Who’s lending an ear to you, always? : The Tribune India

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Who’s lending an ear to you, always?

A few weeks ago, a story hit the wires that would make everyone reconsider the wish to have a smartspeaker in the household.

Who’s lending an ear to you, always?


Vaibhav Sharma

A few weeks ago, a story hit the wires that would make everyone reconsider the wish to have a smartspeaker in the household. An Amazon Echo device recorded what was supposed to be a private conversation and sent it to a contact of the owner’s. It wasn’t a case of machines becoming sentient, but of a rarity where the Echo thought that it was being commanded to record, and misinterpreted the conversation taking place in the room as bring directed at it.

With this firmly at the back of my mind, I went to a party hosted by a friend at his home. Powering the music was an Echo connected to his music system. The end result was that anyone could shout to Alexa from across the room to play a particular track. It didn’t matter if the music was loud, it heard the voice just fine, and it didn’t matter if the track was Hindi, English or even Punjabi, the Echo could seem to play them all. Not only was this super fun, it was akin to something of a group-DJ experience. At this point, I wanted one. The compromise I was willing to make was that instead of letting these speakers remain ‘always on’ i.e. their intended state, I would only power it on when needed. For the random titbit of information like the weather, the phone is always around. But given that Apple, Google and Amazon all make smartspeakers, which is the one to get?

Amazon Echo

With Alexa integration, the company has had the early mover advantage. When it finally brought the Echo lineup to Indian shores, it ensured that the customisation was in place. The Echo has no problems picking up different accents, and also integrates local services like Uber, Ola, Zomato, etc. to its ‘skills’ package. It also allows you to set routines, for e.g. saying Good Morning Alexa, can turn out your smarthome devices.

But the biggest plus point of the Echo lineup is the 3.5 mm jack that each of these speakers features. Just connect the cheapest Echo Dot to your existing system, and it gets converted into a smartspeaker that does not compromise on sound quality. That said, if your existing system is super loud, the Dot might have some trouble picking your voice up. Overall, the Dot is great value for money at just over Rs 4,000. However, as a standalone speaker, it isn’t the best. As you pay more for different models of the Echo, the sound quality and the choice of materials correspondingly get better.

Google Home

This brings us to the Google Home Mini, which is comparable in size to the Echo Dot — but sounds much better and is also louder — at around the same price. It has an assistant inbuilt, so searching the web, checking traffic, and setting reminders are no problems. It also integrates with third-party music services, not to mention YouTube, so there is no dearth of choices. In voice recognition, Google is the leader, thus, that is no problem as well.

The company offers Google Home, which has a larger speaker and is something on which that you could consider listening music to for longer periods. The Google Home Max isn’t available in India yet, but is a powerhouse that packs enough base to fill a room. Overall, the Mini is great as a toy that kids would have fun playing with. The entire lineup misses out on a 3.5 mm audio out port, but can stream to other speakers via bluetooth.

Apple Homepod

Apple’s late to the game, and despite that its smartspeaker is the hardest to recommend. The company has focused on audio quality and that shows, the speaker is not that much bigger than the Google Home, but delivers far superior sound. Infact, if volume isn’t the only consideration, even the Google Home Max, despite its size, has a hard time competing. That said, it’s the ‘smart’ part that is the challenge. First, it only supports Apple Music, so if you aren’t a subscriber already, you’ll need to buy a subscription. Next, it only works with Apple devices, so there is no playback over bluetooth. If you want to use Wynk or Gaana, you can stream them over from your iPhone via AirPlay, but you won’t be able to search them via your voice.

You can connect two HomePods to act like a pair of stereo speakers, and they sound fantastic, but you’ve already spent close to Rs 50,000 by then, and there are quite lot of options in that price bracket.

Overall, the HomePod is strictly for those already deep in the Apple ecosystem and used to Siri’s limitations.

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