They aren't that hard if you have an interface nearby to do it - my phone usually sits upstairs in my bedroom after I come home from work, so the Echo is a convenient voice interface to do exactly that set of things (timer, lights, playing music, etc). One thing it's super convenient for is when I'm upstairs and going to bed and I realize that I left the lights on downstairs, I can just call down "Alexa, turn off downstairs lights" -- it beats getting my glasses and opening up the app that controls my lights.
One thing I don't find it useful for is what Amazon most want me to use it for -- to buy things. I rarely buy the same thing twice from Amazon, so I can't just say "Alexa, buy more toilet paper" -- when I shop, I generally want to look at other options, compare different retailers, read reviews, etc... which is hard to do with a pure voice interface.
