12 Smart Alarm Clocks with Alexa or Google Assistant

Looking for the best smart alarm clocks? Look no further.

Alarm clocks have long been faithful bedside companions, getting us to wake up in time for work, school and other obligations. Thanks to voice assistants, these timepieces have gotten a major upgrade. Like traditional alarm clocks, smart alarm clocks have big, bold displays that tell the time (and more). But inside, they have either Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant built in, so you can not only customize your alarm with just your voice but also use your clock to control your smart home devices, call an Uber, read the morning news and help with your daily tasks. Here are 14 smart alarm clocks that can see you through your whole day.

Credit: iHome

For more Google Assistant-related tips, tricks, and how-tos, check out our complete guide to Google Assistant.

Lenovo Smart Clock

Rating: 4 stars

The Lenovo Smart Clock is a Google Assistant-powered touchscreen alarm clock. With a four-inch display, it's the perfect device to fit on your bedside table. You can choose from a number of different clock faces in various colors and styles. At night, Google dims the clock's display and plays relaxing ambient noises. There's even decent audio -- certainly better than you might expect from an alarm clock.

Credit: Tom's Guide

Lenovo Smart Display

Rating: 4 stars

The Lenovo Smart Display is the first Google Assistant-powered device with a screen. This unique-looking device comes in 8- or 10-inch sizes (both larger than the Amazon Echo Show) and can stand horizontally or vertically. You can use the screen to watch movies and YouTube videos, make video calls, look up recipes and more. When you're not actively using it, the Lenovo Smart Display doubles as a digital picture frame, displaying photos from your Google Photos library. It has a camera that you can cover with a shutter switch (no tape required), and dual speakers provide excellent audio.

Credit: Tom's Guide

Cavalier Air

Rating: 4 stars

If you don't mind its trapezoidal design and high price, this wood- and leather-wrapped Alexa-enabled alarm clock is loaded with features and sounds amazing, too. The Air's display shows the time; in a stroke of brilliance, the Air's app lets you schedule times for when the display should brighten, dim or even turn off. The Air also has custom alarms, so you don't have to rely on Alexa to wake you up.

Five LEDs on top change color based on what the Air is doing; if Alexa is listening, they glow different shades of blue. Put a phone on top of the Air to charge your phone using its Qi charger, and the LEDs turn amber and then green when your phone is fully charged. Other helpful features include a USB charging port on the back, a programmable button and Spotify integration.

Inside the Air are 20-watt stereo speakers with a passive radiator that delivered clear vocals and full, punchy bass. It's loud, too: At less than half volume, the speakers were more than enough to fill a bedroom. Credit: Tom's Guide

Solis SO-2000

Rating: 4 stars

Spectra's Solis SO-2000 is a cute digital clock with a unique design -- we'd liken it to half a basketball on a stand. It's surprisingly light for its size, and has a number of physical buttons, which can activate Google Assistant, play and pause music, adjust volume and brightness, toggle Bluetooth, and mute the microphone. The circular face contains two front-firing 5-watt speakers, which deliver better audio than you'll get from the Google Home Mini and Google Home Hub, but aren't quite as crisp as what you'll hear from the Google Home Max and Echo Show. It's also Chromecast-enabled, so you can stream music from your phone, tablet or laptop when you're awake, and is a breeze to set up.

Credit: Solis

Amazon Echo Show

Rating: 4 stars

The Echo Show was the first Alexa-enabled device with a screen. It looks just like a miniature flat-screen TV, and has tons of uses. You can watch movies, videos and live TV; display the lyrics to songs; video chat and Skype with friends; and even browse the internet using Firefox or Silk. The speakers deliver excellent audio with generous bass.

Credit: Tom's Guide

Amazon Echo Spot

Rating: 3.5 stars

The Echo Spot's orb-like design resembles that of a miniature clock, and the device is tailor-made to sit on your nightstand or bedpost and wake you up in the morning. It has not only a convenient touch-screen display but also a decent downward-facing speaker and a built-in camera for video chats.

Credit: Tom's Guide

iHome iAVS16

Rating: 3.5 stars

iHome's iAVS16 is pricey for an alarm clock, but it's still cheaper than smart displays such as the Echo Show and the Lenovo Smart Display. It has a strong, powerful sound on a par with that of the Echo Show, as well as equalizer settings to fine-tune your music. The clock connects directly to iHome smart plugs and has an assortment of physical buttons that let you control your smart home devices right from the clock itself. Alexa sets alarms directly on the device (rather than an alarm of its own), so you can still hit a physical snooze button rather than yelling at Alexa in the morning.

Credit: Tom's Guide

iLive Platinum Voice-Activated Clock

Rating: 3 stars

While it's not the most advanced alarm clock on the market, iLive's Platinum Voice-Activated Alarm Clock is a solid budget smart device. While the iLive is Alexa-enabled (and can stream Spotify and Pandora, among others), it also doubles as a Bluetooth speaker, so you can stream music from your phone or other non-Alexa streaming services (such as Apple Music) through it as well. It's easy to set up, fits on a nightstand, and delivers clear, full audio with resounding bass. Plus, you can pair it with other speakers to blast your music throughout your home.

Credit: iLive

Sony LF-S50G

Rating: 3 stars

Sony's smart speaker looks like a skinny version of Apple's HomePod, with one important difference: It displays the time. Unlike many smart alarm clocks, this device is splash-resistant and gesture-controlled, and its 1.9-inch driver and 2.1-inch subwoofer deliver massive sound.

Credit: Sony

Vobot Smart Alarm Clock

This cute Echo Show competitor can wake you up with Alexa or sounds of its own with a decent 5-watt speaker. It's also battery-powered, so it can wake you up anywhere, and it has a cool LED dot-matrix display for a super-futuristic look. Stay tuned for our review.

Credit: Vobot

Lynky (Coming Soon)

The Lynky is smaller than most other smart displays; with a 5-inch touch screen, it's the size of a small picture frame. You can place it on your nightstand or mount it on the wall. It also comes with Zigbee built in, so you can use it as a smart-home hub. Those who are worried about privacy may appreciate that this device doesn't have a camera.

Credit: Lynky

2 Comments Comment from the forums

ruthjiaoye1 31 August 2018 06:05

Couldn't agree with these reviews any better! I'm happy I got the Lenovo Screen Display..Of course it was the fact that I could play YouTube videos on it-that sold me. I guess most of us do prefer Google over Alexa?
kenneth.glasser 06 January 2019 21:19

Well, the MUSIC alarm works great on the Google Home Mini, but not the Hub.

The REGULAR (non-music) alarm now appears to be working regularly again on the Hub, and it also appears to be turning on at the preset volume, which is nice, and not defaulting to the arbitrary (overly loud) 40% anymore, which is good.

But the MUSIC alarm still does not work at all on the Hub, when set WELL ahead of time (night before). At the alarm time, it lights up the Hub, as if it is about to turn the music on, but never triggers the music, so there is NO sound whatsoever, which of course is a big problem for a wake-up alarm.

One side note: when I tried to just play some music on the Hub (not an alarm, but just play the music), the 1st time it did not work. I said “Play disco music” (lol), and it said it would (confirmed), but it did not start playing (never launched the music/player). So I repeated the request, and the 2nd time it confirmed it (like the previous time), and the 2nd time it did actually play the music. So perhaps the music launcher software has an intermittent problem (and might be the cause of the music alarm issue too?)? Just speculation of course.

One other note: I have noticed that the microphone in the Google Home Hub doesn’t appear to pick up voices as well as the Google Home Mini = you have to be much closer in distance to the Hub, than you did with the Mini (where you could be a lot further away in distance). Not sure what's up, but have seen it discussed online.