You can get Alexa or Google home and a wifi enabled thermostat. Then the person could control the ac with their voice. Although the thermostat would be a few hundred. With Alexa they can build a grocery list. Among other things.

Talking watch

Google home is interesting. I have it controlling two living room and two bedroom lights. It’s nifty. It’s also hooked to the smart TV Zane it can control shows on Netflix for me.

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As a blind person, alexa looks like the shit. I'd double check to make sure there aren't major accessability issues but if not, that's my suggestion. If the person is recently blind, maybe a scanner for currency if you're in the US where all money is the same. Also maybe a color detector, it's a thing that'll say what color it's currently pointed at, helpful if the person knows what color shirt goes with what color pants.

amazon alexa or google home. they can control smart home devices like lights, nest cams and many more. you can also ask it a lot of amazing things. for example you can ask google home "i want to listen to the news" and it will play the news depending on your settings. if your in the U.S. you can buy these devices in amazon or your local computer shop i think.

Does the giftee have a smartphone? Android / google seems to have pretty good voice recognition now. After that, I suppose there could be a bluetooth connection to the start of a home automation system.

you could visit https://www.maxiaids.com/ to see if you can find something

There’s a sous vis that operates by Alexa voice control that seems awesome. Made by joules I think.