One of the hurdles to smart home adoption has been the complexity. What happens now is someone orders a bunch of devices or buys some things in a big box store, and they plug them all in at home, and then something goes wrong. Their Wi-Fi isn’t efficient enough to support all the devices across the house, or the devices don’t all work together, or the homeowners can’t figure out how to set the network up, and, ultimately, they aren’t blown away by the potential of the smart home.

What the Echo has proven, is that when your devices go beyond answering questions to actually conversing with you and listening and learning your context, then they are proving their value. People are starting to appreciate the benefits from this initial round of speech-enabled products. They like the frictionless interaction through voice, and they are rapidly incorporating devices like the Echo Show into their day-to-day lives. Positive experiences are then encouraging them to take the plunge with other smart home technologies. According to Parks Associates, 53 percent of owners of smart speakers with personal assistants, like Amazon Echo and Google Home, report having a smart home device as well.

From the article "Amazon Echo Show Ushers in Smart Home Transformation" by Miles Kingston.