You can use this Facial Recognition Algorithm API from Algorithmia and hire an engineer such as the ones you can find at Udacity Biltz (sign up HERE for $1,000 OFF) and whip up a facial recognition add-on to you smart home product.  Furthermore, you can borrow Amazon's Alexa intelligence by using Amazon's artificial intelligence develpor API for natural language understanding, speech recognition, text to speech, to offer the same sort of smart connection to anything you can put on the network from home appliances to internet connected services with verbal commands.

The Udacity Blitz Team(sign up HERE for 10% OFF) is for hire.  They can be hired to build any project you dream up and I'll teach you how to fund it so it doesn't cost you anything...you can hire on a per project basis or you can permanently hire your own Silicon Valley engineer right from Blitz.  They can do any project you desire.  You can plan the project with them, get the specs, build a prototype and launch a crowdfunding campaign to validate the market and complete the build or prove that the market isn't interested, all with minimal risk before moving too far in the wrong direction.