Amazon Music a few years ago for certain reasons, and my Google voice assistant doesn’t want to help me with the transition. However, Alexa would be very happy to take on this load. It makes perfect sense to me that you could support Siri and Alexa at the same time, since many products are proprietary to Apple or Google/Amazon.
Trigger words matter
Voice assistants passively listen to a key phrase or word to take action. My robot vacuum cleaner listens to “Hey Rocky” and doesn’t accept any substitutions. Google requires “OK Google” or “Hey Google.” Alexa just needs her name: “Alexa” or “Hey Alexa.” The good news is that they won’t get confused. I never called Alexa and never heard back from Google, and vice versa. things, you can ask Google to talk to Alexa and it will prompt the assistant to ask what’s wrong or another Easter question. Alexa, on the other hand, is a master of passive aggression and will not answer and if you ask Alexa about Google and she will pretend it doesn’t exist. I find it funny. In fact, the X-factor in determining the success of multiple assistants in your home is user best practice—how well you remember how to call the right assistant.
How to distribute functions between two assistants
Given the number of brands that are now creating their own multi-system hubs, and the proliferation of standards like Matter and Thread that exist to enable pairing between hubs, there will likely be a lot of multi-system hubs in your home in the future. And in all cases, it makes sense to connect everything possible to each hub: this will provide backup in case the ecosystem or hub fails, as well as multiple ways to access these devices. The same applies to the assistants that come with these hubs. As long as they don’t interfere with each other, you can keep them separate. I call Alexa for music and TV in my home, and Google for most other things. The associated automation that each hub and assistant perform should only apply to one hub, and to be clear, I still recommend documenting the process.