In our office, we have been testing what’s on offer from the latest voice assistants: the Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod and the Google Home. It’s undeniable that the sound quality from the HomePod wipes the floor with the competition. The noise it can generate really is simply tremendous and it doesn’t deteriorate when you want to turn it up; believe us when we say: it goes LOUD! You can also talk to Siri more naturally than you can Alexa or Google Assistant. You don’t have to say: “Hey Siri” and then take a gigantic pause while it registers you want something from it. Despite all the mixed PR the HomePod’s had, we love it! That said, we also think the Echo and Google Home have many redeeming features: Alexa is undeniably the smartest AI engine and has the most ‘skills’ meaning integration with third-party apps is a breeze. She is also more intuitive and seems to be able to use her ‘initiative’ more when you ask her to execute commands. The Google Assistant’s most useful feature is the fact it leverages Google’s search engine and can answer all manner of questions on just about any topic.
Most online articles that discuss the functionality of voice assistant hardware present features as a kind of choice but in a modern household, with different preferences and gadget loyalty, we think it’s about to become more of an ‘and’ issue than an ‘or’ one…
Over the next year, we don’t think it will be uncommon for a typical family to be a multi-assistant household. After all, it’s not unusual to see a mixture of Android and Apple phones all under one roof.
But that’s where the complications begin – there are a number of devices that work with two of the three voice platforms and a few that work with one. Devices that respond to voice commands from all voice assistance are few and far between. This can somewhat tedious for the end user who wants to be able to control everything from everywhere.
Introducing WIFIPLUG: In just a few minutes, you can be using your Android phone or Apple HomePod to control your electrical appliances and that control will be absolutely seamless. Turn your lamp on with Siri and then back off With Google Assistant. It couldn’t be easier!
It was no mean feat teaching WIFIPLUG to speak all languages but we did it and not to sound like a playground show-off, but we’re pretty sure we did it first! We’ve worked tirelessly and relentlessly to make our product top notch and multilingual, all in one smart (in fact, the SMARTest) little plug.
