I Now Live In A Smart Home

After buying an Alexa earlier in the year I became intrigued with the idea of the smart home.  However, while cool in theory, I struggled a bit to justify spending the time and money to do something that was already as simple as flipping a switch.  Someone pointed out to me that hooking a Christmas tree up to a smart system was helpful so I decided to try it out myself.  I bought a smart plug and was easily able to set up the tree lights on a complex timing system to turn the tree off and on automatically. Pretty useful and much easier than climbing to the back of the tree to reach a plug.  Secondly, after a bit of finagling with the sketchy Alexa app, I was able to install the skill for the smart plug on my Alexa device.  Now I can turn the tree off or on using just my voice and Alexa. It's really pretty amazing. I feel like I'm living in the future.  We have some under the cabinet lights that currently we are turning off and on every night. I might extend this smart home functionality there if I can get the smart plugs on sale.