Welcome Home: Watch Google's $130 smart speaker take on Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa in a singing, joke telling battle of the AI assistants

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It is turning into a monumental battle between tech giants.

The race to create a smart home assistant has already seen a plethora of virtual assistants, from Apple's Siri to Amazon's Alexa and Facebook's chatbots.

Now, Google has joined the fray with Home, a $130 smart speaker that can do everything from play music to control your lights - and has the vast knowledge of Google's search engine as its 'brain'.

We pitted it against Amazon's Echo Dot and Apple's Siri in a series of tests to reveal the personality (or lack of) in each of them.  

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We pitted Google, Home,Amazon's Echo Dot and Apple's Siri against each other in a series of tests, from singing to telling jokes.

Google's Home is the firm's latest AI move, after introducing its smart assistant in the new Pixel handsets last month.

After a week with Home, while it's been an incredibly impressive glimpse into how useful an AI assistant could one day be, it seems Google still has some work to do - although this is a device that oozes with potential for the future. 

That said, it's already extremely capable in many areas.

Ask about your day, and the Home speaker will give you the time, weather, estimated commute, the news and upcoming calendar appointments.

The speaker is a really lovely piece of design, and it's tough to fault the hardware. If you're not keen on the colour, you can simply swap the bottom part for another colour or material.

Sound quality was surprisingly good, and listening to music really wasn't the horrible experience I was expecting (particularly as, like Amazon's Echo, it can integrate with Spotify, and access all of your playlists and Spotify's superb recommendations).

The top of the speaker doubles as a touch sensitive control surface, although I found it was mainly used to control the volume.

Useful LEDs swirl as it is working, so you know when it is thinking. 

The voice recognition is also astonishingly good - I can barely recall it not hearing something over my week with it, whether it was my British accent or my wife's American one asking the questions.

However, that does bring up one problem - it will answer anyone, and can only be linked to one Google account at the moment - so a couple can't both have their diaries available, for instance. 

The obvious competitor at the moment is Amazon's Echo, with its Alexa assistant.

It has a major head start on Google, and can do a lot more at the moment.

However, even with its early incarnation of a Google digital companion called Assistant, Home actually seems the smarter of the two - and most of that is down to how much Google already knows about you.

For instance, it knows about upcoming trips, based on reservations in Gmail, and also really nicely integrates commute times, complete with delays, based on data in Maps.

AMAZON ECHO VS GOOGLE HOME 

Google's $1230 Home speaker is triggered by the phrase 'Hey Google' while Amazon's Echo uses A'Alexa.

Amazon's smart speaker is available in two versions - the full sized $180 Echo shown here, and a smaller, $50 version called the Echo Dot. 

Google Home AI speaker (left) shows the incredible potential of a smart home assistant - but still has a little bit of learning to do before it become indispensable. Amazon's Echo (right) is far better at using other services at the moment, known as skills.

Echo, on the other hand, can direct you to work - and that seems about it.

However, the Echo does have the upper hand when it comes to partnerships, and can integrate with a Fitbit, order pizza and even call an Uber.

Amazon has more than a thousand of these partnerships, known as skills.

Google's integrations are initially limited to calling for Ubers, changing news or music providers and controlling smart lights from Phillips, SmartThings and the temperature of your home - if you're using Google's Nest.

The speaker will come in six different colors, and be available from November 4th

It's also possible to control your TV with home, up to a point. 

Home supports Google's Chromecast but so far the support seems a little patchy, and I found it doesn't always work. 

However, with a 4K version hitting the market soon, expect this to be another thing about Home that gets better very quickly.

Both devices work as alarm clocks or timers — and are great in the kitchen. 

GOOGLE'S AI AMBITIONS: SMART ASSISTANTS EVERYWHERE

The firm also revealed its Google Home smart speaker will go on sale in November.

At the unveiling of Home in May, Google boss Sundar Pichai said:  'We think of the assistant as an ambient experience that goes across devices - this is more than just phones, it will be on devices they wear, in their car and in their living rooms.'

The leading tech companies are all competing to assist consumers in their online activities such as shopping, since that gives the companies a better chance of selling advertising or other services.

Home-based systems like the Echo are taking on more importance with the advent of improved voice technology, according to Julie Ask, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Home really excels here though - you can ask it recipes, and it'll read out cooking instructions to you. 

It's also a lot more fun if you have kids - for instance, it can play sound games if you ask it what sounds animals makes (although my dog was unimpressed by its cow impression). 

However, using a smart speaker, be in the Echo Dot or Home, does require a big change in the behaviour of owners.

It really does take a while before you automatically remember you can ask Google for things - and I must confess, a week in with Home, I often still whip out my phone to do things I could simply have asked for.

But given time, it seems having the might of Google's search engine behind is will give Home a much smarter brain than anyone else - and could see Google making a smart home assistant a reality.