No disrespect to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, but voice control still has its quirks and sometimes it's easier to control your various smart home devices using your PC instead. But the degree to which you can adjust lighting, view security camera feeds, or set your thermostat will depend on which particular devices and ecosystems you're tied to. Let's walk through some of the different ways you can control smart home systems from a Windows PC, without having to grab your phone or yell out to your nearest voice assistant. Although it doesn't show up in Microsoft Store search results and has seemingly been deprecated, you can still install Amazon's Alexa app for Windows 10 and above if you have the direct store link. Once installed, you can control Alexa-enabled smart devices through the Smart Home tab.

Google is rolling out new features and improvements for Home and Nest, one of which could make it much easier for users to create complex home automations even if they don't know how to code. The company's experimental "help me script" feature leverages the power of generative AI to create home automation scripts from the natural language prompts users type in. They can, for instance, write "when the TV turns on after sunset, dim the living room lights and close the blinds" to instantly generate a script they can use. "Help me script" lives inside Google Home for the web, and it appears as a panel inside the script editor when users click on " Add new." All they have to do is write a prompt, press enter and then copy-paste the script results into the script editor.

Google has really tried to go all in on automation since the rollout of its redesigned Home app in May. There's been the introduction of a new script editor, Nest Cam Indoor integration and, now, a whole slew of new routines to use. The company has announced 18 new routines -- half starters and half actions -- immediately available for Google Home users. Starters allow you to activate or turn off something in response to another device. For example, you can now have the thermostat automatically turn off when the window is open or have lights dim and the fireplace light up if you pause your show.

Google released its redesigned Home app last month, adding routines to give users more control over smart home automations. Now, it's introducing a new script editor, the company announced in a Google Nest blog post. It gives users even more granular control over automations, letting them do things like "dim lights and lower blinds when the living room TV is on after dark," to cite one Google example. It does require some basic programming abilities, though, as it uses the YAML data serialization language. Building an automation requires three elements: starters, conditions and actions.