Best Smart Speakers: Amazon Echo, Google Home and More

[mprospero]

Put Alexa or another virtual assistant in your home to answer questions, control smart home gadgets, play music and more with our top picks.

Best Smart Speakers: Amazon Echo, Google Home and More : Read more

 

[s.oliver.daniel]

This is not a comment. I would just like to know whether I would get total stereo sound from these "single" speakers if I place one of them in front of a PC monitor placed right in front me?

 

[eric.cazin]

Hi guys,

The SONT LF-S50G is missing in your list.

Thanks.

 

[jbukow]

Check out the insignia google voice speakers from Best Buy, normally I don't recommend store brands but these are stereo 2.0 or stereo+subwoofer 2.1 portable speakers with battery, obviously support Google Voice Assistant, they sound really good and can hear you really well when music is playing, and are in the $70-$110 range.

 

[itsjoecool]

Im trying to help my mom, who recently had a stroke. She is having trouble with spelling and math. Which of these devices would be the best at helping her spell words and do math?

 

[gditrecruiter]

ITSJOECOOL

I just read an article that said Google Home is better. The rationale was that Google's algorithm is superior to Bing, which Amazon's products utilize for commands. I must admit when searching on the web, I always find Google blows Bing out of the water...

I think this is especially relevant for you/your mom. My mother, now deceased, had similar type of issues due to stroke. I know that the Google product would have suited her better.

An example they mentioned about Bing was you have to construct the question a particular way, whereas Google's commands you didn't really need to do that as much. For someone with a stroke, you want it to be as simple as can be.....

Wish you and your mom the best whatever you choose!

Robert

 

[speakerfreak]

KitSound Voice One?

 

[murraysandes]

Do you think google will get around to updating software in google home and google home mini to include latency delay ability. Both my google home minis receive and produce audio quicker than my other powered speakers retro fitted with chrome cast audio meaning I can't use my google home mini as part of an audio group..very frustrating

 

[mdr1000ton]

You forget the Harman Kardon Invoke with cortana. A very good sounding speaker, better than most of the others, and a good price. Not too expensive and for the hardware it wort it.

 

[murraysandes]

You forget the Harman Kardon Invoke with cortana. A very good sounding speaker, better than most of the others, and a good price. Not too expensive and for the hardware it wort it.

So what does that have to do with the google,Home lack of latency issue

 

[mprospero]

Nope, we didn't forget the Invoke....https://www.tomsguide.com/us/harman-kardon-invoke,review-4795.html

 

[speakerfreak]

murraysandes - have you tried doing the steps as outlined here? https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6318642?hl=en-GB

 

[murraysandes]

Hi speakerfreak, thanks for responding. Your link outlines the directions to correct speaker delay for chrome cast audio disc that is plugged into the 3.5 mm audio input of an existing powered speaker or hometheatre amp. And yes this allows to slow the speaker response how ever the issue is for the google home and google home mini where the chrome cast audio is built in to the unit. When sending for example Spotify music to it through wifi, there is less circutery for the signal to travel and so it plays the music more instantly than say a hometheatre unit that has an external chrome cast audio disc plugged into the 3.5mm input. Both the google home or google home mini speaker does not have built into its software an ability to slow the signal to match in my case the signal coming from hometheatre unit. Hope this makes sense

 

[madtestengineer1]

amazon echo 2 as the best overall is kinda misleading. It does sound better then Gen1 but it still not much better then a low/mid level bluetooth speaker. A lot of the mid level JBL bluetooth speakers sound better then the echo 2. That is why the echo dot is the best selling echo. Everyone knows the sound is lacking. But people plug it into much better sounding speakers.

As an overall best smart speaker, it should be a speaker first then the smart second. It really better as the best smart-smart speaker. Not the overall best smart speaker.

 

[rsklein]

This article makes a direct comparison between a pair of Sonos Ones and a single Google Home Max. While this may be fair from a strictly price comparison, it doesn't answer the question many people face: How do a pair of Google Home Max compare with a pair of Sonos Ones? I'm guessing that the Google Home Max pair wins hands down, but guessing isn't hearing. I'd be interested in hearing from anybody who has had the opportunity to make this comparison.

 

[lazworld]

This is not a comment. I would just like to know whether I would get total stereo sound from these "single" speakers if I place one of them in front of a PC monitor placed right in front me?

 

[lazworld]

I'm afraid not. You will not get total stereo sound from these single speakers. The JBL has a solution to this but you need to have a pair where each speaker will be designated to carry either the L or the R signal which I find very useful.