> Why do people buy and use these things? For me it’s basically laziness. I like being able to control my heating / lighting without having to reach for my pho

> Why do people buy and use these things? For me it’s basically laziness. I like being able to control my heating / lighting without having to reach for my phone while I’m still in bed. Before having my thermostat on the LAN I would have to guess before going to bed what temperature I would like the house to be at and at what time. Now I switch it on/off from the comfort of my blanket and have the house nice and warm before getting out of bed when I wake. I also like having the ability to switch lights on and off while having my hands full, request music, news, information, create timers, amend my shopping list, without having to reach for my phone (which for me is even more convenient when my hands are in no state to be touching my phone/switches/whatever, cooking or doing the washing up for example). Now for me personally my Echos are mainly just fancy voice remotes for my Home Assistant setup with most of the devices it controls local only devices (I have a couple of plugs I’ve yet to crack open to flash tasmota onto them), because their isn’t anything really competes with them for what they do in the open source hardware “market”. So for the moment I use Echos with the privacy settings all maxed out. While not directly smart speaker related I always hated outdoor PIRs because of their false positive triggers. So using Home Assistant, the camera covering the front of my house, Doods and a bit of JavaScript I now track when a person is moving outside my home at night to turn the outdoor lighting on without it being triggered by the neighbourhood wildlife. For my elderly parents, they use them because their mobility isn’t as great as it used to be. My step dad has to use walking sticks to great around, having the ability to control the lights with just his voice removes the need to stop using this sticks to toggle the lights has he enters/exits a room. My mother has more mobility and has no issues with wall mounted switches when entering / exiting a room she can find the small switches on lamps more of a chore. She also like using lamps over the main ceiling light as it feels more “cozy”. So it saves her having to walk around the room turning on/off multiple lamps (although that could be done with wiring the sockets to a wall switch, but doing that without the need to repair decorations is a pain, much easier to use pass thru relay sockets for things like lamps). They also like the lack of buttons and screens on them. When she wants to listen to the radio/music she can just ask for the station instead of “faffing” with the controls on the radio to find the station/music she wants to listen too. While I understand there are privacy concerns with smart speakers of any brand (and I will not dismiss those concerns of those who have them), I feel with good data protection laws to help deal with those issues smart speakers have a place for those who find it easier to interact with their world via their voice over their hands.