Top 6 Gadgets For The Ultimate Connected Home

Smart home gadgets let you do things such as turn your lights on using your smartphone, stream music to a speaker using Alexa, lock your doors remotely, clean your house, and much more. But smart home gadgets are about more than just convenience. These devices can also help you save on heating and energy costs, let you know if someone’s trying to break in, or if there’s some other emergency.

This is an excellent time to upgrade your living space into a smart home without breaking the bank. You can find massive savings on speakers, security cameras, light bulbs and more and create a smart home hub. All of these gadgets work with Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant to simplify your technology and help make your day-to-day life even easier. You can also find Google device discounts with our roundup of the best Walmart deals that are happening now.

Whether you want to personalize and control your lighting, stream music and videos or secure your home, we’ve found a variety of top-rated smart home gadgets to help you get started building your smart home. Most of your products work with Alexa or the Google Assistant so that you can control the devices with the command of your voice. We’ve also included the Aukey Smart Plug-in our list which gives any device you plug into smart capabilities.

Top 6 Smart Home Devices

1.Ring Video Doorbell Pro

Help secure your home with the Ring Video Doorbell Pro that allows you to answer your door from anywhere. The Ring Pro works with Alexa and will send alerts to Echo devices which allows you to hear and speak to visitors entirely hands-free. The Ring Video Doorbell Pro also sends alerts to your smartphone when motion is detected or when someone presses the doorbell so you can monitor your home from anywhere. The Pro features advanced motion detection with a camera view that generates motion alerts within user-set motion zones. The Ring doorbell connects to your existing doorbell wiring so you don’t have to worry about re-charging the battery and features four different faceplate options.

2. Ecobee (5th Gen)

The Fifth-generation Ecobee smart thermostat has everything we liked about its predecessor, the Ecobee4, such as Alexa built 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 newest version has a better speaker so you can actually use it to play music, all of Alexa’s features (including Drop-In and messaging), and Spotify integration. The remote sensor has a longer battery life and better range, too.

3. NetGear Arlo Q

While some of these smart devices are more for convenience and entertainment, the NetGear Arlo Q is a truly useful tool for home security. The NetGear Arlo Q records high-quality video and audio, and even produces exceptional quality images of people in pitch-blackness.

You can customize whether your camera automatically records when you’re not home, or set it to a time-based schedule for when you’re at work. While it’s on the pricier side, it offers seven days of video and audio backup for free, making it a worthwhile investment compared to some of the other smart security systems.

4. Philips Hue White A19 Starter Kit

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.

5. Logitech Harmony Elite Remote Control

The Logitech Harmony Elite Remote is the ultimate universal remote that not only controls your TV but can also control other smart home devices. The Harmony remote works with Alexa so you can use your voice to control your TV and other connected devices. The remote features one-touch automation so you can touch one button to trigger everyday activities like turning on the lights and TV. The Harmony Elite also works with other smart home devices, offering single-touch control with smart lights, locks, thermostats and more. The universal remote lets you combine up to fifteen remotes and several apps into one easy-to-use remote so you can control all of your electronics and gadgets with one device.

6. Samsung Smartthings Starter Kit

If you want to go all-in on the best complete smart home kit, you can do a lot worse than SmartThings from Samsung: it covers a host of sensors and devices, works with plenty of third-party kit, and is intuitive and simple to use across the board.

The starter kit comes with a Hub to connect everything together, a smart plug and three sensors of varying descriptions, and it’s easy to add other gear as well – this kit can help control your Philips Hue or Lifx lights, for example, and you can also control everything using Amazon’s smart assistant Alexa if needed.

We’re impressed with how many devices tie into the Samsung SmartThings system as well as the regular improvements that Samsung pushes out to its software. As far as all-in-one, all-encompassing solutions go, SmartThings is difficult to beat as the best smart home starter kit in 2019.

In 2019, smart home systems and devices are more impressive and all-encompassing than ever.

Using a smart system is no longer just about asking Alexa to tell you the weather or play that new Drake song — now, you can use smart devices to grill chicken at your next family barbecue, turn the lights off in the living room while you’re watching a movie, or vacuum your floors.

Your home devices provide a sense of convenience, particularly when they’re ordering pizza or calling your sister, but in 2018, they can also tackle more serious tasks, like acting as your home security system when you’re out of town. In other words, they aren’t just for fun anymore — they also fulfill some substantial needs.