Which Smart Speaker Is Best For You?

Amazon Echo and Google Home have devices in several sizes, prices

by Marc Saltzman, AARP, October 11, 2019

Amazon

En español | So you've decided to buy your first — or next — smart speaker.

After all, you love that you can use your voice to ask a question and instantly get an answer from a friendly human-sounding voice. From timers and recipes to directions and traffic to sports scores, news and music playback, you appreciate the value of an always-on virtual assistant.

And hey, it's also cool to ask to turn on the lights or turn down the temperature, and it just works.

For you, the question isn't whether you should buy a smart speaker but rather which one.

As you likely know, you've got three main decisions today: Amazon Echo powered by Alexa, Apple HomePod with built-in Siri and Google Home featuring Google Assistant.

With Amazon and Google, you can go with a small and inexpensive speaker or all the way up to a larger and costlier one and even choose from a few “smart” displays that also have a screen and usually a camera. More on these shortly.

The bigger the speaker, the louder and better the sound quality. If you use it primarily for music, you may want to consider investing in a larger model to fill the room with full audio.

The microphones on all of them are fairly sensitive, so they should be able to pick up your voice well. Deciding among Amazon, Apple and Google boils down to personal preference and budget, though Apple makes only a premium device.

So many options make it easy to be overwhelmed, so here is a look at what's available from each camp.

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Amazon Echo

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PHOTO BY: Amazon

Amazon Echo Dot, $49.99

About the size of a hockey puck, these entry-level smart speakers can be placed just about anywhere providing you have an outlet with alternating current, better known as AC.

They're not big on sound, so they're ideal for smaller rooms, though you can connect them to a larger speaker, such as a soundbar, via Bluetooth or with a cable.

Some people with limited mobility place them in bedrooms or bathrooms, so in case of a fall they can ask to call 911.

The third-generation Dot, the newest, comes in four colors: charcoal, heather gray, plum and sandstone. And if you want to spend $10 more, you can get a sandstone Dot with an LED clock that glows through the fabric on its front.
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PHOTO BY: Amazon

Amazon Echo, $99.99

Amazon's best-selling middle-of-the-road device is taller than an Echo Dot and offers better sound quality.

It's especially good for music lovers thanks to Dolby processing and is great for larger spaces like living rooms, family rooms and other communal spaces. You can choose one that best matches your decor because the third generation is available in four colors: charcoal, heather gray, sandstone and twilight blue.
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PHOTO BY: Michael Wapp / Alamy Stock Photo

Amazon Alexa Echo Plus on a wooden table with green plants in the background

Amazon Echo Plus, $149.99

This premium speaker offers louder and clearer audio, powered by Dolby, and supports 360-degree audio with crisp highs, punchy mids and deep low-end bass.

You can pair it with a second Echo Plus for stereo sound. This speaker, which looks a lot like the regular Echo, also has a built-in Zigbee hub to easily set up and control other smart home devices that use that platform.

By the way, Zigbee is one of many wireless standards that allow compatible smart home devices to communicate with one another and back to a control system. Devices such as door locks, lights, sensors, switches and even window shades that use different platforms don't make it easy for you to control them in one place, just like you couldn't buy a Sony Betamax videotape and expect it to play in a VHS player.

The Echo Plus comes in three colors: charcoal, heather gray and sandstone.
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PHOTO BY: Amazon

Amazon Echo Show 5, $89.99

Often discounted to $60-odd dollars, Amazon's flagship smart display doesn't just tell you answers to your questions; you also can see complementary information on its 5.5-inch touchscreen as well.

Or heck, you can just ask it to play cat videos. An integrated camera means you can video-call friends and relatives who have the Alexa app, an Echo device with a screen or Skype.

It's available in charcoal, which has a black frame around the video screen, or sandstone, which frames the screen in white.

Amazon also offers other smart displays, including a smaller and more circular Echo Spot Smart Alarm Clock, $129.99; the original Echo Show with a 10.1-inch high-definition screen, $229.99; and a Fire HD 10 Tablet with Alexa, $149.99 for 32 gigabytes of internal storage.

Apple

Alex MacDonald / Alamy Stock Photo

Apple HomePod, $299

Apple's first and only smart speaker — which sounds great, by the way — has a built-in Siri personal assistant for handling questions and controlling compatible smart home devices that work with the Apple HomeKit platform.

If you have a subscription, streaming from Apple Music is the easiest thing to pull off, but you can use another device such as an iPhone to stream other services, such as Spotify. Those services just won't respond to voice activation.

Apple HomePod is available in space gray or white.

Google Home

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PHOTO BY: Stephan Melzer / Alamy Stock Photo

Google Home Mini, $49

About the size of a doughnut, the entry-level Google Home gives you hands-free answers to all your questions — even in tight quarters.

Hear the news, translate languages, book a flight and a car to the airport, and control your smart home — all by using your voice. As with many other speakers, it can even distinguish your voice from others in your home for a truly personalized experience.

Four colors to choose from: aqua, chalk, charcoal and coral.
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PHOTO BY: Olly Curtis/Future via Getty Images

Google Home, $99

Because of its fuller sound, the main Google Home speaker is better for music fans or for those who want or need louder sound.

And as with others in the family, your trusty Google Assistant will be at your beck and call, ready to answer questions or control your compatible smart home devices.

The top of the Google Home device is white, and a white slate base, similar in color to the Mini's chalk color, comes standard. But you can buy a coral fabric base to swap in for $20 more or a carbon black metal or copper base for $40 more.
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PHOTO BY: Bloomberg / Getty Images

Google Home Max, $299

This much larger speaker, which can be propped up vertically or lain horizontally, is the loudest and best-sounding Google Home speaker of the bunch.

Therefore, it's for true music lovers. It will fill even the biggest room in your home, plus it uses machine learning to automatically adjust the equalizer settings to match the acoustics of your room.

Two fabric colors, chalk and charcoal, are available.
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PHOTO BY: Bloomberg / Getty Images

Google Nest Hub, $129

Google's best-selling smart display features a 7-inch high-definition touch screen.

Ask it to show your Google Photos, recipes, or YouTube videos, album artwork when playing music, or calendar entries, sports scores, stock prices and weather. Ask questions or control more than a thousand compatible devices with your voice — and see them all organized by room in a single dashboard.

This smart display has no camera to make calls, but it comes in four colors: aqua, chalk, charcoal and sand.
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PHOTO BY: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Google Nest Hub Max, $229

It includes everything in the regular Nest Hub on a larger 10-inch screen and adds a video camera and stereo speakers.

It does have fewer colors: chalk and charcoal.

You really can't go wrong with any of these smart speakers or smart displays, but your choice boils down to budget, room size and the comfort level you have with each variety of voice assistant.