Right now Echo/Alexa is still surprisingly bad at NLP(1), so its strength seems to be in simple integrations with platforms that have done the heavy lifting. I

Right now Echo/Alexa is still surprisingly bad at NLP(1), so its strength seems to be in simple integrations with platforms that have done the heavy lifting. I can't, for example, have Echo give me travel times to work by subway or even schedule anything beyond a simple timer. However, I have converted entirely to Phillips Hue bulbs, a Kasa wifi plug and a Beme eRod curtain rod, with a Logitech Harmony Hub as a bridge for IR devices (like the eRod). With this I can do things like tell Alexa to open and close my curtains (well, "Alexa turn curtains on" since it is bad at NLP so it can't understand "Alexa, open the curtains"). I also have it turning on my Christmas tree lights at sunset and off at 1 am (thanks to the Kasa plug). It's nice to have it turn some lights in my house off and others to 50% with a couple quick verbal commands. If I had cable and cared I could use the Logitech Harmony to tell Alexa to turn on ESPN, but I've been cordless for a long time. I still really wish some things were first order operations: it is absurd I can't schedule the Phillips lights to turn on and off at a given time, every day, for example. I'm still pretty new to everything given I held out for the Echo Dot so I could have something with a 3.5mm out to stream Spotify via my receiver, so I've only had a couple months to dive in. I can see it doing more for me, like watering my plants by hooking up another Kasa plug to a reservoir of water and a fish tank pump. For now it is better than anything else I've tried (haven't seen/tried Google Home yet), but it is still bad enough at just recognizing my actual voice commands I am hestitant to build more on it until the platform has matured. (1) When I left Amazon they seemed one of the stronger technical teams and I expected then to have been much farther by now.