I’m planning to experiment with voice control for home automation and would welcome opinions on whether to first try Google or Amazon’s products (or any alternatives). I had read in a review that Google had a slight edge with
voice control. Eavesdropping is not desired.
Initial applications would be control of lighting and heating controls in one room. Later, possibly making outbound voice calls (e.g. for emergency use). Also later, voice access to photo and video libraries on NAS. There is an Amazon Firestick in the room. There is no need for shopping on Amazon. WiFi connectivity should not be an issue. Another speaker would be added to another room later. If the speaker could sound when the WiFi connected doorbell (alarm triggers and video feed to Blue Iris) is pressed that would be great. (A compact speaker unit is better but not at the expense of performance on any of the above.
People here are generally focused on local control of devices wherever possible.
Vendors such as Amazon and Google are focused on locking you into their system.
Google recently moved their Nest products into their system and said they would only permit external access to vendors THEY choose. OpenHAB will not be one of them, I am sure.
As far as eavesdropping is a concern - as far as i know - the mute button on echo just tells the system to ignore wake words in software as opposed to google where the mute button actually turns off the mic. Functionally the same since nothing goes to the cloud until it hears the wake word but one just seems better to me.
I have been using google with openhab for a bit now and love it - it sometimes complains that it “couldn’t reach” something but it still works.
