A big problem with all those talking speakers - "IOT Hubs" or how they call them is that people have very little incentive to use them over their phones.

The current wave of smart home devices like Google Home or Echo are nothing new, similar devices were available from OEMs for years, and no big brand was willing to sell them for that obvious reason.

Samsung made the right bet to glue all of their smart home offerings to their smartphones. Google's idea with nest was a miss because nobody was ready to buy it just to play with specially locked down "Made for Nest" webcams and other appliances, when everybody can buy a 10$ Chinese webcam that works just fine by itself.

Same with HomeKit fiasco, nobody really needs overcomplicated platform-lockdowned appliances that do not work without cloud connectivity and enforced DRM verification every 24 hours, when "Uncle Liao Electronics" provides what is a superior alternative in eyes of an average consumer