The 9 Most Exciting Smart Home Products of 2022

The best smart home devices tin can make your domicile more automated, safer and cleaner. In some cases, these connected products can even help you save money.

Whether you’re looking to turn your lights on from your smartphone, stream music to a speaker using Alexa (or Google Assistant or Siri,) lock your doors remotely or vacuum your floors without lifting a finger, the best smart dwelling devices provide complete convenience.

The number of smart habitation brands is constantly growing. That said, non all smart home devices are as reliable as they claim. We’ve tested dozens of offerings across all different categories, from the all-time abode security cameras to the best smart light bulbs. If a device tin can be controlled past an app or a voice, nosotros’re here to assist you determine if information technology fits your needs.

See all of the all-time smart home devices beneath. And be certain to check out our smart abode guide for how to brand the nearly of your new gadgets.

Best smart dwelling devices at a glance

Why you can trust Tom’s Guide


Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services and so you lot tin can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we exam.

• Best smart dwelling device overall: Amazon Echo Dot with Clock
• Best domicile security camera:
  Nest Cam (battery)
• Best smart thermostat:
  Ecobee SmartThermostat
• Best smart light bulbs:
  Philips Hue White A19 Starter Kit
• Best smart lock:
  Baronial Wi-Fi Smart Lock
• Best video doorbell:
  Nest Doorbell
• Best smart plug:
  Wemo WiFi Smart Plug
• Best smart smoke detector:
  Nest Protect
• Best smart home hub:
  Samsung SmartThings
• Best smart garage opener:
  Chamberlain MyQ

The best smart dwelling devices you tin purchase today

The proper noun says it all: This is an Repeat Dot with a clever LED clock congenital in its face up. However, this seemingly simple addition adds a ton of functionality to the Echo Dot, making an fifty-fifty better smart home companion. In fact, nosotros wish more smart abode companies took Amazon’s cue and brand pocket-sized —withal effective — enhancements to already splendid devices.

More than than just the time, though, the Echo Dot with Clock’south display can too show you the electric current temperature, song titles and answers to math equations. It functions as a timer, too. It has an ambient sensor that automatically adjusts the brightness of the display based on the lightning of its surrounding surround, besides as a built-in temperature sensor that tin trigger Alexa routines. The Echo Dot with Clock costs $x more than the Repeat Dot, but based on our experience, we call back it’southward a worthwhile upgrade for those who want to know the fourth dimension without having to ask Alexa. Truly the merely downgrade is that information technology doesn’t have the iii.5mm sound out port found on the previous Amazon Echo Dot with Clock (fourth Gen).

Read our total

Amazon Repeat Dot with Clock (fifth Gen) review
.

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The well-designed Nest Cam (battery) has a simple shape and is one of the easiest home security cameras to install, cheers to its magnetic base. Its 1080p photographic camera captures abrupt images day and night, and its microphone and speaker made conversations a breeze. That’s the principal reason nosotros consider it the top choice among all the best security cameras nosotros’ve tested.

The Nest Cam (bombardment) besides offers three hours of rolling video storage for free, equally well as person, vehicle, and creature detection. If you sign upward for a Nest Enlightened subscription (starting at $six/month), you also get familiar face detection as well as the ability to store up to a month’s worth of video.

Read our full Nest Cam (bombardment) review.

The fifth-generation Ecobee SmartThermostat has everything we liked about its predecessor, the Ecobee4, such as Alexa congenital in, a slick touchscreen interface and a remote sensor that helps ensure all the rooms of your house are getting heated or cooled properly. But the most upwards-to-date version has a ameliorate speaker then y’all can actually use it to play music, all of Alexa’due south features (including Driblet-In and messaging), and Spotify integration. The remote sensor has a longer battery life and better range, also.

Its sound tin can’t compete with the Echo Dot or other Alexa speakers in terms of quality, simply the Ecobee is clever means of equipping a room with Alexa without plugging in some other smart speaker. Not only is the Ecobee ane of the best smart dwelling house devices y’all can buy, it’s our leading choice of all the
best smart thermostats, likewise.

Read our full

Ecobee SmartThermostat review
.

Philips Hue White starter kit includes two bulbs and a hub to connect them to other smart domicile devices. While y’all tin can’t change these bulbs’ colors, you tin adjust their brightness (up to 800 lumens), and add up to 50 to a single hub. Philips’ bulbs likewise work with a broad range of smart home systems, including Alexa, Apple tree HomeKit, IFTTT, Google Habitation, and Nest. In fact, at that place’s all sorts of things yous can exercise with Philips Hue bulbs, cheque out these 9 things you never knew you could do with smart lights.

Philips Hue lights
also have 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 gear up your lights to flash and modify colour in fourth dimension with music, video and movies existence played on your calculator.  Users can also modify the colour schemes and themes to adapt their tastes. For $thirty more, you tin upgrade your starter kit to include 4 bulbs instead of ii.

Read our full

Philips Hue White Starter Kit review
.

There wasn’t much to improve on in our August Smart Lock Pro review, simply the company went ahead and tweaked its original to make it smaller and easier to use. As our new top pick among the all-time smart locks, the the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock is 45 percent more meaty than its predecessor, and so it looks less obvious on your door. It besides has Wi-Fi built in, so yous can skip the August Connect bridge for linking your lock to your home network.

Everything we enjoyed about the August Pro is still hither: An easy installation procedure, features such as DoorSense (which lets you know if your door has been left open), and compatibility all the leading smart home systems, from Alexa to Google Assistant to Xfinity. And, the August Wi-Fi lets you go along the keys from your existing deadbolt.

Read our full
August Wi-Fi Smart Lock review
.

The Nest Doorbell (battery) gets almost everything right, and that’s why it’s not just one of the best smart home devices simply the all-time video doorbell we’ve reviewed. The video doorbell’s 3:4 vertical attribute ratio means you tin see more of your front end door; information technology tin work either wired or on bombardment ability lone, and it has a lot of great features, such every bit the power to recognize familiar faces, packages, animals, and vehicles.

Even better is that the camera as well offers some of those features for free, besides as three hours of rolling video storage — things that used to crave a subscription. If you want longer storage, yous tin can notwithstanding sign upward for Nest Aware, which starts at $6/month. As such, it pairs squeamish with the Nest Cam.

Read our full
Nest Doorbell (battery) review
.

The $25 Wemo WiFi Smart Plug is one of the best smart home devices and our top choice amidst the best smart plugs. Information technology’s more compact than competing options out there, even its predecessor the Wemo Mini. And while it doesn’t have energy monitoring like some other smart plugs, the Wemo WiFi Smart Plug does work with all the major smart assistants.

This smart plug has a physical switch, so if you lot don’t want to use your voice or an app to turn your appliance on or off, y’all tin can click the switch on the Wemo. Information technology also has a clever Away mode. which can make it seem like you lot’re home even when you’re non by turning a lamp on intermittently.

Read our full
Wemo WiFi Smart Plug review
.

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The Nest Protect is the top choice among the all-time smart smoke detectors. When information technology picks upward on something in the air, it sounds an alert and lets you know what room in your dwelling triggered the alert. Plus an LED ring on the bottom of the alarm changes color in instance of an emergency, giving yous and the people y’all live with a visual cue.

What we like most about the Nest Protect is how well information technology integrates with some of the best smart home devices. When you lot use smart home routines, your smart smoke alarm can automatically plough on your lights, making information technology easier for you lot to get out of your house. Nevertheless, these routines only work for those who have converted their Nest account to a Google Assistant account. It as well does not natively piece of work with Alexa.

Read our full

Nest Protect review
.

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If you take a broad diverseness of smart home gadgets, you lot’ll need a key system to integrate and command them all. While it has its imperfections, nosotros found the Samsung SmartThings hub to exist the best of the lot. Information technology 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 identify in your house for the all-time connection to all your smart habitation devices.

Because the SmartThings hub has both Zigbee and Z-Wave antennas, you lot can pair it with several of the best smart home devices. Using the companion app, you can adapt dozens of scenes and automations. It also has a comprehensive abode monitoring component, which can send you an alarm, record video, turn on lights, play sounds, and unlock your doors in the issue of an emergency.

Read our total

Samsung SmartThings review
.

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If you lot’re looking for the best smart garage door opener, look no further than the Chamberlain MyQ. Information technology includes a sensor for your garage door likewise as a hub that connects to your Wi-Fi network. When y’all send a command using your smartphone, it is relayed to the hub, which then goes to the sensor that activates your garage door. The MyQ app, available for Android and iOS devices, lets you lot check to see if your door is open, and then close — or open — it remotely.

MyQ will work with most brands of garage door openers made after 1993 that have standard safety sensors, co-ordinate to Chamberlain. Currently, MyQ works with Nest, SmartThings and Xfinity Habitation smart dwelling house systems. The one thing it doesn’t do, though, is piece of work with Alexa.

Read our full

Chamberlain MyQ review
.

The Roborock S4 Max is the best robot vacuum overall for its affordable price, good characteristic set, and ability to continue your floors clean. It picked up an boilerplate of 94 percentage of kitty litter on carpet and hardwood floors, and did even improve with Cheerios and dog hair. It was in a virtual tie with the Roomba S9+, which costs more than twice the S4 Max.

The S4 Max was fast to map our home, and it was a fairly simple matter to create rooms in the app and then direct the robot vacuum to clean individual areas. You tin can even set up specific times to clean rooms. Every bit an Amazon exclusive, the Roborock S4 Max tin run out of stock periodically, but information technology’s worth picking upward when it’south available.

Read our full
Roborock S4 Max review
.

How to choose the best smart home devices for you

Choosing the best smart home devices is different for every shopper. Most of the decision comes downward which smart home platform you prefer – you’ll desire to purchase devices that are compatible with your phonation assistant so you tin can create routines or control your gadgets hands-free.

You lot have iii main choices: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant/Dwelling, and Apple HomeKit/Siri. To help you get started, we take guides on
how to use Alexa
and
how to apply Google Assistant, as well equally an
Alexa vs Google Assistant vs Siri
face up off.

Alexa generally comes out on elevation, as information technology works with the virtually smart dwelling house devices, and has the nearly third-party skills. Still, Google Assistant can do some things that Alexa tin can’t—such equally command Chromecast TVs—and it’southward rapidly beingness built into a number of 3rd-party devices in conjunction with its Works With Nest plan. HomeKit’s availability is also growing, and could be the right platform for you if you use Siri ofttimes on your iPhone or iPad.

How we test the best smart home devices

All of the best smart domicile devices above are top picks inside respective categories. We compare and dissimilarity each gadget to like options, taking variables similar cost, ease-of-setup, voice banana compatibility and appearance into account. For example, the third-generation Amazon Repeat is our favorite smart speaker overall considering it has the best sound for the value, and represents its category on this list. The same goes for the Nest Cam and fifth-generation Ecobee.

That said, there are a number of fantabulous options within each category that are not featured on this listing. If you’re looking for more buying choices, we take individual pages that detail all the best smart lights, smart doorbells, smart security cameras and more nosotros’d consider reliable purchases for your growing smart domicile.

Check each of them out for more in-depth testing information for every category of smart domicile devices you lot should consider for boosting your dwelling house’s IQ.