Google Home & Alexa

[penfold]

I already have a couple of Google home hubs which I use to mostly listen to music from Spotify. I have a basement where I am setting up a gym and am looking to put another speaker in there. Based on Black Friday deals, it seems alexa can be picked up for much cheaper, but given that I already have google I don't know if this is going to cause problems or not. Might be a bit late in the day, but anyone have any feedback?

[speakercon]

I've picked up the google home speakers off ebay for about 20 quid in good condition if that's an option.

[TechMonkey]

They won't conflict, you will just get annoyed when you call the wrong one, or if you find one is better than the other. My partner has Google Home speakers and I get annoyed by them having come from using Alexa. I have one Alexa so far in the house just to keep me sane and there are no issues.

[penfold]

To be honest I don't really use Google for much( I do have some routines but don't use them a lot) I pretty much only see myself using it to play Spotify while I am exercising. And as they seem to be half the price of Google home, I kind of feel like paying 50+ for new Google device to play music seems a bit steep.

[speakercon]

Would you never want to use the 'play on all speakers' option?

[penfold]

No. I want one for in the basement so I wouldn't want to play upstairs and in the basement. Actually I have 2 Google hubs and when I am playing music in the spare room I get annoyed when the wife tells the kitchen to stop playing(or play something else) and my hub listens and changes what I am listening to🤦♂️

[Brixy]

I switched from google to Alexa and there are no issues as such, but you will need to register your devices with alexa. Given you are currently only have limited functionality there should be no real setup issues (I use smart bulbs, smart switches and smart TVs and a melody system and use 3 Alexa devices as well as a couple of mobile phones and the connection to the car and charger so there was more to set up). For me the main thing was to share the existing service with alexa for each of the setup apps I used and then rename them on Alexa as I wanted (alexa can then use both names if they differ).

 

Once you are set up you might want to invest a little time into settup up routines (eg. when you say alexa good morning it starts to play a radio station or something), but again you have very few items on your system right now. If it has been a while since you set up I would point out that most smart devices you add to your network in the future are likely to connect via the wifi 2 connection (including alexa, so when setting up you may want to temporarily disable any wifi 5 then connect your phone to the wifi 2 network).