To just want to use a fucking light switch

I swear, she only responds to the male voices in our house! 😂

I've been known to yell "the only bloody thing in this house that listens to me is sodding Alexa" when the kids and husband have been particularly trying.

I have the same problem! Except my Gadget-Twat (TM) DH has an Alexa in EVERY room in our house, plus light switches, TVs hooked up to her and basically EVERYTHING!! She hardly listens to me, doesn’t have a clue when I’m speaking to her and ignores all requests. I’ve been known to wake the kids up screaming at her to turn the lights off.
It drives me CRAZY!!

Most people aren't using lazy tech because they're disabled! If you're disabled, then any reasonable adjustments are totally understandable.

The vast majority of people can turn a light switch on and off. Movement is healthy. Getting off one's arse is healthy. If you're physically capable of it, then use that ability!

I don’t use the ceiling lights, much prefer smaller lights and up lighters. We have loads, I hated having to go around and switch them all off and on. We’ve had a remote version even before Alexa. It used to be in a remote control, not it’s on our phone or Alexa. I love it, it’s never been an issue, especially a bonus around Christmas with all the Christmas lights!

Genius!

I can confirm that light switches are very effective and really not too strenuous. Shocking, I know.

Oh you’re right, if you can’t afford a “high end kitchen” you shouldn’t aspire to boiling water remotely. Know your place eh?

Agreed but it is a fair effort to go round a room fiddling with the switches on three different lamps, so that is where it comes into its own.

That sounds tough for you. Have you thought about recording a few voice notes on your phone of you saying the most commonly used commands, then you can play those to the Alexa when you’re struggling with speech.

Maybe so but it's an expectation in a high end kitchen.

Oh, one downside of Alexa is that our 8 year old thinks it’s hilarious to use her to randomly turn off the living room lights from upstairs while we are in there watching TV!

Qooker is a grand plus installation. You can get a basic Alexa for £20 these days.

For people with no physical disabilities, which is most of the population, not getting up to turn the lights on is just another way to let your body deteriorate- it might seem minor but if it's so minor just stand up

I'm disabled. It's only easier in as much as you don't get, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that request" every other bloody time. It became incredibly frustrating, which is why I ditched mine.

I have two, a porch light and a front room lamp. Mainly so I can switch them on remotely or on timer ready for my daughters getting home in winter or from work late at weekends. I like what I've got but would t add any more

I find that Alexa is getting more difficult to work. Wonder why this would be?

What is the world coming to! I'm not interested in tech, unless it's forced on me, for good reason. I enjoy the ritual at this time of year when it's dark early,of walking round the living room, switching on the table lamps with "warm" white bulbs and rather lovely hand made glass shades, and the fakey electric log burner. Incidentally,has anyone else noticed,every single film TV series you watch, people go indoors, even in the day time,there's always tables and side lamps on everywhere in the room.

For ceiling lights it's just extra faff. I had alexa set up for all small lamps and lights with short commands and timers. Bliss because it was faster than switching 4 things, 2 if which had switch behind shelves, on and off. Came on bit by bit in the evening, "alexa good night" switched them off.
I rarely use main lights anyway in living room.

We had a lot of smart bulbs in the old house, but here we've got silly chandelier type light fittings in most rooms so it's too pricey to do. It worked for us to have them on voice control and I still do things like smart plugs for things like Christmas tree lights to not have to furtle around backs of trees to turn stuff off on a night - plus we had that set to "Call off Christmas" so could practice our Alan Rickman impressions.

Alexa's getting increasingly stupid as time goes on though and harder to recognise voice commands and lots of people are noticing it.

Most 'smart things' have poor security. They're connected to your wifi. This means they're easy to hack into and, from there, into the other devices connected to your wifi. The potential implications are really bad.

This does actually happen all the time. Even if some hacker's only getting trivial details from your devices (ie, not your banking etc), they sell it on to someone who collates big data and will be able to add it to the other information they've got on you - and the people/places you interact with. Like this.

Even worse, there've been numerous hacks into critical infrastructures, governments, hospitals and large organisations via 'smart things'.

That said, mine aren't isolated and I probably should care more.

I was right into the IoT when it first came out, smart bulbs and everything everywhere. Google and Amazon were pumping a lot of money into their AI and home assistant tech and it works quite well.

then they started cutting budgets. And now it’s crap. Sadge.

I've got them in lamps because I like the dimming/colours/routines. But I use the app not Alexa. The kids like them in their room as they otherwise have to get out of bed to turn them off at night 🙄😂. But I ditched the rest as Alexa is a pain in the arse.

😁

Our bathroom light is on the outside of the bathroom........

But surely you don't want all your lights to come on? I spent my entire day going around switching off all the lights switches that apparently are impossible to turn off if you're a teenager 😁