Google is going after Alexa.  Can their renewed push to smart home technology bring in more Google Home customers or will Amazon continue to dominate?

All I can say is finally!!! As a smart home enthusiast, I understand the value of a good smart home assistant.  With Amazon’s Alexa dominating the market over the last two years, is it any wonder why Amazon’s smart home assistant is taking over the industry?  Fortunately, Google is trying to change all that and they have taken their first steps on Thursday to announce that 5,000 smart home products now work with their Home product.

Among some of the big names now working with the company (some of these are coming soon) include security firm, ADT; home automation giant, Vivint; and TV service provider, Dish Network; who’s venerable Hopper platform is now voice controllable.  This is a giant step for a platform who has been dominated by Amazon for smart home dominance.

Earlier this year, Amazon boasted that they had 4,000 developers in place for their platform.  Compare that to Google’s 1,500 at the time and you can see a clear winner was defined.  But as of today, these numbers are now at parody and should help to drive people to the competing platform.

Amazon’s Alexa platform is still the dominant seller.   The company hasn’t just leveraged developers, they’ve leveraged their own platform.  The Echo platform has direct tie-ins to Amazon Music and Video services as well as shopping.  Home, conversely, ties into Play Music and other Google services but uses third parties to provide the shopping experience.  Both products are significantly stronger than either Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana.

With these smart additions, it’s clear that Google is aiming for a showdown that will only be good for consumers. Further, it will definitely be good for developers, especially in the smart home area as consumers are likely to start experimenting with smart home technology, spurring continued growth and sales.  With that being said, it will certainly be interesting to see how the company can grow their market share, if they can.  Will consumers flock to Home now that there is a considerable shift in smart home integration? Or will consumers stick with Alexa and her tight integration with the Amazon product line?  Only time will tell.