Never used them to switch lights on and off, what we do use ours for is to set timers when we are cooking. I'm amazed no one has created a dedicated voice activ

Never used them to switch lights on and off, what we do use ours for is to set timers when we are cooking. I'm amazed no one has created a dedicated voice activated timer like this before, it makes too much sense. If your hands are covered in food and you need to set a timer it's much more convenient to just tell it to set a timer than it is to wash your hands, set a timer and then go back to food prep. Phones don't work well for this because they are inevitably in your pocket so they can't hear you well and you can't hear them. The second major use is as a shared calendar and reminder system. We set weekly and daily reminders and notifications for one time events. This is also much easier than messing with shared calendars on a phone since the home assistant is set up to respond to anyone and will just announce the reminder so whoever is around at the time can handle it. I'm sure someone could create a non-Amazon non-Google version of this but so far they haven't or if they have, they're doing a terrible job of marketing.