Google Home can do this to a degree today. You are capable of saying things like "Play X on my TV." if your TV is wired up with a ChromeCast.

In general, Google Home is very far ahead of Alexa. I agree with the opinion that Alexa is a glorified radio, but I don't believe that opinion extends to all devices in that class. I think its just because Alexa is overrated and not very powerful.

The Chromecast example isn't supporting your claim in my opinion.

Being able to say "Watch Breaking bad on the living room TV" and have Netflix pop-up and start playing right where I left off, or being able to say "play the latest off topic podcast on the bedroom TV" and have it startup right away is really nice.

I've also got a lot of home automation stuff so that combined with telling it to turn lights on/off is fantastic.

My nightly routine is to tell it to turn the bedroom lights on, get ready for bed, tell it to play the show I'm watching, then when I'm in bed and comfy tell it to turn all lights off.

For me, simply being able to turn my TV + soundbar on/off with Google Home + IFTTT + Harmony Hub, while being a stupid amount of duct tape, has made me no longer need to hunt for where the TV or sound bar remote are any more. Being able to pause/resume shows on my Roku with the same setup avoids me having to get my phone out, unlock it, open the Roku app and press the pause button. It's pretty convenient. Is it life changing? No. Could I just stop losing the remotes? No :p

I have also found myself listening to a lot more music with the google home since I can just turn it on with my voice when I crawl out of bed. Not sure if that's a good fit for metal of any kind though.

I don't think it's truly life changing, few things are, but well executed voice control is truly convenient.

But it's being sold to relatively unsophisticated consumers, on the front page of the world's largest e-commerce site. This is not a bleeding edge release like Google Glass; this is a broad market release to all kinds of users.

Like I said in my other comment, I do like mine, and I think the article goes overboard. But I don't think Amazon has the luxury of saying "hey, it's bleeding edge!" when it's a top selling item for them, and front and center when you go to their site.

I think this is the most overlooked use case that needs to be addressed. Even in a secure residence, if you leave a 2nd story window open it might be possible to get the audio to Alexa. Though I suppose these skills could add a 2-factor to the unlocking mechanism.

"Alexa unlock the door."

"Ok, what is the passcode."

<get's out phone, retrieves token>

"123456"

"Thanks, unlocking door."

The problem I see is I don't want 2-factor on everything.

No house is really secure, and I'm not going to spend my time trying to secure it against non-existent threats.

That's not to say I don't want security. The threat of someone finding a loophole and being able to enumerate and unlock all smart doors is very real. But I'm not going to care if someone can come up with a scheme where they megaphone their voice to unlock the door, then somehow prevent the notification going to my phone letting me know someone is home, avoiding or destroying the few security cameras we have, and avoiding being caught by someone else during all this ruckus. Especially when they could just break a window...

"Alexa unlock the door."

"Ok, what is the passcode."

<Looks at smart watch>

"123456"

"Thanks, unlocking door."

Now that I think of it, as someone that has 3 different 2f tokens.. smart watch integration would actually be useful in general... If I had a smart watch.

The problem is that I don't want to use my voice for commanding that much. It has privacy implications. First, obviously there is data being transmitted to a US corporation such as Google or Amazon. Second, there is analog audio data being transmitted. For example, that TOTP token generally stays valid for 30 seconds. In this window, an attacker could open the door right after you entered. I live in an apartment, and anything I say in the hallway can be heard by other people living on the same level as me while they are within their house (yep, terrible design).

I do admit that in the privacy of your home such analog audio data works better than say in public via your smartphone. But then again, smartphone is a can of worms with more privacy implications such as screen easily being seen by bystanders and cameras (a smartwatch has the very same issue; Google Glass wouldn't!). For the phone, Google Home is an interface, and certainly not (yet) the primary interface. For Amazon Echo, Alexa is the interface.

Bottomline, we need to think of these disadvantages (share our thoughts about them), and understand when they're too big to be a valid use case.

Too much overhead. It should be able to identify you by voice, so you can just ask it to "pause" and "resume".