I get your point about privacy and occasional misinterpretations, but honestly, I've found voice control to be a real game changer in my setup. I built my own smart home system from scratch—mostly lighting, heating, and security—and initially, I was skeptical about voice commands too. It felt a bit awkward at first, talking to thin air, especially when guests were around. But after a few weeks, it became second nature.
One thing I noticed is that the quality of your microphone setup and placement makes a huge difference. When I first started, I used a cheap USB mic plugged into my Pi, and it was pretty frustrating—lots of misheard commands and delayed responses. But after upgrading to a better mic array and positioning it strategically in the room, accuracy improved dramatically. Now it's rare that I have to repeat myself or manually override anything.
Regarding privacy concerns, that's definitely valid. I personally opted for an entirely local voice recognition solution (no cloud services involved), which took some extra effort to set up but gave me peace of mind. It might not be as polished as Alexa or Google Assistant, but it does the job reliably enough without sending my conversations off-site.
I guess what I'm saying is that voice control doesn't necessarily have to be a headache if you're willing to invest a bit more time upfront. Sure, manual controls are always reliable, but once you get voice commands dialed in properly, the convenience factor is hard to beat. Plus, there's something oddly satisfying about walking into a room with your hands full and just casually asking the lights to turn on...
