I've got Philips Hue lighting in my house, so I use it frequently for that: "Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights". It's particularly helpful because I have the vo

I've got Philips Hue lighting in my house, so I use it frequently for that: "Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights". It's particularly helpful because I have the voice remote in the bedroom, so I can do an "Alexa, turn off all the lights" before crashing and know that things are off. Home automation for me is the holy grail - If I could link Echo to something like Vera/MiCasaVerde or other full-home-control system (shouldn't be difficult, they have decent web APIs), the whole "Alexa, Time to watch Silicon Valley"-dim-the-lights-turn-on-the-tv-start-playing-my-show thing becomes a pretty easy reality. I use the grocery function often and have IFTT linked to add stuff to ToDoist (agreed, the mobile app is horrible - who knew Amazon would make such a miserable shopping list app). Lastly, living in the PNW, I do get a lot of mileage out of "Will it rain tomorrow?" Granted, nothing I couldn't do with an iPhone/Android, but Echo's cheaper than a dedicated mobile device.