Please note there has been an update to this article Waking up to Alexa: 2020 follow-up Whether it’s bolstering your home security, watering your garden, or turning your lights on and off, smart technology is starting to fill our homes. For some it seems it can be too much like hard work to get off the sofa to even adjust the thermostat. Smart home gadgets now mean smart speakers can play music when you talk to them, you can turn the heating on before you get home, and a smart camera can alert you if there’s an intruder – or even feed your pet for you. However, for others this increasingly ubiquitous smart home technology does a lot more than simply adding a bit of convenience to our increasingly slothful lives. This was brought home to me at Christmas when I lost my brother Ian, age...