As a smart home writer, I spend a lot of time with both Alexa and Google Assistant I am keen to keep up to date on the best Alexa skills and the best Google Assistant skills, so I juggle both virtual butlers in my personal life Scandalous, I know

But when it comes to my parents' DIY smart home renovation, I don't want to complicate the system of connected products So I'm committing to one assistant to help me buy the best smart home devices, set up routines, and allow hands-free operation That assistant is Alexa

About a year ago, I was a Google Assistant loyalist At the time, I appreciated the fact that Google Assistant extended beyond my home When I woke up in the morning, I could check my train time on the Google Nest Hub Max, and when I walked out the door, the Google Maps app on my phone showed my commute time While traveling abroad, I used Google Assistant as a translator, and I broadcast messages to my family at home through Google Nest Mini to let them know I was missing them

I bought some of the best Google Home compatible devices and bought my father a brand new Google Nest Thermostat E for his birthday He never installed it until I found it a few weeks ago - seriously, it was sitting unopened in our garage As I brushed off the dust, its obsolescence reminded me of the current state of Google Assistant

Not that Google Assistant is bad; Google's Nest speaker is the best smart speaker out there It is also better than Apple's HomeKit platform My parents are not fans of Siri on the iPhone, so we gave it a pass But compared to Alexa's recent upgrades (and compared to what we can expect from Alexa in 2021), Google's assistant lags behind Alexa's new features that make your home a smarter place to be, whether you're at home or away, brought me back to the world of Amazon

Alexa Guard and Alexa Hunches are two standout skills I look forward to demonstrating when I show my parents how to use Alexa in their newly intelligent home Alexa Guard is a home security tool that relies on the Echo speaker's microphone and relies on it to identify smoke detectors going off or broken glass in the house This way, when parents are out of the house for work or errands, if Alexa detects something suspicious, they are notified

Similarly, Alexa Hunches will be able to detect and respond to parents' habits If the house is quiet late at night, Alexa can determine that everyone has gone to bed and turn off the kitchen lights if no one has done so yet Alexa can adjust the thermostat Yes, even the Nest Thermostat E can work well with Alexa

Knowing how to create an Alexa smart home routine would be more useful to parents' lifestyles than how to set up a smart home routine with Google Assistants Since Alexa's skill library is more extensive than Google Assistant's, it will give you more options for controlling your smart home yourself When I enter a particular place at a particular time, or when I say a particular phrase to Alexa, the assistant can perform an appropriate series of actions

Much of why I once preferred the Google Assistant was related to my pre-pandemic lifestyle Now that I am home more often, my family and I do a lot of contactless shopping via Amazon With an Alexa speaker in a renovated home, any of us can order extra toilet paper or cleaning supplies simply by asking aloud This could also be done on Google, but Google shopping results would apply, not Amazon Prime

This kind of automation is why I decided to have the best Alexa-enabled devices in my parents' house, from the best smart locks to the best Alexa speakers

Speaking of speakers, the affordable Amazon Echo (4th generation) we chose for our home is Tom's Guide's best smart home hub The built-in Zigbee radio allows compatible low-power smart home devices to connect directly to the Echo, eliminating the need for a third-party hub like Samsung SmartThings v3 to manage numerous gadgets

If you have a lifestyle where you don't go out and use a small space, Google Assistant is the way to go But for those who want to make their home as smart as possible, Alexa is the obvious choice At least until Google catches up with them with greater advances

I have questions about Alexa and Google Assistants that I'd like to address in our DIY Smart Home series See my previous DIY Smart Home: Why I Skip "Smart" Kitchen Appliances, too