Voice Activated Smart(ish) Home Tech?

I have three Amazon Echo's in various rooms throughout the house and I love them (despite a small array of various annoying errors and design issues).

I have a bunch of TPLink Power Plug controllers which allow me to control lights in the house, and I have a few ANKER BlueTooth Speakers which I use with the Echo's for better sound performance when I want to listen to things.

I only rarely use the Echo's for weather reports or shopping lists, but I use them for controlling the lights a lot, and I love them for reading Audible Books and Playing Music and Ambient Sound at night. It has nice voice commands for turning itself off after a specified time. So I routinely end my night by listening to a book for a while, then playing a bit of music, then turning on ambient rain sounds and telling Alexa to turn herself off in 30 minutes. I also use it for a repeating alarm every weekday morning, which I don't have to continuously modify or manage from my iPhone (like I did before).

The TPLink lights have their own controls which I sometimes manage through my iPad or iPhone which allow me to set a range of timers and to schedule away activity.

When I originally got these devices I though they might be slightly entertaining, but the more I use them the more they are becoming integral to our daily activities.

XKCD

As an Alexa owner, I prevent that problem by having no friends.

‘Hearmuffs’ Are to Your Amazon Echo What Tape Is to Your Webcam

Good grief.

I'd be really worried that I would order the wrong thing due to my Boston accent.

I got so mad once trying to do a voice recognition thing over the phone - it kept giving the wrong person/department because it interpreted what I said incorrectly.

I could only imagine what I would be getting in the mail rather than what I wanted.

Update:
Not sure how or exactly why but my biggest problem with the Amazon Tap fixed itself.

My biggest problem involved it's particularly loud and obnoxious audible notification bing whenever it connected/disconnected to a Bluetooth source or simply bumping the table and the battery to recharger connections separated for an 1/16th of a second. No matter what the device's volume level, the notification bing volume was at it's highest. Early in the morning or late at night or 2 or 3 in the freaking morning.

BINGBONG!

I tried Tweeting and emailing to Amazon about it. No legitimate reply.

Maybe it was a recent firmware update but about a month ago, that problem disappeared when I found I couldn't really connect my phone or my laptop via Bluetooth ... which is fine as I can now directly listen to Spotify as well as several live streaming radio stations with the Tap (which is basically what I use the device for in the first place).

Microsoft Gets Serious About the Smart-Speaker Game
Working with high end speaker company, Harman Kardon.

So cute, so smart.

makes me think of hyenas

Amazon Alexa Devices Are Laughing Spontaneously And It's "Bone Chillingly Creepy"

My father has one of the new Alexas with a video screen and camera. I still wasn't impressed, I don't see how this would make my life better.

I did enjoy the South Park take on these devices (in the episode, people are convinced to throw out these devices and Cartman decides they might be fun to play with).

Oh my gosh this reminds me of my kids' roku. I was sitting in my sun room where we have a TV when I was working from home.

All of a sudden the TV turned on. What?! I checked to make sure I didn't sit on the remote or something - no the remote was on the table no where near me.

Then a show started and I am like what the heck??? I yell to my daughter figuring she might have the other remote or doing something to freak me out - nope. Then she figured it was the roku - she didn't mean it but was trying to view something on the phone and it somehow was connected to the TV.

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