Author: Brett Hinton

Husband of 1, Father of 6, BYU 'Fan'atic, Technology Junkie, History Lover, Book Connoisseur, Software Tester, Latter-day Saint, wannabe backpacker/hiker and an educator and lifelong learner at heart

CES 2019 – Amazon vs. Google

CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2019 started today with its biggest days starting tomorrow and continuing through Wednesday. Word on the street is that Google has tripled it’s presence compared to last year, when it showed off Google Assistant and really kicked its smart home efforts into high gear. Amazon will no doubt be out in force as well.

The focus in many of these places are on the integration between the assistant (Alexa or Google Assistant) and new devices. While that is nice, I’m not sure I need a million Alexa/Google devices responding to me when I say Alexa or Hey, Google. Imagine if my fridge, microwave and stove started responding along with my speaker. It would seem a little funny (and a little superfluous) to have my microwave tricked out with an awesome subwoofer.

More interesting to me is how we continue to refine and simplify the main scenarios even as the companies’ expand the footprint to new appliances and new types of uses. I’m also interested in how these products can utilize machine learning and AI to take some of the guesswork out of creating routines or creating or adjusting schedules for some of the smart home devices. While I love that IFTTT serves as the glue of the internet, we are kidding ourselves if we think that is the mainstream method for tying external services into the smart assistants.

So I am looking to get an idea about the next 6-9 month roadmap for the smart assistants and what they will be able to do. Ultimately it is the software, not the hardware, here that is driving the innovation. Yes, it’s nice to make the appliances so they can be interacted with, but the magic is in the software that ties them into something that can be used by all.

In particular, will Google Assistant’s integrations with other productivity systems (email, calendar) ever appear? Will Amazon fix Alexa’s multi-user problem (their voice profile situation is a complete joke compared to Google’s for example)? Can Google expand the basic capabilities of the Assistant and it’s smart home devices so that things like making broadcasts and whispering at night work as well as what Amazon has already implemented?

Bring on CES!

The Smart Home Plunge

We might have something in common. We got an Echo for Christmas, a number of them actually. I now hear my kids saying Alexa’s name about as often as my own.

At the same time, there is this little voice in my head wondering if Amazon is the right bet to make on this kind of technology. As a result, on a little bit of a whim, I decided we needed to get some “Google Home devices” (Google really needs to work on marketing this better – Echo and Alexa just “brand” better).

I have researched extensively, reading review after review across the web. What I failed to see are real people and families sharing their results. Yes, there are reviews on Amazon.com, on Reddit and in various forums across the web, but there are few places where I saw people sharing over a significant period of time, the experiences they are having with their “smart home”. I couldn’t confidently say, based on the information available, which smart home platform to bet on for my family (and there are currently only two that matter – Amazon and Google).

As a result, I decided I needed to run the experiment and blog about our experiences. The small and the big issues. The daily benefits (or lack thereof).

First, a little background. I’m married and my wife and I have six children, ranging from 16 to 5 years old. As I read online reviews (or the product marketing documentation), talking about 1 person with a roommate or significant other, or frankly even a couple with two small children, they do not address the complexity and crowded experience of my family’s daily life. This blog is meant to help deal with applying these new (and truly amazing technologies) to our life and see what the limits of the technology are.

Technology is at its best, and most transformative, when it is both ubiquitous AND invisible. I believe that is the goal of a smart home and the smart assistants that are stacking on top of those smart devices. Come follow along the journey. It has been an interesting one so far. I can assure you that you will see us stress these services and systems to their limits to see how truly useful they can be.

Welcome to Our Life….Assisted!