fauxmo

Voice control is about the only way my wife and kids interact with hass (in spite of other options). I (re)wrote an app for interfacing with Alexa[0] while my son was a neonate because it made such a difference to be able to verbally turn off lights while both hands were full carrying him around (or sleeping on my chest and I don't want to move). For me, voice control is a must. [0]: https://github.com/n8henrie/fauxmo

I'm emulating Belkin WeMo instead for my lights with a raspberry pi. No Amazon dev account required and it has native support. https://github.com/n8henrie/fauxmo (Not my project.) The one thing I've learned about smart home is if you come up with a cool idea of how to do it DIY, someone's done it similarly and better. Wrote my own code for everything and ended up ditching it all for HomeAssistant.

I use mine much more than I expected. The number one thing I love is Pandora integration -- ours is outside the kitchen, so virtually every day I can holler for it to put on an appropriate Pandora station (with both hands dirty / full of dishes) or for it to set a timer. I also updated a Python script that emulates Belkin Wemo devices so I can control HomeAssistant and various http enabled home automation devices around the house. For anyone interested: https://github.com/n8henrie/Fauxmo