It started as a modest dream: to let delivery people talk their way into our tenement stairwell when there's no-one at home to buzz them in. All it took was a Raspberry Pi, a €5 MOSFET, a private branch exchange implemented in open-source software, a Groovy interpreter, and some patience to get them all working together. But good developers should always want more! Just a REST call away are new conversational systems, which promise to release us from rigid voice menus in favour of more relaxed communication. So a natural goal is to extend this simple door control system to something much more ambitious and extensible—a voice-directed bot to manage everything electrical inside (and outside) a home. In this talk we'll see how to take the first steps towards that goal. Maurice Naftalin Developer, researcher, trainer. Forty years in computing. Co-author "Java Generics and Collections", author "Mastering Lambdas". Java Champion, JavaOne Rock Star. [ALF-6522]