How to use a voice assistant to control your smart home – and more…

More homes than not own a voice assistant now – it could be on a smart speaker or a smartphone, a TV or even a coffee machine. But how much these smart home assistants are used varies wildly.

Most people probably won’t go further than asking for the weather forecast or setting timers. Others might have adopted them into a smart home ecosystem, controlling lighting, cameras and thermostats throughout their homes.

But each voice assistant has a wide range of additional functionality – here are just a few tricks that the main three players (aka Google, Alexa and Siri) can do that you can try out at home…