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Soldato
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Google assistant looks to be quite a disappointment and can be added to the list of Google's other failures such as Android Wear, Android on tablets and Google Allo & Duo.

Despite the massive amount of Google assistant advertising at CES, Alexa has completely stole the show with the amount of devices supporting Amazon's AI/Assistant.

The mind boggles that a company who is very much a software company first and foremost can be outplayed at software by a company who is an e-tailer first and foremost. Pichai really needs to have a reshuffle at Google because they're clearly 2nd best to Amazon's offering.

Hah, I wouldn't write it off just yet, they've sold a hell of a lot for a failure.
 
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Google assistant looks to be quite a disappointment and can be added to the list of Google's other failures such as Android Wear, Android on tablets and Google Allo & Duo..........

Err, no. I have been reading about CES 2018 and have looked at various blogger sites who attended CES.

Google has been highly successful in the past year pushing Google Assistant to developers. Google Assistant has been included or will soon be included in almost every conceivable smart gadget, a massive improvement in the past 12 months from last year's CES. This significantly drops the appeal of Amazon Alexa as Google Assistant is the far better service in my view.

There is only one area where Alexa remains dominant and that is in shopping but I can see a scenario where the Amazon Dash Wand is used for groceries and Google Assistant for everything else.

Not only is Google Assistant by far the better product but its native presence on more than 400 million Android smartphones and soon other Android devices means Google is dealing with far more inquiries than Amazon. It is estimated that 35 million smart voice devices (principally Amazon Echo and Google Home) have been sold in the US so far. Hence Google's platform superiority should smooth the way for eventual dominance in this space. More data means better performance and responsiveness over time.

With a huge number of 3rd party devices coming to market, the battle will be won based on the ecosystem, not the hardware or sound quality. Every third party device of note will include Google Assistant now and in future. It is here that Google has a massive lead over Amazon.

If you want to worry about anyone in the smart device space, I suggest it is Amazon and possibly Apple. By the way, what happened to the Amazon Fire phone? Also not a single TV announced at CES 2018 came with Amazon Fire TV operating system as its software. Roku TV and Android TV on the other hand are being widely adopted and many use Google Chromecast as their default OS. Google Assistant is also all over the LG TVs introduced.
 
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Soldato
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Shock horror as sesevans understanding of Google's products & services goes against everything being said in the mainstream media. Like the Pixel Buds where 99% of sites said the Pixel Buds were floored and that includes pro Android websites such as Android Police.

There has been way more products announced at CES that have Alexa integration than any other assistant, including Google Assistant.

Who cares about Android TV - it's a shockingly awful platform and I've unfortunately been burned by buying a Sony TV with it included. LGs WebOS implementation on their OLED sets is far superior and if you really want Android TV you're much better buying an nVidia shield TV unit.

You're right that Google has superior data with knowledge graph and that actually highlights the poor job they're doing, nothing should be able to touch Google for AI but there are plenty of manufacturers going with Alexa over Assistant. Why, if Google is supposedly so much better? It can't be down to monetary incentives.
 
Soldato
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there's tonnes of google assistant enabled devices coming out in the near future. not sure how any of that has led you to teh conclusion that it's a failure. it's anything but right now.

I'm just disappointed by the uptake of Assistant in 3rd party products vs Alexa - especially at CES2018. From what I've read, there were more Alexa powered devices announced at CES than Assistant powered.

Google's smart speaker market share is already significantly smaller than Amazon's and this probably isn't all that surprising given Amazon's ability to get them into consumer's hands. That's why beating Amazon in 3rd party devices is even more key for Google as people will start to side with the platform that control the most connected devices.
 
Soldato
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This is what concerns me about Google. They've hardly got a good track record at supporting their hardware and Echo is destroying it when it comes to marketshare. You've only got to go into an electrical store to see what the customers are all pandering over.

Even the BBC ran an article last week on Google's lacklustre show at CES vs Amazon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42630606

On a different tangent, can anyone tell me why, when my wife tells GH "Ok Google, Lights off", it replies in an American voice "Ok turning the lights off" and nothing happens. Yet when I do the same, it replies in it's generic voice and successfully switches them off. Mine seems to ignore my wife a lot more for some oddball reason lately, and she speaks cleanly to it.
 
Associate
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One of my mates has recently been experiencing network issues when streaming with his Google Home. The wifi drops and every single device on his network refuses to connect, leading to a full reset of the router.
His router is a TP Link VR600 and today I've seen this https://www.gsmarena.com/google_con...ing_wifi_networks_to_be_killed-news-29139.php

Has anyone else experienced anything similar?
This could be what is happening to my network, though the symptoms appear to be isolated to the 2.4Ghz SSID (even though all Google casting devices are on 5Ghz). I have a Technicolour router.
 
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....
There has been way more products announced at CES that have Alexa integration than any other assistant, including Google Assistant.


You're right that Google has superior data .....

"Way more products .....with Alexa integration?"

Get a grip. Perhaps you might like to consider some facts to mix into your assumptions.

Fact: Activate, the management consultants, recently looked at heavy users of virtual assistants, defined as people who use one more than three times a day (like you and me). The firm found that the majority of these users turned to virtual assistants to play music, get the weather, set a timer or ask questions.

Activate also found that the majority of Alexa users had never used more than the basic apps that come with the device. So much for your "way more product integration." Simply put, Amazon brought out Alexa almost two years before Google introduced Google Assistant so its early lead is hardly surprising. Your predictions put you too far over your skiis.

But if what Activate says is true, the lead is likely built on weak foundations.

So while hard-core users like you and me use many of the features including smart lights, smart thermostats, smart kettles, etc, to create a real smart home, for the most part people are using these speakers for the most simple, basic uses like search (and here Google search built into GA is second to none---Alexa uses Bing) and playing music and setting a timer.

Meanwhile, last week, Google announced it has sold one Google Home smart speaker every second since it started shipping a smaller version of the voice-controlled device (GH Mini) on 19 October— or about 80 days. That works out to roughly seven million units. Not bad.

When casual GH Home users become power users like you and me, Google said the Assistant can now accomplish more than one million tasks, or “actions,” such as asking for photos from Halloween or adding events to a calendar and much more. It created a Directory (I attached the link in a recent post above) — searchable, of course — to highlight these capabilities, hoping to remind users what the Assistant can do when they are ready!

In the 20 months since it first started making the Google Assistant available, Google said GA is now accessible on more than 400 million devices including washing machines, dryers, air-conditioners, refrigerators and dishwashers from LG, headphones from Bose and a range of speakers from 15 different companies. And of course on millions of Android smartphones. Compare these numbers to the approximately 35 million combined GH and Alexa devices sold last year in the US.

Still way too early to declare Alexa the winner, which you obviously feel inclined to do.
 
Soldato
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I'd like to think there is room in this market for at least two players, one or the other 'winning' would be bad for everyone. I know you all like to jump on sesevans for his/her love of google, but to be fair they were replying to a very one sided argument with another one sided argument, and to declare it a failure is obviously silly.

Its a good point about what people use these devices for, the more compatability the better obviously, but its still about how they cope with the core things that people actually want to use them for right now. I'll admit I'm a fan of the google device as I hate Amazon, but that doesn't mean I'd want them to 'win', healthy competition is what we need, and I believe what we have.
 
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"Way more products .....with Alexa integration?"

Get a grip. Perhaps you might like to consider some facts to mix into your assumptions.

Fact: Activate, the management consultants, recently looked at heavy users of virtual assistants, defined as people who use one more than three times a day (like you and me). The firm found that the majority of these users turned to virtual assistants to play music, get the weather, set a timer or ask questions.

Activate also found that the majority of Alexa users had never used more than the basic apps that come with the device. So much for your "way more product integration." Simply put, Amazon brought out Alexa almost two years before Google introduced Google Assistant so its early lead is hardly surprising. Your predictions put you too far over your skiis.

But if what Activate says is true, the lead is likely built on weak foundations.

So while hard-core users like you and me use many of the features including smart lights, smart thermostats, smart kettles, etc, to create a real smart home, for the most part people are using these speakers for the most simple, basic uses like search (and here Google search built into GA is second to none---Alexa uses Bing) and playing music and setting a timer.

Meanwhile, last week, Google announced it has sold one Google Home smart speaker every second since it started shipping a smaller version of the voice-controlled device (GH Mini) on 19 October— or about 80 days. That works out to roughly seven million units. Not bad.

When casual GH Home users become power users like you and me, Google said the Assistant can now accomplish more than one million tasks, or “actions,” such as asking for photos from Halloween or adding events to a calendar and much more. It created a Directory (I attached the link in a recent post above) — searchable, of course — to highlight these capabilities, hoping to remind users what the Assistant can do when they are ready!

In the 20 months since it first started making the Google Assistant available, Google said GA is now accessible on more than 400 million devices including washing machines, dryers, air-conditioners, refrigerators and dishwashers from LG, headphones from Bose and a range of speakers from 15 different companies. And of course on millions of Android smartphones. Compare these numbers to the approximately 35 million combined GH and Alexa devices sold last year in the US.

Still way too early to declare Alexa the winner, which you obviously feel inclined to do.

you seemed to have missed this part from your copy & paste..

"Amazon would say only that it sold “tens of millions” of Alexa devices during the recent holiday season, millions more than the same period last year. Analysts estimate that Echo accounts for over 70 percent of sales in the smart speaker category, with Google a distant second."

source.. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/technology/virtual-assistants-alexa.html
 
Soldato
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you seemed to have missed this part from your copy & paste..

"Amazon would say only that it sold “tens of millions” of Alexa devices during the recent holiday season, millions more than the same period last year. Analysts estimate that Echo accounts for over 70 percent of sales in the smart speaker category, with Google a distant second."

source.. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/technology/virtual-assistants-alexa.html

:D His blatant Google bias whilst disturbing, can be entertaining when these little gems pop up.
 
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