After finishing up the Amazon Alexa+ review, I suddenly had an email that Google Gemini for Home was ready.
I fished my Google Nest Hub (2nd gen) out of the drawer where it’s been languishing, upgraded and then set about performing some simple tasks.
Could Gemini convince me to move away from Alexa?
Not a chance. In fact, it’s terrible in a lot of ways. Here are just a few things that it gets completely wrong.
It can’t change alarms
As I was writing this column at 4:30pm, I thought I’d try something simple. “Hey Google, set alarm for five fifty,” I said. The screen changed and the alarm had been set for 17:50. I was aiming for a morning alarm, but didn’t clarify that, so my bad. So, I asked Gemini to change the alarm to 5:50am.
The screen updated and showed the correct time. Job done, I thought. But, as this was a test, I didn’t really want the alarm. So, I asked Gemini to cancel it, and it came back telling me I’d got two alarms: one for 5:50am and one for 5:50pm.
The context of the conversation was clearly lost there. Amazon Alexa+ can deal with these requests, in this order, and get the correct outcome.
It can’t deal with PDFs and has an odd response
I can send PDFs to Alexa+ and have it strip out detail and meaning from them, such as calendar invites or to-do action points. I asked Gemini if it could do the same, and it said no, but it said that I could ‘paste in the text’.
As I was talking to a smart display, I asked how I could paste the information, and the response said, “You can simply paste the text directly into our chat here, just as you would when sending a message to a friend.”
Only, I can’t, because there’s no option and the Nest Hub can’t open PDFs for me to even copy any text.
It gets caught out by simple questions
I next went for a simple question, one that AI can struggle with: how many of the letter S are there in the word across?
I could see my prompt appear properly on screen, but Google Gemini told me, “There is only one ‘e’ in the word across.”
I tried again but asked how many letters’ S ‘ there are, and this time Gemini told me there were three of the letter ‘S’.
Alexa+ gets this question right.
There’s often nothing useful on-screen
Ask Alexa+ something on a smart display, and the screen will often show snippets of information or links to recipes. Do the same thing on a Nest Hub and you just get a page of black text on a white background. It makes it look like a work in progress.
Even worse, in some cases, I’ve had the screen go blank. When asking for a recipe recommendation, Google Gemini just spoke a stir-fry recipe at me with nothing on screen.
Ask about the weather and its just text on screen, with none of the niceness of Alexa+’s weather icons. Well, I say that, but if I ask, “OK Google, when’s a good time to have a BBQ?”, the answer page shows weather icons for the next good day, along with the voice response.
It doesn’t always get complicated commands
I’ve got a light around my desk, called Desk Strip. “Hey Google, turn on desk strip and then turn it off in five minutes,” I said. That seemed to work, the light came on and a timer appeared on the screen. However, when the timer ran out, the Nest Hub sounded an alarm.
To be fair, Alexa+ can struggle with these commands, and often creates a routine that does what you want, but named after the full command that you’ve asked for. However, with Alexa+, you can say, create a one-time routine first and then it does what you want (with a one minute delay).
Both systems can at least follow a single command, such as, “Turn of desk strip in five minutes.”
Some things are improving
When I first used Gemini for Home at the start of May, I started by asking it to remember that my wife’s a vegetarian. This information was logged, but when I then asked for a chicken recipe for my wife and me, Gemini suggested roast chicken.
Doing the same thing on Alexa+ came back with vegetarian options, along with a reminder that my wife is a vegetarian.
However, since then, Gemini for Home has been updated, and it now remembers the information and will give vegetarian options when asked (or at least recipes where meat could be added to one portion later).
It’s not as good as the competition
Amazon Alexa+ feels a long way ahead of Gemini for Home. And, Amazon’s app and hardware are also better. It feels as though Google has a long way to go if it wants people to switch back to its platform. For now, I’m sticking with Alexa+ for voice.
