INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The Amazon Echo and Google Home are amazing devices and both have advantages over the other
In my home, we use the Amazon Echo and have them around the house and outside
I have the original in the living room, a Dot in bedrooms, my office and outside, a Tap in my woodworking workshop and Spots in the kids&
room (with tape over the camera)
They&re great devices but far from perfect
They&re missing several key features and the Google Home is missing the same things, too.
I polled the TechCrunch staff
The following are the features we would like to see in the next generation of these devices.
IR Blaster
Right now, it possible to have the
Echo and Home control a TV, but only through 3rd party devices
If the Echo or Home had a top-mounted 360-degree IR Blaster, the smart speakers could natively control TVs, entertainment systems, and
heating and cooling units.
Echo and Homes are naturally placed out in the open, making the devices well suited to control devices sporting
Saying &turn on the TV& or &turn on the AC& could trigger the Echo to broadcast the IR codes from the Echo to the TV or wall-mounted AV
unit.
This would require Amazon and Google to integrate a complete universal remote scheme into the Echo and Home
Companies such as Logitech Harmony, Universal Remote Control and others are dedicated to ensuring their remotes are compatible with
It seems like an endless battle of discovering new IR codes, but one I wish Amazon and Google would tackle
I would like to be able to control my electric fireplace and powered window shades with my Echo without any hassle.
A dedicated app for
music and the smart home
The current Home and Alexa apps are bloated and unusable for daily use
I suspect that by design, as it forces the users to use the speaker for most tasks
TheEcho and Home deserve better.
Right now, Amazon and Google seemingly want users to use voice to set up these devices
If a user is going to use these speakers for listening to Spotify or controlling a set of Hue lights, the current app and voice setup works
But if a user wants an Echo to control a handful of smart home devices from different vendors, a dedicated app for the smart home ecosystem
should be available — bonus points if there a desktop app for even more complex systems.
Look at Sonos
The Sonos One is a fantastic speaker and arguably the best sounding multi-room speaker system
Even though Alexa is built into the speaker, the Sonos app is still useful as it would be for the Echo and Home, too
A dedicated music app would let Echo and Home users more easily browse music sources and select tracks and control playback on different
devices.
The smart speakers can be the center of complex smart home ecosystems and deserve a competent companion app for setup and
maintenance.
Logitech Harmony app is a good example here as well
This desktop app allows users to set up multiple universal remotes
The same should be available for Echo and Home devices
For example, my kids have their own Spotify accounts and do not need voice access to my Vivint home security system or the Hue bulbs in the
I want a way to more easily customize the Echo devices throughout the home
Setting up such a system is currently not possible and would be clunky and tiresome to do through a mobile app unless it dedicated to the
purpose.
Mesh networking
Devices such as Eero and Netgear Orbi line are popular because they easily flood an area with wi-fi that faster and
more reliable than wi-fi broadcasted by a single access point
Mesh networking should be included in the Google Home or Amazon Echo.
These devices are designed to be placed out in the open and in common
spaces, which is also the best placement for wi-fi routers
Including a mesh networking extender in these devices would increase their appeal and encourage owners to buy more while also improving the
Everyone wins.
Buying Eero seems like the logical play for Amazon or Google
The company already makes one of the best mesh networking products on the market
The products are well designed and packaged in small enclosures
Even if Google or Amazon doesn&t build the mesh networking bits directly into the speaker, it could be included in the speaker wall power
supply allowing both companies to quickly implement it across its product lines and offer it as a logical add-on as a secondary
purchase.
3.5mm optical output
I have several Dots hooked up to full audio systems thanks to the 3.5mm output
But it just two-channel analog, which is fine for NPR but I want more.
For several generations, the MacBook Pro rocked an optical output
I suspect it wasn&t widely used, which led to Apple cancelling it on the latest generation
It would be lovely if the Echo and Home had this option, too.
Right now, the digital connection would not make a large difference in the
quality of the audio since the device streams at a relatively low bit-rate
But if either Google or Amazon decide to pursue higher quality audio like offered from Tidal, this would be a must-have addition to the
hardware.
Outdoor edition
I spend a good amount of time outside in the summer and managed to install an Echo Dot on my deck
The Dot is not meant to be installed outside, and though my setup has survived a year outside, it would be great to have an all-weather Echo
that was much more robust and weather resistant.
Here how I installed an Echo Dot on my deck
Mount one of these electrical boxes in a location that would keep the Echo Dot out of the rain
Pop out one of the sides of the box and fit the Dot inside the box
The Dot should be exposed and facing down
Plug in the power cable and 3.5mm cable through the hole in the side and run the audio to an amp like this to power a set of outside
speakers.I used asphalt shingles to cover the topside of both devices to protect them from water dripping off the deck
This setup has so far survived a Michigan summer and winter.
I live outside a city and have always had speakers outside
From my Dot location under the deck, it still manages to pick up my voice allowing control of Spotify and my smart home while I&m around my
It a great experience and I wish Amazon or Google made a version of its smart speakers so more people could take their voice assistants
outside.
Improved privacy
There an inherent creepiness with having devices always listening throughout your home
An early bug caused the Google Home Mini to record everything and sending the recordings back to Google
Consumers should have more options in how Amazon and Google handle the recorded data.
There should be an option to allow the user to opt out
of sending recordings back to Amazon or Google even if concessions have to be made
If needed give the user the option of opting out of several features or let the user decide if the recordings should be deleted after a few
days or weeks.
Consumers are soon going to be looking for this sort of control as the topic grows in intensity following Facebook blunder
and it would be wise for Google and Amazon to get ahead of consumers& expectations.
A new portable speaker
I use a Tap in my workshop and it
But the cloth covering gets dirty
And I discovered it not durable after dropping it once
What worse, if the always-listening mode is activated, the speaker must be put back on its dock after 12 hours or the battery completely
dies.
The Tap was one of the first Amazon Echo devices
Originally users had to hit a button to activate Alexa, but the company added voice activation after it launched
It a handy speaker but it due for an upgrade.
A portable Echo or Home needs to be all-weather, durable and easily cleanable
It needs to have a dock and built-in micro-USB port, and it must have voice activated control — bonus points if it can lock out unknown
voices.
Improved accessibility features
Voice assistant devices are making technology more accessible than ever but there are still features
that should be added.There are lots of people who have speech impairments who can hear perfectly well, but an Alexa Echo or Google Home
won&t recognize their speech accurately at all.
Apple added this ability to Siri
Users can text it queries
The option is available on iOS 11 under the accessibility menu
The Google Home and Amazon Echo should have the same feature.
Users should be able to send text queries to Echo via their mobile phone (from
within the Alexa app via a free form text-styled chatbot) and still listen to the response and still take advantage of all the skills and
From a technical point of view, it would be trivial since it wouldn&t need any voice to text translation and it would increase the appeal of
the device to a new market of shoppers.
Motion sensors
There are several cases where an included motion sensor would improve the user
experience of a voice assistant.
A morning alarm could increase in intensity if motion isn&t detected — or likewise, it could be
deactivated by sensing a set amount of motion
Motion detectors could also act as light switches, switching on lights if motion is detected and then switching off lights if motion is no
But there more, automatic lowering of volume if motion is not detected, additional sensors for alarms, and detecting users for HVAC
