Since getting an Echo, I notice my wife constantly changing the temperature on the Nest because, well, it's so easy to bark out a command when you don't want to get up or don't have your phone handy.
Prior to getting an echo, I only used my Wemo switches for scheduling lights to come on and off when we were away. I use voice commands for turning groups on and off all the time now. Since it's dark when I take out the dogs in the a.m., I use a "good morning" routine that turns on my downstairs lights and tells me the outside temperature so I know which coat to wear. I'm surprised at how dependent I'm becoming on Alexa for otherwise mundane stuff.
Having said all of that, I guess I made the choice to value convenience/functionality over privacy. I see the Amazon/Google assistants as "Big Brother with benefits".
It's interesting that I had a similar experience with the AirPods I got as a gift. I would never have bought them myself, but now that I have them I keep discovering ways in which they solve a 'problem', however trivial, that I had in the past with wired earbuds/headphones, or offer a new use-case. I often find myself having one of the earbuds in throughout the day, and I wasn't too much of a headphone-user to begin with.
If they'd break, I'd probably buy new ones immediately, despite the price.
(Well, I'd research the possibility of cheaper bluetooth earbuds first)
My personal feeling about home assistants is that they aren't supposed to be "meaningful", at least not in any significant way. I recently bought a Google Home Mini and I only use it occasionally, but when I do it's very supplementary. Example being that I've been re-reading the Harry Potter books and I've come across British terms I didn't recognize, so I just ask the Mini what the term means and when it works (80% of the time, I'd say) it's pretty useful as a utility.
But I'm not going out of my way to use it in such a way that it replaces something significant in my life.
All that said, I wonder what it would offer an elderly person. If my Grandma were still alive I'd be very tempted to rewire all her light switches to be wi-fi enabled and set them up with a Google Home/Alexa. I can see it being a huge, huge benefit to the old and frail.
It's a big shift in technology, but since it is voice interactive, rather than computer/smart phone, I think it does provide an ease of use for older people who might not be as technology savvy.
SNL did a great skit on this … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk
No one is buying $350 home assistants, but if it’s a really high quality speaker (we’ll see) then the price is reasonable.
The marketing around it is really weird and confused. At this point I wonder what Apple even thinks it is.
Personally I'm really hoping to see them expand Siri over the coming year(s), especially given how...dumb...she is right now - expanding what can be done with SiriKit and allowing additional Siri functionality to be installed directly on the HomeKit would make my mind up on buying one easy (I'll still probably get one for a nice speaker to play music with, though).