What are the best smart home products to kit your house out with right now?
We’ve compiled a simple of the best smart home products, we feel the consumer needs to get their connected home underway
Updated July 2017
Smart Home Buyer Recommended Product
Sonos Play:1
A legendary entry-level speaker for any smarthome
No other wireless speaker packs so much HiFi sound into such a compact design. PLAY:1’s sleek, versatile design easily fits anywhere your home needs music, for surprisingly big sound no matter how tight the spot.
Philips Hue Starter Kit
The best smart lighting solution hands down
Limitless possibilities – connected to you. Get started with the Philips Hue white and colour ambience starter kit and experience high quality white and coloured light that offers you endless possibilities.
Play with light and choose from 16 million colours in the Hue app to match the light to your mood. The bulbs have been improved with deeper green, cyan and blue for even better scene setting in your home. Use a favourite photo and re-live that special moment with splashes of light. This Philips Hue bridge is compatible with Apple Home Kit technology.
Ask Siri to turn on or dim your lights or recall pre-sets without touching a single button. Use a favourite photo and re-live that special moment with splashes of light. Save your favourite light settings and recall them whenever you want with the tap of a finger.
Amazon Echo and Echo Dot
The true smart home staple
Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, provide information, news, sports scores, weather and more. Prime members can also ask Alexa to order eligible products they’ve ordered before and many Prime products. All you have to do is ask.
Echo has seven microphones and beam-forming technology so it can hear you from across the room—even in noisy environments or while playing music. Echo is also an expertly tuned speaker that can fill any room with 360° immersive sound. When you want to use Echo, just say the wake word “Alexa” and Echo responds. If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, Alexa responds intelligently from the device you’re closest to with ESP (Echo Spatial Perception)
Smart Home Buyer Recommended Product
Ring Video Doorbell 2
Smart security at its finest
The ring doorbell is the worlds first battery operated, Wi-Fi enabled, HD video doorbell. The device enables homeowners to see and speak with visitors from anywhere in the world by streaming live audio and video of a home’s front doorstep directly to the free iOS or Android app. Its also a firm favourite of the team at Smarthomebuyer.
Because we cant choose between the two We love both of these Smart Thermostats and both for difference reasons. Choosing between the two is difficult as they both appeal to different users. To help you make the right choice you can read our full and comprehensive smart thermostat guide to help aid your decision.
Nest and Hive Thermostats
Chromecast
A streaming dream
Because every home needs one. This budget friendly device is an absolute must have those starting out on their first Smart Home adventure. Whilst it can be used for Audio through a TV, Chromecast is primarily used for “casting” media to your TV from other connected devices. This makes watching video through youtube a breeze on your big screen. You’ll always find 3rd party apps signed up to chromecast, simply look for the Chromecast logo and you’re good to go.
Chromecast Audio is slightly different in that its used to cast Audio only. Via its 3.5mm cable, this device has the ability to turn any old speaker in your house into a fully fledged Wifi speaker. Providing your old speakers or amp have an aux in this handy little device does the rest for you. A good substitute for those wanting to try out Wifi speakers like Sonos but are cautious about the budget. You can even group multiple speakers If you have more than one Chromecast audio.
