Enlarge / Amazon's Astro, one of the hardware projects overseen by departing SVP David Limp. (credit: Amazon)

Amazon senior vice president of devices and services David Limp will be leaving the company "before the end of the year," according to an Amazon spokesperson speaking to The Wall Street Journal . Limp has been with the company since 2010 and has overseen the development of major Amazon projects like the Echo smart speakers, the Alexa voice assistant, the Fire tablets and Fire TV devices, and the Amazon Appstore.

Amazon's first Kindle e-readers pre-date Limp's tenure, but the company's products since then have all followed the same basic formula: to drive more sales on Amazon. Hardware like the Fire tablets, Fire TV sticks, and Echo smart speakers are essentially sold at cost, with the hopes that they'll generate revenue once they're in users' homes.

The problem with that strategy is that even phenomenally successful products can fail if people use them in ways that don't make money for Amazon. That's the story of the Echo smart speaker and Alexa voice assistant, which as of late 2022 had reportedly lost Amazon some $10 billion because people mainly use Alexa to play music and check the weather and not to spend money.

Enlarge / We don't have to rely on megacorp obelisks to operate the things we buy. We don't have to learn their language. We can break free. (credit: PonyWang/Getty Images)

For many people, an automated smart home is about little things that add up to big conveniences over time. Lights turning on when you pull into the driveway, a downstairs thermostat adjustable from your upstairs bedroom, a robot vacuum working while you're at the grocery store—you put in a bit of setup work and your life gets easier.

What most smart homes also include, however, is a voice assistant, the opposite of a quiet, unseen convenience. Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant: They demand that you learn specific device names and structures for commands, while they frequently get even the most simple command astoundingly wrong. And they are, of course, an always-listening corporate microphone you're allowing inside your home.

There are ways to keep that smart home convenience while cutting out the conversation. Some involve your phone, some dedicated devices, but none of them involve saying a device's name. Here's an overview of the best options available.

Enlarge / Mui Labs' Mui Board 2nd Gen embodies the loftiest promise of Matter: a wooden board, from a company you've likely never heard of, controlling devices made by many different companies, even if they're already connected to other apps. (credit: Mui)

First came the specification , then the release , and then CES 2023—it has been a busy few months for Matter, the smart home connectivity standard. You can't quite fill your home just yet with Matter-ready devices, but there are some intriguing options in development. Here's a look at some of the most practical, quirky, and viable gear coming soon (or soon-ish).

Some parts of Matter are already here

If you wanted to start your smart home off fresh this year with a focus on Matter-powered universal compatibility, you already have a couple pieces of the puzzle ready for you. Let's go bit by bit, starting with your phone.

Your phone, whether iOS or Android , can, right now, scan the QR code or read the Bluetooth signal of a Matter-certified device. Most platforms support adding devices to a controller through an Android app, but only Apple's HomeKit and Samsung's SmartThings have support for iOS device enrollment . Amazon has said it plans to add iOS enrollment for Thread-based devices this spring but already supports devices over Wi-Fi.

Enlarge / The fourth-generation Echo device is a cloth-covered sphere with a halo at the base, contrasting with the squat plastic cylinders of earlier-generation Echoes. (credit: Amazon)

Amazon is going through the biggest layoffs in the company's history right now, with a plan to eliminate some 10,000 jobs . One of the areas hit hardest is the Amazon Alexa voice assistant unit, which is apparently falling out of favor at the e-commerce giant. That's according to a report from Business Insider , which details "the swift downfall of the voice assistant and Amazon's larger hardware division."

Alexa has been around for 10 years and has been a trailblazing voice assistant that was copied quite a bit by Google and Apple. Alexa never managed to create an ongoing revenue stream, though, so Alexa doesn't really make any money. The Alexa division is part of the "Worldwide Digital" group along with Amazon Prime video, and Business Insider says that division lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of 2022, with "the vast majority" of the losses blamed on Alexa. That is apparently double the losses of any other division, and the report says the hardware team is on pace to lose $10 billion this year. It sounds like Amazon is tired of burning through all that cash.

A division in crisis

The BI report spoke with "a dozen current and former employees on the company's hardware team," who described "a division in crisis." Just about every plan to monetize Alexa has failed, with one former employee calling Alexa "a colossal failure of imagination," and "a wasted opportunity." This month's layoffs are the end result of years of trying to turn things around. Alexa was given a huge runway at the company, back when it was reportedly the "pet project" of former CEO Jeff Bezos. An all-hands crisis meeting took place in 2019 to try to turn the monetization problem around, but that was fruitless. By late 2019, Alexa saw a hiring freeze, and Bezos started to lose interest in the project around 2020. Of course, Amazon now has an entirely new CEO, Andy Jassy, who apparently isn't as interested in protecting Alexa.