Add Category
In a world with smart light bulbs, video doorbells, speakers and other smart home devices, it's easy to make your daily routine a little more seamless. Whether you want every light and appliance to herald your return home from work or just want to summon your tunes without having to roll over in bed, there's a whole host of smart gadgetry to smarten up your home.
Picking the right devices can be difficult. You might just need one gadget to address a particular issue, like a smart plug to put a lamp on a schedule. Or you may be thinking about how to build on what you already own, like an Alexa- or Google Assistant-powered smart speaker, or even Siri and Apple's HomeKit smart home service. Voice assistants can be a great starting point for building a do-it-yourself smart home. They offer a convenient way for roommates or family members to interact with the various devices without having to manage basic access within each app. Many, but not all, of the products on our list of the best smart home devices will work with multiple voice assistants.
Don't miss out on our reviews of Apple's HomePod Mini, Google's Nest Audio and Nest Doorbell with battery, Amazon's fourth-gen Echo speaker and Echo Show 15, and we'll update this list as new products launch.
We curated this list to address the best option in a range of the most popular smart home categories. If you want to know the best smart thermostat or the best smart lighting kit, regardless of which voice platforms support them, we have you covered. This is a general list of the best overall smart home devices, not specifically geared towards specific smart home platforms. (You won't get far trying to pair an Amazon smart speaker with a Google smart display.) For that, please refer to our platform-based lists linked below:
In each subcategory section, we've also added a link to the best list for that particular product type. If you're looking for more options for lighting or locks, you'll find a list of our favorite products if you'd like to see a broader selection. We regularly update this list as we review new products. Without further ado, here are the best of the best smart home devices you can buy right now.
Amazon's fourth-gen Echo is still impressive well over a year after its initial launch -- and even if you pay its full $100 price (you can often find it on sale if you keep an eye out). Between its new sphere-like profile, powerful sound output and a few forward-looking features, the Echo is still king of the countertop.
Google's Nest Audio speaker, which also launched in 2020, is a solid competitor with the Echo, and Apple's recent HomePod Mini plays well in the Apple sandbox, but Amazon wins out in two key categories: Its speaker is far more powerful -- the bass is particularly impressive -- and it features a built-in Zigbee receiver and Amazon Sidewalk Hub that make connecting devices like lightbulbs and locks much more seamless and reliable.
Meanwhile, Alexa and Google Assistant are pretty much at parity right now. While Amazon boasts about more skills and support for more third-party devices for its voice assistant, the numbers for Google Assistant also land in the tens of thousands, meaning you really don't miss out on anything significant either way.
Read more: Best Smart Speakers of 2024
Google Assistant does a better job at mimicking natural conversation flow, but the difference isn't really that noticeable in your day-to-day interaction with each speaker. Most of the time you'll ask a smart speaker for the weather, to set a timer and maybe have it play a song or two. Both devices are good at all of that.
Google has another card to play, which you can read below.
Photo Gallery 1/1
Google's Nest Mini smart speaker isn't as powerful as the new Echo, obviously, but it's a great budget-friendly option for Google users.
The audio quality in the Nest Mini is respectable, given its price and profile. It also has a wall-mounting notch on the underside, if that's what you're into. An interesting presence detection method that uses the speaker and microphone to determine your proximity to the Nest Mini helps it trigger LED indicators that help you make better sense of the otherwise obscured physical volume controls.
That's all fine, but the thing that puts the Nest Mini over the top is the machine learning chip embedded inside the tiny speaker. With that chip, Google says, the Nest Mini can learn what commands you give to it most often, and it will then begin to process those commands locally, rather than on Google's servers.
Anything that helps to keep control of your smart home inside your home is worthwhile. Letting you continue to issue certain voice commands even if the internet goes out, and improved response times are great, too. While the Nest Mini doesn't have the audio output jack that allows you to connect Echo Dots to better-quality speakers, it's still one of our favorite devices -- particularly for people who already use Google services such as Gmail and Calendar with any regularity.
Amazon may have introduced the smart display with the Echo Show, but Google refined the concept with the Nest Hub (formerly the Home Hub) both in terms of its design, and in the way it leverages its voice assistant. Now there's a second-gen model, released in 2021, with a lower price and more features.
You get the same Google Assistant features in the Nest Hub that you get with the Google Home speaker line, along with a screen interface that gives you just the right amount of visual feedback. It will show you your spoken commands so you know Google heard you correctly, it can deftly walk you through a recipe from popular cooking websites, and it works seamlessly with Google-supported smart home cameras and video doorbells to display their camera feeds onscreen. Google's Soli is also onboard for Sleep Sensing and Quick Gestures like pausing media with an air tap in front of the display.
Read more: Best Smart Displays of 2024
Google prudently opted out of including a video camera on the Hub itself, getting ahead of some privacy concerns, and likely prompting Amazon to include a manual video shutter on its new, smaller Echo Show 5 display. If you really want a Google-based smart display that allows for video chatting, a few third-party options can make that happen, as well as the larger and more expensive Nest Hub Max. Even without it, the Nest Hub is the best, most affordable marriage of a voice assistant and a display interface on the market.
Wi-Fi is everything -- particularly once you start spreading things like smart speakers, smart lights, smart plugs and smart all else from room to room. After all, those connected doodads won't do you much good if they can't, you know, connect.
That's why a mesh router that's built to spread a strong, speedy signal throughout your house might make for a particularly smart upgrade -- especially if you're living in a big home. Of