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Voice Control your Smart Home - practical, convenient and fun

Google Home, Apple SIRI, Microsoft Cortana and Amazon Echo Alexa Personal Virtual Assistants can give you a...

Voice Controlled Smart Home

Cutting edge Smart Home systems controlled by an owner's voice, or Voice Controlled Home Automation was recently featured on Nine Entertainment's 'The Block', highlighting that acceptance of 'talking to' your home has moved on from SCiFI nerdism to being a practical home control tool.

The Block apartment of Ben and Andy demonstrated how seamless integrated voice control of the lighting, bathroom shower, air-conditioning, bathroom privacy giving smart glass...... even the coffee machine, could be.

Voice control of a Smart Home is not a new concept and has actually been available for well over a decade - Clipsal had a product at the time Clipsal Homespeak, released in 2001/2002 and based upon the Dragon NaturallySpeaking platform, but it was primarily a success in Aged Care and Disability support installations. At the time, the product worked well and did what it said, but was not a mainstream hit as people always felt a bit foolish talking to their homes, firmly holding on to their 'Clappers', buttons, remotes and touch screens.

The ubiquitous infiltration and acceptance of voice control of environments such as car GPS systems and Apple's SIRI voice assistant coupled with rapid technology advancements and low cost consumer hardware created tangible 'Personal Assistants'. By adding capabilities such as Voice Net Searching, providing verbal feedback of questions asked, diary control, control of third party devices through apps / skills has driven this Push for voice control of everything, including your Smart Home.

Many new home voice assistant products, though released in the US are still to be launched in Australia, but this hasn't hampered implementation of voice control home automation and the voice controlled Smart Home in Australia

Voice control of your home automation system, home theatre or lounge room is convenient, fun and time saving. One single command can execute multiple simulataneous or consecutive commands, so you can for instance say 'Alexa - Awaken' and have it dim up the lights in your lounge room, turn on your TV or projector, turn on your Foxtel and slelect your preferred channel, close the blinds, turn on your surround AV receive. It can even pour you a coffee with the right linked hardware.

How do I Voice Control my Home?  Some articles that will help you.

Are voice controlled homes the future or a gimmick? by Fastcodesign

Voice Control Digital Assistants:

Comparison of Amazon Echo vs Google Home by PC Mag (2018)

Alexa vs. Google Assistant vs. Siri - by Tom's Guide

Voice Control Home Equipment Information:

Google Home

Review of Google Home by Techradar (2020)

Review of Google Home by c|net (2018)

Amazon Echo Alexa

Review of Amazon Echo by c|net (2017)

Review of Amazon Echo by Techradar (2017)

Apple SIRI and HomeKit

Smart Home products controllable by SIRI through Apple's HomeKit

SmartVoice

SmartVoice Home Automation voice control gateway service for C-Bus

Contact us here at Nous House to explore the options for your own Voice Controlled Smart Home.

updated January 2020

This article contains observations and opinions from the Technical Director of Nous House that are personal only and do not form a formal company marketing statement. Do not rely on this information  and seek other advice. Please read our marketing and editorial statement for more information and copyright information.

Amazon Alexa and Amazon Echo are trademarks of Amazon. SIRI and HomeKit are trademarks of the Apple corporation. Google Assistant and Google Home are trademarks of Alphabet Corp. Cortana is a trademark of Microsoft Corp.