How to make Google Home & Amazon Echo talk to each other in an infinite loop

Google’s new Google Home assistant is out this week. It’s a rival to Amazon Echo. Both are voice-activated. So could they talk to each other? Yes — and in fact, they can keep talking without end, if you arrange things right.

I discovered this in the way all great discoveries should happen, with one of my kids trying to make both devices lose their minds. My youngest son started playing around and ended up getting them to talk incessantly to each other.

How exactly that happened took some diagnosing. In the end, we have a pretty foolproof recipe. No doubt there will be others, including better ones that might have them doing actual dialogs rather than just setting each other off.

But if you have both devices and want to have some fun, here you go.

Your shopping list to an infinite loop

On the Echo, create a shopping list that has six items. It’s very important that it’s six. The items can be anything, but the second item from the top should be something you think will cause Google Home to talk for a bit. Try things like “pizza” or “weather.” For our test, we went with “What is Mr. Robot.” You know, like the TV show.

The first item on the top — which will be the last item you add, because the most recent items get read first — should be “OK Google.”

Here’s how our list looked. We added “eggs” first four times in a row, then “What is Mr. Robot,” then “OK Google,” which resulted in this:

Once you’ve done that, ask Alexa on the Echo to read your shopping list. It’ll say “OK Google,” triggering Google Home to listen. Then the next item tells Google Home what to search for. Google Home will ignore all the other items on the list, because it’s busy answering what it was asked.

The magic is when Alexa gets to the fifth item. That’s all she’ll read unless told to do more. But as it turns out, if she hears anything at all, she’ll start reading the list all over again. And if Google Home is still reading its answer, that sets Alexa off, and the loop is put into motion.

Here’s the final product:

Enjoy! Or good luck. Or… be ready to tell them both to stop, as it can get annoying fast. And for something more productive, see our review today: Google Home bests Amazon Echo & Alexa, for answering questions.

About The Author

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan is a Founding Editor of Marketing Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also serves as Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media, which publishes Marketing Land and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He has a personal blog called Daggle (and keeps his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan.