And it works with perhaps the widest variety of smart home devices, as well. But while Alexa isn’t quite as good at answering general knowledge questions, it syncs just fine with things like calendars from your Google account. If you already use Google Assistant on your Android phone, it makes sense to stick with that. It's mostly a matter of personal preference. A few years ago, Alexa worked with more smart home devices, but at this point, basically any smart device worth buying works with both. Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa are both well-supported options that are continually evolving, with new features added at a steady clip. The first thing most people should do is decide what voice assistant they want to use. Let’s walk through our choices for the best smart speakers at different price points and for different uses. With the growing popularity of these speakers, there are now more options than ever. Even lower-end models like the Echo Dot and Nest Mini sound much better than earlier iterations. Google and Amazon, meanwhile, made massive improvements in sound quality with recent speakers. Sonos released its own voice assistant in 2022 and also supports Alexa on its latest speakers. Sonos, on the other hand, made great sounding WiFi-connected speakers, but they lacked any voice-controlled smarts. For all their benefits, the original Amazon Echo and Google Home devices did not sound good. Good luck if you purchase their stuff, you WILL BE DISAPPOINTED.The good news is that there's never been a better time to get a smart speaker, particularly if you're a music fan. They position themselves in the realm of Sony, Panasonic, Canon, Nikon and other major electronics manufacturers but in the end are a little dog n pony show with nothing behind the products, unless you count all the $$ they make charging people way too much for things that DO NOT LAST. Weak, unreliable products that cost a small fortune, foreign support that is not all that easy to understand, NO repair options. I am having to buy a new unit which costs MORE and does not fit the very specific installation application the other 3 are installed in. Again, a thin and useless answer was given - basically that is policy for "REPLACEMENT". So, onto my 3rd call in the same day, this one to find out why I needed to go out of my way to send this thing back, find a box, packing materials (yes they demand it be packed as if it were breakable glass or 30% is voided). NO ONE in either of the first two calls mentioned having to send the busted unit back. The other email explained that the "replacement discount" was processed and to look for the shipping label. Instead I got 2 more emails, one was a shipping label to use to send the broken useless unit back to Sonos. Was assured that the 30% was now being processed and that I would get email with that discount code in it shortly. So someone really gave that a lot of consideration - NOT! My second call was to ask why it was denied - long story short - no answer there. I got the DENIAL back less than 15 minutes after the call ended. When I pushed back on that, I was told we could apply for approval to REPLACE the unit at no cost, but was warned it would have to be approved, that process could take up to 1 business day. First I was told that the ONLY thing Sonos could offer me was a 30% discount on a new piece of Sonos equipment.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |