The building blocks of the "smart home" -- connected lights, plugs and other gadgets -- have been around for years. But they were strung together by a variety of confusing protocols. It wasn't until Amazon's Echo and its accompanying Alexa virtual assistant came along that the smart home started to make sense. We didn't need just smart devices; we also needed voice controls and seamless interoperability between devices. Basically, we needed a proper smart home ecosystem.