Sonos One vs Google Home vs Amazon Echo Best Smart Speakers in 2024

Smart home assistants or speakers have been around for a couple of years now. Amazon was the first to launch a smart device, known as the Echo. Powered by Alexa, this smart device took a while to be accepted but has now managed to spawn competitors in the form of Google Home and Apple HomePod. But these two are not the only options available for customers out there. Independent brands like Sonos are also in the game. They are leveraging Amazon’s Alexa voice assistants within their speakers, allowing prospective customers to get more options while getting a smart home speaker.

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At A Glance: Sonos One vs Google Home vs Amazon Echo Best Smart Speakers in 2022

• Sonos One (Gen 1) - Voice Controlled Smart Speaker with Amazon Alexa Built-in
  Our Top Pick
• Echo (2nd Generation) - Smart speaker with Alexa and Dolby processing

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We’re going to compare the Amazon Echo 2 with the Sonos One and Google Home today, in an attempt to ascertain which one of the two reigns supreme in the smart speaker space. The answer might be pretty obvious to a few of you already, but it’s not as easy a choice as you think.

Sonos One vs. Google Home vs. Amazon Echo Best Smart Speakers

Sonos One

Sonos is a company known for quality multi-room audio products that have gained the trust of millions of customers. Its new step comes in the form of another speaker, the Sonos One, which comes with voice assistant capabilities built-in in the form of Alexa. This is the same voice assistant that is used on the Amazon Echo, so there is more in common here with the Echo than you would think.

This means that it is capable of understanding a variety of commands, play audio, answer questions, and more with just the user’s voice. It is understood that it’s not the commands that are not that extensive, which is understandable since this isn’t an Amazon product.

If we’re talking about pure sound quality, however, there’s no denying that this is the best sounding smart speaker out there. They are beating even the 2nd gen Echo and the Google Home convincingly. The Sonos One can play content from Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, TuneIn, Sirius XM, and iHeartRadio accounts, but misses out on some other services like Google Play Music or Apple Music. However, users can operate this like any other Bluetooth speaker, allowing them to access content from any streaming services using their phones.

The Sonos One also comes with the ability to control your smart home devices. So this might well be the Bluetooth speakers you were looking for.

The bottom line here is that the Sonos One is a fantastic device, and if you’re looking for something that offers the best audio (with the bonus of having Alexa onboard), you can’t do much better than this.

The Sonos One is slightly expensive compared to the other two smart home speakers on this list. It is currently selling on Amazon. You can also get multiple units and save a bit on each unit.

Buy on Amazon

Google Home

The Google Home is a relatively new entrant in the smart speakers’ space. We say that because the Echo has been around for quite some time. Amazon has even launched the second iteration already, so Google was playing catch-up to some extent. Coming to the features, well, if you have bought Google products like the Chromecast, you will find integration like no other here.

It can also handle internet queries with a breeze, thanks to the entire internet being at its disposal. Search queries are an area where Google and Assistant cannot be contended with. In addition to asking generic questions, you can also choose to play games with Google Home by saying, “let’s play a game.” The device accepts “OK Google” or “Hey Google,” so you don’t have to rely on just one command to launch Home.

One more thing worth mentioning is that Google Assistant’s voice recognition tech is designed to grasp a variety of accents from across the world. So if you find that your emphasis is slightly out of the ordinary, Google will still understand your commands. The device supports music playback from Google Play, Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora, and TuneIn, so you have a lot of options out of the box.

As far as smart features are concerned, Google Home has a feature that reads out daily briefings from news sources like BBC News, CNN, NPR, etc.

Coupled with all the fantastic features that we talked about above, we feel the Google Home is a decent offering, although not in a position to compete with the Amazon Echo 2.

Amazon Echo 2

Amazon has had plenty of time to perfect its smart speaker. One can say that with the Echo 2, the company has been mostly successful in doing that. While it’s slightly shorter than the original Echo, the audio quality is significantly improved.

Out of the box, the Echo 2 comes with 15,000 skills and counting as more skills are added over some time. It can play audio from Prime Music, Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn. Search is an area where the Echo 2 falls short, but that’s simply down to Google’s expertise in the field.

The Echo 2 can also order stuff from Amazon on your behalf and control smart home devices. It also helps that the Echo 2 supports more intelligent speakers out there than any rival offering in the industry. What’s even better is that the Echo 2 is the cheapest offering mentioned on this list. There are five colors available here, so there’s plenty to choose from.

Sonos One vs Google Home vs Amazon Echo Best Smart Speakers Conclusion

Going by what we have learned about the three devices, it’s quite clear that the Amazon Echo 2 is pretty tough to beat. The fact that it is cheaper than the Sonos One is quite telling. But if you’re looking for better speaker quality and a bigger package, the Sonos One is an instant choice.

It’s tough to recommend Google Home right now as it’s still pretty much a work in progress. Perhaps it’s wise to wait for the second-gen model.