[Zombieball]

> isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just physically flipping the switch?

The answer to this is: No.

The Echo and Google Smarthome don't require you to take it out of your pocket to interact with it. Walk in the door and it's listening. It sounds like a small difference but it is huge.

I think voice interfaces are very easily dismissed as for the lazy people, or a gimmick. Until you start using it on a daily basis. Then you start to realize how stupid it is to not be able to turn on your lights while both hands are overloaded with grocery bags (because two trips to the car is just never done!)

[systemtest]

I feel like presence detection is a better option for lights.

Stumbling in the dark waiting for Echo to process your command versus just having the lights turn on when you enter a room.

[wmeredith]

I disagree, here. I may not always want the lights on. I prefer voice control to motion detection.

[Zombieball]

Yep. Same here. You want to be able to explicitly turn off the lights (say when you go to bed). Not have to wait for some timer to expire.

I suppose if the motion sensors had some extreme AI and could detect when I would want the lights on or off and make that decision before I verbalized it. But I'd probably want the voice interface as an override when the AI gets the wrong answer.