Use of relative time of receipt of voice command as basis to control response to voice command

A method and system for controlling response to a voice-command utterance. An example method includes a computing system that is associated with the first device carrying out operations upon the first device receiving the voice-command utterance. The operations include (a) making a determination of whether any of one or more second devices received the voice-command utterance before the first device received the voice-command utterance and (b) controlling whether the computing system will trigger an action in response to the first device receiving the voice-command utterance, with the controlling being based on the determination of whether any of the one or more second devices received the voice-command utterance before the first device received the voice-command utterance. In an example implementation, the action could be controlling operation of a control target such as one or more lights.