In my home, all of us are music mad. Apart from each individual having their own personal headset, we have a set of Altec Lansing computer speakers, a Bose SoundTouch 20, a JBL Flip, and a Boat Stone speaker – should be enough right? However, there is still a yearning for a Smart Speaker. The fact that there are several very economical smart speakers under Rs. 5K available in the market is also very persuasive.
Regular speakers connect to a source via wires or Bluetooth and play music or any type of sound. Most have buttons for volume control and to skip songs or replay them. The speaker has a charging port if it is cordless and an auxiliary port. However, some of the more compact ones have done away with the auxiliary feature because music devices how have Bluetooth by default.
Smart speakers do all that regular speakers do, plus they have a built-in assistant such as Google Assistant, Alexa or Siri. So you can ‘ask’ the speaker to do things: find and play a particular song/album, do a Google search and so on. A smart speaker also can help with home automation, security and so on. The speaker can also be turned on and off remotely. Some speakers are enabled to stream music, movies, and games and so on. Some let you continue playback from one to another room and some also let you use the assistant without a Wi-Fi connection.
This compact little speaker is available in the sub-4K range. It includes Google assistant, is wall-mount ready and has improved bass. It can play music and also controls other smart devices in the home. It is also compatible with smart TVs that have Chromecast built-in. The speaker will give you weather updates, tell you about your schedule, and give you reminders and so on. For a little extra, you can buy this with a Wi-Fi RGB smart bulb.
The 3rd generation of the Echo Dot is the most popular smart speaker brand in India. The 4th gen option has additional features such as an LED display that displays the time, temperature, timers and so on. This voice-activated speaker responds in English and Hindi, and the spherical shape offers better sound quality. It streams music from apps such as Amazon Music, Spotify, JioSaavn, Gaana, iTunes etc.
This again is an affordable smart speaker costing just 3.5 K with Google assistant. It is compatible with Chromecast smart TVs, steams music, controls smart devices in the home such as AC, lights, TV etc. Available in Hindi as well, it lets you create personalised schedules, timers, reminders, alarms, gives you weather updates, news and more.
With Google Assistant, this device plays music, podcasts, audiobooks, controls the lights, your smart TV and so on. The LED display shows the time, gives weather updates and so on. At Rs. 4.5K this is very affordable too. So clearly there are many reasons to want a smart speaker including functionality and affordability. However, there is no real need for one - or so I tell myself.
Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]
