The era of the Smart Home is upon us, and 2018 may be the year you make your home a smart connected home as prices drop and options abound. Whether you’re tiptoeing in with app controlled lighting or you’re a full-blown tech junkie looking for the next hot product, below are 10 devices to smarten your home.
1. Google Home
The hub of it all. Get answers, play songs, tackle your day, enjoy your entertainment and control your smart home with just your voice. Google Home works with more than 1,000 smart home devices from more than 150 brands.
2. Amazon Alexa and Echo Family
Chances are you already have a Google Home or Alexa. Amazon’s hub product can do many of the things Google Home does: voice activated music, order an Uber, control your TV, control your other smart home devices, check the weather, read the news…“Alexa is designed to make your life easier by letting you voice-control your world.” Both Google Home and Amazon Alexa keep you from searching for your smart phone and allow you to just use your voice to activate action.
3. Philips Hue
One of the most recognizable products on the market, Philips Hue is a personal wireless lighting system that lets you easily control your light and create the right ambiance for every moment and every room.
4. Sonos One
Manage all of your music in one place, play various songs in various rooms of your home, and receive voice-activated news alerts, weather updates, and more. Amazon Alexa is built in.
Nest has a whole slew of products to innovate and automate your every day. Thermostats work with Google Home and allow you to voice command your room temp. Nest Hello is a doorbell that shows you everything (even in the dark) happening at your door 24/7, along with a 3-hour snapshot history. The Nest Cam Family includes indoor and outdoor cameras to provide piece of mind security in rain or shine, all alerted to your phone with live streaming. Pair with the Nest Secure alarm system, and you can arm and disarm with the Nest app from anywhere.
See a full list of other smart home products compatible with Nest.
6. LG Hom-Bot Turbo + Robotic Vacuum
Imagine a vacuum with a camera that maps your home’s floor, understanding each inch that it needs to sweep in order to keep your home clean, all managed from your smart phone. It also claims to be the quietest on the market on non-carpeted floors, so binge watch Netflix while your floors get cleaned. Now that is a smart use of time.
Connect this sensor system throughout your home for complete home awareness. It can monitor what’s coming and going from your doors, windows, water leaks, monitor your fire and carbon monoxide alarm, and connect with your Nest thermostat. All managed from one app.
8. The Brilliant Control- The World’s Smartest Light Switch
If using your smart phone to control everything in your home is unappealing, Brilliant Control replaces an existing light switch to give you and your family easy access to lighting and other smart home products like Sonos, Nest, and more with no mobile app required. Just use touch or voice as soon as you enter the room.
9. Chamberlain MyQ Garage Openers
These garage door openers feature built-in Wi-Fi and connect directly to your home’s Wi-Fi network providing smartphone control.
10. Belkin WeMo Mini Wi-Fi Smart Plug
This plug makes any small appliance “smart,” meaning that it connects outlets, and the appliances they connect to, to the web, which allows you to control devices from the cloud. You control the plug from your smart phone, and it works with Alexa and Google through voice commands. Plus, it’s only $35.