Alexa, the most popular voice assistant
From Alexa We could say that it is about the most popular voice assistant out of all there is. A product that was inspired by the voice on board the Star Trek ship and the Alexandria library itself, by all the knowledge it hides, and that little by little has been put into millions of homes around the world.
However, its popularity does not mean that everyone is betting on it. There are other proposals like those of Google or Apple that stand up. And that to get a compatible product, such as the Amazon Echo, is very easy due to the aggressive offers that the company launches during days such as Prime Day or Black Friday that put prices almost to the ground.
Even so the advantages of Alexa are clear. It offers compatibility with a large number of devices of all types and prices. Also the possibility of using a more natural and less robotic language at the structure level so that it understands you, integration with a multitude of services, the possibility of controlling the reproduction of music with your voice and an ease of configuration of routines and various devices at the same time. time thanks to their skills among other aspects.
This is why Amazon’s Alexa is so efficient and highly valued. Because it does not limit as much as Siri for its exclusivity in Apple products and it is more agile than Google Assistant for the control of the connected home.
Google Assistant is smarter
Google Assistant could be the great rival of Alexa if in terms of control of connected devices were more effective. It is not that it is bad, it offers a multitude of options and the integration into the most used operating system today (Android) gives it advantages. But even being smarter when answering certain questions, it is not so acute for home automation.
That is the main handicap of Assistant, because the number of compatible devices is very wide as well. Although users of iOS and other Apple systems prefer to bet on Alexa rather than the Google option. And that also counts for its expansion.
Siri, Apple’s assistant
Finally is Siri, Apple’s voice assistant was created in 2007But it was not the company itself but Dag Kittlaus. This was Siri’s real father, the one responsible for bringing him to life and attracting so much Apple’s attention when he hit the App Store that the Cupertino company ended up buying him for $ 200 million.
Since then Apple has been working on it, but never without the necessary determination and resources. Today in recent devices such as the iPhone 13 and its Apple A15 Bionic chip has improved by making many requests locally and not through servers, but it has some shortcomings or limitations that slow it down.
The most important is that sCan only be used on Apple products. That is, the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, and HomePod are the only ones with Siri integration. That’s fine if you decide to also bet on HomeKit, but if someone in the family has an Android terminal … what does he do?
Well, exactly, the solution is to use another assistant and that is where Alexa takes advantage of it as a more neutral solution. Additionally, Siri supports fewer devices by requiring HomeKit support. We will see if indeed with the arrival of Matter all this changes.
Alexa vs Siri vs Google Assistant, which is better?
It is not easy to answer this question, because it depends a lot on the type of use that each one gives it. If we limit ourselves to the use of the connected home, Alexa is much more efficient, easy to manage and with multiple options when installing new skills or routines.
However, in matters of privacy wins Siri definitely. Meanwhile, in matters of intelligence, win Google Assistant. Your ability to understand and answer all kinds of questions is greater by taking advantage of the company’s powerful search engine. Of course, it fails at basic things like controlling more frequently connected devices.
However, being independent of an operating system and device makes Alexa have that real cross-platform solution point. There is the true value of Alexa, it does not tie you to a specific operating system or product. So as an investment it gives much more play now and in the future. Therefore, for us, it is the most attractive option.
Alexa’s true rival: the smartphone
At this point and known his rivals, What is Alexa’s main rival? Well, it is neither Siri nor Google Assistant: it is the mobile phone itself.
Yes, it is strange, but it is so. These small devices with a screen that we carry in our pocket and their respective applications are sometimes more comfortable to use and faster than a voice command. If you configure them appropriately, it can take less time to unlock and activate or turn off the lights than using your voice.
Of course, the main reason why it is a tough rival is that none of the current systems, iOS and Android, allow the same integration with Alexa as Siri and Google Assistant respectively. Therefore, in order to enjoy this “Alexa Life” experience, it would be necessary to have the same privileges, but they will never be given to you. So you will have to live with several assistants or leave only voice use for the connected home.
Other assistants: Xiao Ai, Bixby, Cortana, …
During all these years there have been other voice assistants, such as Microsoft’s Cortana, and even today there are still proposals such as Bixby from Samsung or Xiao Ai from Xiaomi. The latter have their market, but it is very niche and basically in their respective countries. Because the previous solutions already cover what other users need.
Of course we will see what happens in the future, because Amazon is licensing the use of Alexa technology so that any company can create its own assistant on the services of the Alexa platform. Of course, that could also be seen as a Trojan horse with which Alexa will gain even more relevance.
So, as we have said, if they are pure voice assistants, it is clear that Siri and Google Assistant are the maximum rivals of Alexa. But if everything is taken into account, the great rival for the Amazon assistant is the mobile phone itself and its screen for the ease it offers to access everything we want to control, know, etc.
