Here’s another one I was sure Google would nail and Amazon would struggle with. Turns out to be exactly the opposite of what I expected. Just asked this within the hour and was so surprised I had to make the video.
I’ll just end this post with the same reminder I’ve ended all the others in this series: Next time you hear someone talk about how dumb Echo is and smart Google Home is, remember that there are plenty of exceptions.
Ever heard of Marfa, Texas? No? Me, neither. But that town was mentioned a while back on some TV show, and I was immediately curious to know where it was. I assumed Google Home would do better at answering a geographical question, but wasn’t at all pleased with the response I got. It told me how far the city was from me … but didn’t tell where in Texas it is.
Reluctantly, I gave my Amazon Echo a try and … bam! I was very pleasantly surprised that Alexa actually told me where in the state I’d find Marfa.
Since making this video, I’ve asked the same question on my Amazon Show — got the same text/voice answer, but no map appeared on the screen. That would be a great addition – a pin on a map showing me the city I just asked about.
Anyway … next time you hear talk about how dumb Echo is and smart Google Home is, remember that there are plenty of exceptions.
While watching the World Series not long ago, the McGee family had a fun discussion about Dodgers Stadium. That’s the stadium my wife went to regularly as a kid growing up in the Los Angeles area, and I’ve been there a handful of times for baseball games, concerts, etc.
In the process of discussing how beautiful the stadium remains, we all wondered how old it is. I was very pleasantly surprised when our Amazon Echo was able to answer the question — those kinds of facts are allegedly more of a strength for Google, and a weakness for Amazon.
But it turns out that Google has no clue how to answer this question, while Echo nails it.
Remember, next time you hear talk about how dumb Echo is and smart Google Home is … there are plenty of exceptions.
Google’s been the No. 1 search engine in the world for more than a decade because no other search engine can answer as many questions. You type something into its search box, and chances are pretty darn high that you’re going to find what you want pretty quickly.
That should extend to voice search, too, shouldn’t it? Numerous studies and surveys have suggested that Google Home is a much smarter device than Amazon Echo — like, 6x smarter according to the study in that Search Engine Land link.
But despite all the surveys, my experience with each device is that Echo/Alexa is a lot smarter than she’s credited as being, and Google Home sometimes makes inexplicable mistakes. Like this recent example — an early weekday morning when I needed to know what time our local Costco would open.
For some reason, Google Home thought I was asking about Costco Gasoline, which usually opens 2-3 hours before the main store. But I never said the word “gasoline” in my question. The Echo, on the other hand, knew what I was asking and answered me correctly. Very strange that Google couldn’t answer this one.
I’m fascinated by voice search, in general, and by these smart speaker devices more specifically. So plan on seeing more posts and videos in the future showing how well and poorly they respond to certain types of questions.