Smart home gadgets can let you turn your lights on from your smartphone, stream music to a speaker using Alexa, lock your doors remotely, clean your house, and much more. But the best smart home devices are about more than just convenience. They can also help you save on heating and energy costs, create routines or notify you when there's an emergency.
The number of smart home brands is constantly growing. We've tested dozens of smart home devices, from the best home security cameras to the best smart lights to the best smart thermostats — even the best robot vacuums — to find the best of each for building your new smart home. Here are some of our favorites.
The third-generation Echo looks nothing like past iterations. Rather, it adopts the modern, fabric-swathed look of the Echo Plus. The new Echo takes advantage of everything Alexa does: control smart home gadgets, connect to other smart home hubs, read you audiobooks, check the weather, and even let you purchase things online just by using your voice. And, as a speaker, it sounds pretty excellent. Especially for the price.
The Arlo Q's 1080p camera boasts excellent quality video, both day and night, has great motion detection, and a flexible scheduling feature. Best of all, though, is that you get a week's worth of video storage for free.
Philips Hue White starter kit includes two bulbs and a hub to connect them to other smart home devices. While you can't change these bulbs' colors, you can adjust their brightness (up to 800 lumens), and add up to 50 to a single hub. Philips' bulbs also work with a wide range of smart home systems, including Alexa, Apple HomeKit, IFTTT, Google Home, and Nest.
Philips also has an app, Philips Hue Sync, which lets users synchronize their smart bulbs with multimedia content on their Mac or Windows PC. For example, you can set your lights to flash and change color in time with music, video and movies being played on your computer. Users can also modify the color schemes and themes to suit their tastes.
Nest's device has the best video we've yet seen from a video doorbell cam; its microphone and speaker were excellent, too. Nest's camera can recognize faces, and even announce them when they come to your door. While it needs a hardwired connection, it continuously records video, so you'll never miss an event. You can also set up specific zones, so you'll only be notified when a person or object appears in that area of the frame. While you'll need to subscribe to the Nest Aware service to get all of its features, they're worth it.
Belkin's WeMo Mini smart plug is our favorite smart plug. It's wide, but thin enough so that you can fit two of them per outlet. While it doesn't have energy monitoring, the Mini does work with HomeKit, Alexa, Google Assistant. A simple on/off switch also lets you control any appliance connected to it, no smartphone needed. It even has a clever Away mode, which lends the appearance that you're home.
Not only does the Nest Protect detect smoke and carbon monoxide, but its sensors are designed to pick up both slow- and fast-burning fires. Plus, the Protect will tell you in which room the fire is located, and can be linked to other smart home devices, so that it can automatically turn on your Philips Hue lights in the event of an emergency.
We like August's Smart Lock Pro for its ease of installation, features that let you know if your door is ajar, and deep integration with other smart home devices, from Alexa to HomeKit to Google Home, not to mention August's DoorBell Cam.
If you have a wide variety of smart home gadgets, you'll need a central system to integrate and control them all. While it has its imperfections, we found the Samsung SmartThings hub to be the best of the lot. It works with a wide range of devices and now has Wi-Fi built in, so you don't need to plug it into your router; this makes it easier to place in your house for the best connection to all your smart home devices.
Searching or reaching for that elusive garage door opener remote while trying to navigate a dark suburban street, toppled garbage cans or your kids' toys – or your kids – often proves awkward and dangerous. Chamberlain's garage door opener lets you tap your device's screen to open or close your garage from anywhere. Soon, the company also plans to add geofencing capabilities so it can sense when you're near your driveway to automatically open and, when your car is safely ensconced inside, close your existing garage door. MyQ can control nearly every garage door opener from all the major brands manufactured after 1993.
It's not easy keeping a house clean, but the Shark Ion R85 can certainly help. In our tests, this vacuum proved excellent at picking up pet hair and other debris around our home with a minimum of fuss. We also like its notifications, smartphone control and easy-to-clean dustbin.
