I love my Google Home! My primary use is while cooking. Converting measures, setting timers, getting cooking directions, etc. Before google home, I had to wash my hands, touch my phone to set timers/check the time/read the next step in the recipe, then wash my hands again, then do the thing, then wash my hands, then back to touching my phone, and so on. Sighted people can glance at your recipe, glance at the clock, etc. So you need to do far fewer other things with your hands while cooking. That makes you cleaner and faster. Now, with the Google Home, I can check the recipe or convert something or check the time with my voice. Leaving my hands free to keep working with the food.

My father is elderly and has been blind in one eye for the past two years and his other has been degenerating rapidly over the past year. He ceased driving about a year and a half ago. He has an Amazon Echo that he uses quite frequently to set timers, play music, get news and play Jeopardy on.

He lives with my sister and she was taking care of him. Due to a gnarly car accident, she has been in the hospital. I work from home so I started working from his place and noticing his Alexa use. I enabled the Alexa drop in feature (I don’t think Google Home has that) so that if I was away I could check on him. He uses Siri to interface with his phone and uses his voice to dial, read and send texts etc. I worried that if he fell and was not in reach of his phone he would have no way to contact anyone. I loaded his contacts to Alexa and he can now call me if he doesn’t have his phone. I know Google Home has that feature as well. Additionally, I am purchasing him a Logitech Harmony remote blaster so he can use Alexa to turn on his TV, change the channel, etc. He can have difficulty seeing what channel he’s on and even getting both the cable box and TV on at the same time.

Very interested to see other uses for these assistants to help in retaining as much of his independence as possible.

Edit: typo

I also love my Google home devices. I use them some while cooking and some while I'm working on a desktop computer when I want to do something extra without taking my hands away from my work. For example, I'm a very bad speller, so I will ask one of my Homes how to spell a word as I'm typing and I know I am about to get to the word in question; that way I don't have to correct quite as many words after the fact with spell check.

As far as a new service for the home, I can't really think of any that would be specifically related to blindness. I have been looking for a guided breathing meditation add on for the home that would give me a similar experience to the breathing app on my Apple watch, but with sounds instead of vibrations. The watch app vibrates one way for when it is time for you to breath in, and another way when it's time for you to breath out. There is one Google Home add on that does something like this, however, it asks you every few minutes if you want to keep going, which kills the whole zen experience of meditation.

I'm sorry if this is not what you were looking for, if I think of something else I will post it here. I'm sure there are lots of useful addon ideas out there.