The Arduino platform lends itself well to home automation (for example) and another example of this has been demonstrated by university students Jiayuan Wang and Sheng Zhang. They have used a voice-recognition IC to enable user input to control various lighting, heating and entertainment devices in their test system. Furthermore the voice-control section of the system is connected to the main unit wireless via XBee data transceivers, allowing a more user-friendly approach.
Considering this was a university project, it shows promise and is an excellent demonstration of the concept. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
If you found the project above interesting - but not sure how to start with Arduino - then the best way to learn is with our Experimenter's Kit for Arduino:
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