Amazon Alexa is flexible and compatible with many smart home devices but can be clunky and has no native smartphone support.

I've been covering technology for five decades and even I can't handle smart home setups – and that's a big problem.

They were activated when a user said something like: "Alexa, turn on my horoscopes ... remember some of the apps offered for Amazon Echo and Google Home devices were made by third parties.

Google Home, Google's smart home platform, is relatively static at the moment. While millions of people use it, and there are ...