Amazon Echo (4th Gen)
Meet the Amazon Echo 4th Gen, your stylish, spherical smart companion! With its unique design, this Echo stands out in any room. Enjoy hands-free convenience with Alexa, control your smart home, and keep your conversations private with a physical mute button.
Google Nest Audio
Say hello to Google Nest Audio, the smart speaker that blends into your life seamlessly. With its sleek, capsule-like design and eco-friendly build, it’s more than just a speaker; it’s a statement. Control it with a simple touch, manage your day, play your favorite tunes, and safeguard your privacy with its mic-off switch. Ideal for those seeking a subtle yet powerful smart home experience.
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Ali versus Frazier. Ford versus Ferrari. Echo versus Nest. What do they all have in common? Well, nothing, actually. We just wanted to open with a grand statement. Anyhoozy, if you’re in the market for a new smart speaker, two of the top options to consider are the Amazon Echo and Google Nest Audio. Both devices offer exceptional audio quality and convenient voice control features, courtesy of Alexa and Google Assistant.
And whenever there’s two incredibly good tech options like these, we at TheGamer have a moral obligation, an inherent need to swoop in and do an in-depth comparison, whether anyone asked for it or not. Big lol. We’re gonna evaluate the latest Echo and Nest Audio models across key categories like sound quality, build and design, smart home connectivity, and more. So stick around and find out who’s the winner!
Design And Build
Let’s zoom in a bit. The 4th gen Echo here is rocking a cool spherical look, about 5.7 inches tall. Up top, there are four buttons that let you easily manage volume, mute the mic, or hit an action button for those hands-on moments. It’s dressed in a chic woven fabric, available in three stylish, muted colors that slip seamlessly into any room’s vibe. Despite its unusual round shape, the Echo has a thick and sturdy feel, signaling it’s ready for the daily hustle and bustle.
Now, how about the Nest Audio? It’s got this sleek, elongated capsule shape, standing just a tad taller at over six inches. Ditching traditional buttons, it opts for a touch-sensitive surface to adjust volume and handle playback. Pretty slick, huh? Plus, there’s this nifty little switch at the back to turn off the mics for when you need some privacy. Wrapped in a durable fabric in four cool colors, the Nest Audio also scores some green points with its 70 percent recycled plastic makeup.
Picking a winner in the design department really boils down to what catches your eye. If you’re drawn to a bold, attention-grabbing smart speaker, the Echo’s one-of-a-kind look might just be your jam. On the flip side, if you’re into tech that merges quietly into its surroundings, the Nest Audio’s understated elegance could be more your speed.
Sound Quality
The Echo houses a capable three-inch woofer and a pair of 0.8-inch tweeters, with some processing help from Dolby to polish things up. This radial setup allows the speaker to bounce sound waves off the walls, enveloping listeners in a wide 360-degree soundstage. There’s a sense of space and depth between the instruments and vocals. you may tell right away that those custom drivers capably handle mids and highs, while the woofer delivers some serious thump down lows.
Going bigger, the Nest Audio rocks a beefy three-inch woofer plus a single 0.75-inch tweeter firing straight ahead. But get this, Google blessed the speaker with in-house developed smarts dubbed Media EQ and Ambient IQ. The tech constantly optimizes audio playback based on the environment and what’s playing to compensate for the forward direction. Interestingly, the Nest Audio gives you a slightly higher maximum volume with lower distortion than the Echo, thanks to 30W of amplification power versus the latter’s 15W.
Now, listeners demanding ultimate fidelity, especially bass lovers, may dig the Nest Audio a tad more. The auto sound adjustments really help the speaker shine. Yet the Echo’s enveloping surround soundstage ends up creating that in-the-band feeling that undoubtedly has a lot of appeal too.
Smart Features & Voice Assistant
Interacting with Alexa and the Google Assistant feels pretty natural, even if they handle commands a bit differently. Like, Alexa generally needs you to phrase requests using more strict, conventional language. But the Google Assistant understands more casual conversation and context, showing flexibility to get what you intend.
Both assistants integrate really well with other third-party services too, which expands what they can do for you. Alexa has downloadable Skills, created by developers, that give access to additional capabilities. The Google Assistant uses Actions that serve the same purpose. There are now tens of thousands of Skills and Actions available, providing so many options that we couldn’t even list them all.
And with multi-user and voice recognition support on Echo and Nest speakers, different family members can have tailored profiles, recommendations and permissions set up. The assistants adapt the responses you get based on recognizing whose voice it hears speaking.
One clear advantage of the Google ecosystem is how it connects out-of-the-box to Android phones and devices. That native integration grants the Nest Audio access to synced Gmail, Photos, Calendar entries, browsing history, and more. But Alexa and the Echo speaker still have similar linkage capabilities to FireOS phones and tablets, so it provides comparable connected functionality.
App Features And Ecosystem Integration
Let’s dive into the Amazon Echo and its Alexa app. It’s like… the Swiss Army knife for smart home control. The whole thing is a breeze to use. Just think of it as your personal smart home concierge. You can manage your Echo devices, control your smart home gadgets, and explore a world of Alexa functions.
One of the coolest things? Alexa’s ‘Routines.’ Imagine telling Alexa “Good morning,” and she fires up your coffee maker, reads the news, and gets your favorite tunes going. It’s customization at its finest, making your daily grind a bit more, well, less grind-y.
The app itself is super user-friendly. Even if you’re not a tech whiz, you’ll find it easy to navigate. Plus, with its broad range of compatible third-party devices, Alexa is like the friendliest neighbor in the smart home block.
Coming to Google Nest Audio and the Google Home app, if you’re already part of the Google universe, using this is like having a chat with an old friend. The app is your one-stop shop for controlling your Nest Audio and other compatible devices. The beauty of Google Home is how it brings everything under the Google umbrella together.
If you’re juggling Gmail, Google Calendar, and Maps, this integration feels like a dream. And let’s talk about routines here too. They’re smart, and with Google Assistant’s knack for understanding context, it’s like having a conversation with someone who gets you. The app’s design is clean, simple, and all about making life easier. It’s not just about controlling devices; it’s about Google Home knowing what you might need before you even ask.
So, putting these two side by side, it’s a bit of a friendly rivalry. Alexa’s app might be the jack-of-all-trades with its vast device compatibility and skills. But the Google Nest Audio, with its Google-smart integration and chatty Assistant, offers a more intuitive, almost human-like experience. It really comes down to where your loyalties lie.
Privacy
We get it. Smart speakers and their always-listening mics can set off some privacy alarm bells, right? The thought of your sensitive chit-chats being recorded unintentionally is a bit unsettling. But don’t worry, Amazon and Google have really stepped up their game in response to those early privacy worries about their voice assistants.
Here’s the deal: both the Echo and Nest Audio come equipped with a nifty physical mic mute switch. It’s a simple but effective way to ensure your speaker isn’t eavesdropping when you need some privacy. Just flip the switch, and voilà… peace of mind. Plus, they’ve got these clear visual cues that light up when the assistant is listening, so you’re always in the know.
What’s more, Alexa and Google Assistant now let you dive into your voice recordings through their apps and online dashboards. You get to pick and choose what audio stays and what goes from the company servers. And if you’re not keen on having your anonymized voice samples used to better their speech recognition, there’s an easy opt-out option now.
But wait, there’s more! You can tweak settings to stop the assistants from personalizing responses based on your account history, manage location permissions, link (or unlink) third-party services, and control notifications. For families, they’ve even added multi-user support with kid-friendly parental controls. How cool is THAT? To sum it all up, when it comes to privacy with Alexa and Google Assistant, as long as you’re savvy about the settings, there’s no need to stress too much about which is better, since both of them are pretty equally matched.
Bottom Line
Here’s the scoop: both speakers are neck-and-neck in the essentials. Think voice assistant smarts, connecting with all sorts of devices, playing nice with different smart home gadgets, and streaming your favorite tunes or shows. And hey, they’re always getting smarter with regular software updates adding new tricks.
Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. The Echo has got some serious acoustic muscle for a 360-degree sound experience and some snazzy Dolby processing. On the flip side, the Nest Audio is like your personal sound engineer, tweaking its audio to fit your room just right.
Outside of that one tiny thing, the only factor you would be going by in case you need to choose, is personal preference. If you’re all about Amazon’s world, with Alexa and Fire OS, the Echo might just be your match. But if your life is more Google-centric, especially with Android devices, the Nest Audio could be your new best friend. It really comes down to what fits your tech lifestyle.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can both speakers pair wirelessly with Bluetooth headphones for personal listening?
Both the Echo and the Nest Audio allow you to connect to Bluetooth headphones or earbuds, which is super convenient if you wanna listen to music or watch videos without disturbing other people in your home. They use a standard Bluetooth profile called A2DP that has pretty minimal latency, so your audio should be nicely in sync. One thing to note though, while the speakers support transmitting audio over Bluetooth to your headphones, they can’t receive streaming Bluetooth input themselves from another device.
Do the Echo or Nest Audio offer longer term hardware or software support timelines compared to one another?
Well, in terms of initial hardware warranties, Amazon and Google are pretty similar - the Echo and Nest Audio come with 1 year of coverage by default, but you can optionally extend Echo protection longer through Amazon. When it comes to guaranteed software updates though, both Amazon and Google have committed to providing at least 4 years of ongoing security and functionality patches.
If more units for multi-room home audio, will mixing brands between Echo and Nest Audio cause issues?
Honestly? It’s a huge maybe. For the most part, they’ll both play nice together if you’re just streaming music throughout the house. But some of the more advanced networked smart features like using intercom between devices or conducting multi-point video calls, may not translate fully between the underlying network protocols used. Capabilities like those require tighter integration, which could have edge case problems if the brands are mixed. If you wanted to guarantee all multi-room smart features would work seamlessly, then sticking to all Echoes or all Nest Audios would be the better choice here.
