13 Smart Home Products
Not sure where to start when it comes to getting smart? Check out our 13 top picks for smart home products—all of which make life-changing gifts ideal for this upcoming holiday season. As always, the prices listed may fluctuate over time.
1. Roborock S7+ Sonic Mopping Robot Vacuum and Auto-Empty Dock
The best way to upgrade your home in 2021 is with a techy product that kills two birds with one stone—like the Roborock S7+ Sonic Mopping Robot Vacuum and Auto-Empty Dock. Featuring ultrasonic carpet recognition technology (say what), which allows the vacuum-slash-mop to transition over various surfaces, lifting its mop feature to avoid wetting the carpet. The Roborock S7+ captures up to 99.99 percent of particles, making it a must-have for anyone with severe allergies.
This vacuum—which, let’s be honest, is one step away from truly being a robot—also has intelligent dust collection, automatically emptying the dock when necessary, and of course, it connects to Alexa, Google Home and Siri.
2. Ecobee 3 Lite Smart Thermostat
Skip the smart thermostats with bad reputations (they’re not worth the trouble), and instead, opt for the Ecobee 3 Lite Smart Thermostat. Chic and minimalistic in appearance, the Ecobee 3 Lite is WiFi-enabled (so you can control it from the app on your smartphone). This thermostat is also Energy Star Certified and integrates easily with Apple HomeKit, Alexa, Google Assistant, Samsung SmartThings, If This Then That and more.
Most importantly, this amazing smart thermostat can save you up to 23 percent on your annual energy costs—though, of course, every person’s home is different. It’s especially thrifty when connected to SmartSensor (sold separately), which controls the temperature in the room you’re in rather than the room the thermostat’s in.
Buy at Ecobee for $179.99.
3. Nanoleaf Shapes Hexagon Smarter Kit
The Nanoleaf Shapes Hexagons take “smart lighting” to a new level as each hexagon features modular LED light panels that can be combined into your own creative shape, synced to music and all-around personalized. The light panels even respond to touch and play interactive games with you and have the capability of becoming an immersive screen mirror for your smartphone.
One BestBuy.com reviewer wrote, “These lights are one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. They can instantly transform the environment and are a game-changer during covid times, especially. I can turn my living room into a dance club, cozy cocktail lounge, etc., by messing with the settings. Setting the colors to music is fun too.”
Buy at Best Buy for $199.99.
4. myQ Garage Door Opener
The best home upgrade you’ll ever invest in, the myQ Garage Door Opener enables you to open, close and monitor your garage from afar. With the compatible smartphone app, you’ll receive real-time notifications when the garage door is opening or closing, and you can even enable a feature to let you know when your garage has been left open for 10 minutes or more. (Trust us—it comes in handy when you’re running out the door all in a rush and forget to hit the button.)
Buy at Lowe’s for $24.99.
5. Orbi WiFi 6 System
Sometimes the standard WiFi just doesn’t cut it. Instead of paying more gigs, invest in the Orbi WiFi 6 System, a whole-home WiFi solution that covers up to 5,000 square feet with up to 4.2Gbps WiFi. That services more than 40 devices at once so that everyone in your household can stream, play, work, browse or whatever else they do on the internet—uninterrupted.
You know Orbi is the cream of the crop with its 4.7-star rating on Netgear.com, having over 3,000 reviews. One reviewer wrote, “Easy to use… Easy to set up. Start to finish took about 20 mins. Great coverage on our new home.”
Buy at Netgear from $449.99.
6. Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller 8-Zones
In the app, you can actually tailor your lawn and plants’ watering schedule according to its specific needs: plant type, soil type, level of sun exposure and more. That’s how we water lawns and gardens in 2021—tell the Jetsons!
Buy at Rachio from $199.99.
7. Pura Smart Fragrance Device
Looking for that effortless, at-home smell without burning through your collection of candles? The Pura Smart Fragrance Device makes it easy. Simply place up to two different Pura scents inside the fragrance device, then control it from the smartphone app. You can choose when you want the device to disperse scent or setting it on a timer.
Though the Pura may be small, it’s mighty and can diffuse the scent into an average-sized room in just a small amount of time. Though, you can also personalize the scent’s intensity if you think it’s too little or too much. There’s also an “Away” mode feature so that you don’t diffuse the best scent when no one’s home. Pura also makes plenty of fun scents to choose from. There are Frozen-themed scents for kids, Capri Blue’s bestselling Volcano, seasonal scents and more.
Buy at Pura for $44.
8. SimpliSafe Pro Video Doorbell
Sure, there are plenty of smart doorbells out there nowadays, but the one from the SimpliSafe system is a standout and fan-favorite. It connects to WiFi, can be monitored from your SimpliSafe Home Security mobile app, sends text alerts when someone’s at your door, provides crystal-clear HDR imaging ad 1080p HD (even in the dark of night), offers two-way audio and features precision motion detection.
Perhaps more importantly, it’s incredibly user-friendly—like the Apple iOS of home security systems—so you’ll never find yourself fumbling through the app, unable to find something or confused about the interfaces. Similarly, the doorbell itself is incredibly simple to use. You’ll also love the much chicer appearance of this doorbell, which, by the way, comes in an array of faceplate colors so you can most accurately match the exterior of your home.
Buy at Best Buy for $169.99.
9. Gosund Smart Light Switch 4-Pack
You can program these lights to come on and go off on a schedule, and they’re smartphone-enabled and voice-enabled as well. One Gosund.com reviewer wrote, “I started with GoSund products last December. I purchased a smart plug to help with the Christmas tree lights. Wanting to make my home smarter, I purchased these switches. Installed the first one this week. Simple and worked first time!”
Buy at Gosund for $37.99.
10. WeMo Mini Smart Plug
If it’s a smart plug you’re looking for, the WeMo Mini Smart Plug is the best of the best. Unlike the aforementioned WiFi-enabled switches, you can plug nearly anything into a WeMo Mini Smart Plug—a lamp or most other electronic devices—to control remotely.
There’s no hub or subscription necessary, and the WeMo even works well with Google Home or the Nest thermostat. You can stack a total of two Smart Plugs in each outlet for ultimate convenience, and you can even schedule on and off times for lights and appliances. You can even synchronize your devices to mimic sunrise or sunset, turning on or off, respectively.
Buy at Home Depot for $28.80.
11. Connected Consumer Smart Oil Gauge
There’s no excuse to ever run out of oil again—not with the Connected Consumer Smart Oil Gauge. This device connects to your smartphone app, providing a visual picture, a FuelSnap, of your current oil tank levels. Compatible with most oil tanks—standard steel 138-, 220-, 240-, 275-, 330- (vertical or horizontal), 500-gallon tanks and more—the Connected Consumer Smart Oil Gauge lets you check your tank from anywhere.
It even tracks your heating oil usage by the hour so that you can adjust the thermostat to conserve fuel and save money appropriately. Another excellent, helpful feature is that this smart gauge provides low-level alerts, so you know when you’re reaching 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and even 1/8 tank before you ever run out.
12. Cafe Smart Drip 10-Cup Coffee Maker with WiFi
The moment you can activate the coffee maker from your phone while still lying in bed is the moment your life changes forever. A Specialty Coffee Association-certified coffee maker, the Cafe Smart Drip 10-Cup Coffee Maker with WiFi, has built-in WiFi compatible with the SmartHQ app, Alexa, Google and even features voice-to-brew control options.
You can make up to 10 cups of your favorite customized coffee, plugging in your preferred settings for a number of cups, temperature, brew-strength and more. Oh, and never worry about your coffee going cold—the vacuum-insulated thermal carafe expertly maintains the temperature of your liquids for two hours.
Buy at Best Buy for $299.
13. Traeger Ironwood 885 Wood Pellet WiFi Grill
Bet you didn’t see this one coming! It may not seem like there’s much need for a WiFi-enabled grill, but if you’re about to have your life—and your grilling experience—totally changed. Not only is the Traeger Ironwood 885 Wood Pellet WiFi Grill compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant, but it also features WiFire technology so that you can control and monitor your grill from the app or any smart home device.
Got to run to the bathroom? No problem. Checking on something in the kitchen? Go for it. Never worry about the grill going rogue ever again. Fueled and flavored by natural hardwood pellets, the Traeger Ironwood 885 Wood Pellet WiFi Grill is massive, too, fitting up to 10 chickens, seven rib racks and nine pork butts.
Now, that’s a grill!
Buy at Ace Hardware for $1,599.99.
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