I built my smart home around Apple’s ecosystem ensuring HomeKit compatibility whenever I added a new smart home device. All the lights in my home are Philips Hue with a few decorative Nanoleaf lights. I’ve got Eve power outlets turning on my kitchen greenhouse and powering off my TV at night, Eve Aqua waters my garden and Eve sensors monitor doors and windows and apply scenes according to their status. I have August locks, a Honeywell thermostat and a couple of legacy Nest products that I got before HomeKit that I’ll replace eventually (Nest Protect and NestCams).
I control everything by voice with a HomePod or if I’m out of voice reach or don’t want to talk, I’ll use my AppleWatch or an iPad that I’ve mounted on a wall. i’ve wanted to add Siri to other places in my home but HomePod seems like overkill for small rooms like a bathroom or smaller bedrooms. I’ve been waiting for Apple to update Beats speakers like BeatsPill with Siri support to use those for smaller rooms.
Then Amazon came out with the Echo Show. First, I got a small one mostly out of curiosity and to experiment with and used it as my alarm clock. I loved it so much that I got an Echo Show 8 for the kitchen. It made sense. I do almost all of my shopping on Amazon and I love that these have a screen. They’re also terribly inexpensive.
The good news is that all of my HomeKit products also have Alexa support. Better news is that Siri and Alexa get along perfectly. If I turn something on with Siri, Alexa will reflect the change. If I run an Alexa routine, Siri will update the status of those devices. I can’t remember them ever conflicting. Echo Show also supports Apple Music now and it knows my Playlists and even allows me to like or dislike a song.
The bad news: Alexa is painfully stupid. For all the bad rep Siri gets, Alexa somehow gets away with being dumb despite being the best selling smart assistant. You have to ask Alexa to do things in a very very specific way. Otherwise it doesn’t know what to do. Siri on the other hand understands natural language and you can ask things in all sorts of ways, it infers what you mean and executes the command. Alexa Skills are not all they’re hyped up to be. Most of them, and by most, I mean almost all of them, suck. They’re either pointless games or gimmicks you’ll get tired of within a minute or if they’re supposedly useful, they’re hard to use.
In reality, the only thing Siri is behind on is adoption. That really comes down to price. What App,e could is help convert people’s iPads into Siri devices. Apple should add a feature in iPad OS that enables iPads to act as Siri screens with a simplified UI, kind of like CarPlay for the home.
Meanwhile, I’m hopeful that Alexa improves and adds AirPlay 2 support. I’d love to see further cooperation between Apple and Amazon. They’re largely complementry rather than rivals. Like Google before they entered the smartphone space.
Anybody using mixed Alexa + Siri in their homes?
I control everything by voice with a HomePod or if I’m out of voice reach or don’t want to talk, I’ll use my AppleWatch or an iPad that I’ve mounted on a wall. i’ve wanted to add Siri to other places in my home but HomePod seems like overkill for small rooms like a bathroom or smaller bedrooms. I’ve been waiting for Apple to update Beats speakers like BeatsPill with Siri support to use those for smaller rooms.
Then Amazon came out with the Echo Show. First, I got a small one mostly out of curiosity and to experiment with and used it as my alarm clock. I loved it so much that I got an Echo Show 8 for the kitchen. It made sense. I do almost all of my shopping on Amazon and I love that these have a screen. They’re also terribly inexpensive.
The good news is that all of my HomeKit products also have Alexa support. Better news is that Siri and Alexa get along perfectly. If I turn something on with Siri, Alexa will reflect the change. If I run an Alexa routine, Siri will update the status of those devices. I can’t remember them ever conflicting. Echo Show also supports Apple Music now and it knows my Playlists and even allows me to like or dislike a song.
The bad news: Alexa is painfully stupid. For all the bad rep Siri gets, Alexa somehow gets away with being dumb despite being the best selling smart assistant. You have to ask Alexa to do things in a very very specific way. Otherwise it doesn’t know what to do. Siri on the other hand understands natural language and you can ask things in all sorts of ways, it infers what you mean and executes the command. Alexa Skills are not all they’re hyped up to be. Most of them, and by most, I mean almost all of them, suck. They’re either pointless games or gimmicks you’ll get tired of within a minute or if they’re supposedly useful, they’re hard to use.
In reality, the only thing Siri is behind on is adoption. That really comes down to price. What App,e could is help convert people’s iPads into Siri devices. Apple should add a feature in iPad OS that enables iPads to act as Siri screens with a simplified UI, kind of like CarPlay for the home.
Meanwhile, I’m hopeful that Alexa improves and adds AirPlay 2 support. I’d love to see further cooperation between Apple and Amazon. They’re largely complementry rather than rivals. Like Google before they entered the smartphone space.
Anybody using mixed Alexa + Siri in their homes?
Last edited:
