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Google Home and Amazon Alexa. The comparisons will likely never cease. If Google Home is to fully compete with Amazon’s more-established device, it needs the integration list to keep growing.
In the past month, we’ve seen many new integrations on the software/app side of things, giving Google Home more abilities with existing software service providers.
Additionally, we’ve seen more companies building devices with Chromecast and Google Home support.
More IOT Devices
What we’ve seen this past week is the addition of more smart home devices being supported.
From personal experience, this is what Google Home needs to keep evolving into. A single point of contact for controlling all the connected things in my home. The more hardware I can interact with from that one point, the better.
These latest additions are from Belkin and Honeywell and includes things like cameras, lightbulbs, and power switches from Belkin and Honeywell’s devices from thermostats to home security elements.
Google isn’t saying exactly which devices are in this list, but the ones that are included will be able to be added via the Home app on your smartphone. While these new additions are technically powered by the Google Assistant, only Google Home will be capable of controlling them for the time being.
That should change down the road as Google Assistant becomes more widely available across many more devices.
For now, it is great to see some additional services being offered next to the existing Philips Hue, Nest, and Samsung SmartThings integrations already in place.
For both Google Home and Google Assistant to stick around for the long haul, this pace of addition and growth needs to continue throughout 2017 and beyond. The fight Google is in with Alexa right now is very real, and Amazon is not backing down any time soon.
Just like the smartphone app store battles of the early 2000’s, this is anyone’s game right now. Time will only tell if there is room for multiple players.
