The hub that finally brings your RF-remote ceiling fans, fireplaces, and shades into the smart home—it learns the signals from the remotes you already have, no rewiring, then exposes them to Alexa and Google for voice and schedules. It's the fix for the fan that never had an app. The single limitation to confirm first: it only works with devices that already use a compatible RF or IR remote.

This is the ecobee at its most complete: a vibrant touchscreen display in metal-sided glass, plus a bundled SmartSensor so the thermostat reads occupancy and comfort in another room rather than just the wall it's mounted on. ENERGY STAR certified, it claims up to 26% in annual heating and cooling savings versus holding a steady 72°F, and a built-in air-quality monitor flags poor air and furnace-filter changes. Compatible with 95% of systems, and the included Power Extender Kit handles C-wire-less homes for a genuine DIY install. Alexa or Siri is built in, so it doubles as a voice speaker—useful if you want it, ignorable if you don't.

The enthusiast's hub: a Matter controller and Thread border router that also speaks Zigbee, with PoE, an IR blaster, and 8GB of local storage so your automations keep running when the internet doesn't. It's the piece that ties Aqara sensors into Apple Home, Alexa, Google, or Home Assistant and makes them local-fast. For the person building a real, resilient smart home — not a starter kit. The catch: it's setup-heavy and assumes you already know what Thread and Matter are.

A high-capacity self-cleaning box built for multi-cat homes—a 76-liter drum and a 7-liter sealed waste bin that one cat can fill for roughly two weeks before you touch it. xSecure infrared and weight sensors plus app alerts guard the cat mid-cycle, with auto, scheduled, and manual modes. Trade-offs: a large footprint, and it really wants clumping clay litter, which limits your options.

The streamer to buy if your house runs on Apple. The A15 chip keeps the interface fast and ad-free, pushes 4K Dolby Vision and Atmos, and the box doubles as a HomeKit hub and Thread border router—so it quietly becomes the brain of your Apple smart home. The trade-offs are price and lock-in: it costs more than a Fire or Roku stick, and the cheaper 64GB model drops the Ethernet port the 128GB version keeps.

Dreame's L40s Ultra is a near-hands-off cleaner. The PowerDock base auto-empties dust for up to 100 days, then washes the mop pads in 149°F hot water and hot-air dries them so they don't sit damp—the upkeep most robot mops quietly demand. On the floor, 19,000Pa suction handles everything from spilled oatmeal to embedded hair, a TriCut brush fights tangles, and MopExtend pushes the pad out to catch edges. AI 3D obstacle avoidance steers it around 120-plus object types, and carpet modes add suction boost or mop lift for pet households. One note: it's 2.4GHz Wi-Fi only. A premium pick for people who'd rather not babysit the machine.

A compact soundbar that fixes the thing every flat TV gets wrong—thin, muddy sound—without cluttering the room. Five drivers throw a wide, virtualized Dolby Atmos field, it connects over a single HDMI eARC cable, and it has AirPlay 2 plus built-in Alexa or Google voice. It's the easy first piece of a Sonos system. Just know the Atmos here is simulated, not true height channels, and real surround needs a separate Sub and rears.

Most automatic feeders can't handle wet food; this PETLIBRO is built specifically to. Semiconductor cooling keeps meals fresh for up to 72 hours—more dependable than ice packs—and a clever touch returns each served portion toward room temperature about 30 minutes before mealtime so it's palatable, not fridge-cold. The three-compartment stainless steel tray is dishwasher-safe and smoother on a cat's chin than plastic. You schedule meals, check status, or trigger Feed Now from the app over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, and can reopen unfinished portions to cut waste. Infrared sensors on both sides of the lid delay closing if your cat's still eating—the safety detail that matters. Backed by a 24-month commitment.

When you want the smart outlet to disappear into the wall instead of dangling off it, this is the in-wall replacement—a tamper-resistant 15A duplex that works with Alexa, Google, and Apple Home and Siri. Pair it with Leviton's wire-free Anywhere switches for proper 3-way control. The honest part: this is a hardwired install needing a neutral wire, so it's a screwdriver-and-breaker job, not a plug-and-play module.

Blink's most affordable wireless camera, and the value play is real: up to two years on the included Energizer lithium AAs means you're not on a charging treadmill. You get 1080p live view, infrared night vision, two-way audio, and dual-zone motion detection through the app, plus a five-camera kit with a Sync Module Core to cover a property cheaply. Two caveats to go in clear-eyed: the Core has no local storage, so footage lives in the cloud on a Blink subscription after the 30-day trial, and person detection is a paid feature too. Add a Sync Module XR or 2 to store clips yourself. Works with Alexa.

The device that finally shows you where the power bill actually goes—whole-home plus up to 16 individual circuits, real-time in the app to about ±2%, UL-listed and even ready for solar net-metering. For anyone chasing waste or sizing a battery, it's the ground truth. The honest barrier: it installs inside the breaker panel, so it really wants a licensed electrician.

A genuinely flexible camera that works indoors or out thanks to its IP65 weather rating (you'll need the outdoor power adapter outside). It pans a full 360 degrees and tilts 180, with four custom waypoints for an automatic patrol sweep, so one unit can cover a whole room or driveway. AI motion tracking follows pets and people, color night vision keeps low-light scenes in color, and two-way talk lets you reassure a dog or greet a visitor. The money-saver: a microSD card up to 512GB gives you local storage with no subscription, though cloud recording via Cam Plus is there if you want it.

A two-in-one alarm that puts a smoke and CO warning on your phone whether you're upstairs or out of state—photoelectric smoke sensing paired with an electrochemical CO sensor in one battery-powered unit, no hardwiring or hub. It's the simplest way to make an existing home's safety net smart. Two caveats: the app alerts lean on a stable 2.4GHz connection, and it won't interconnect with older non-smart alarms.

A serious tri-band Wi-Fi 7 mesh for a big, device-dense home. The three-pack covers up to 7,600 square feet and is rated for more than 200 devices, the headroom a house full of cameras, plugs, and TVs actually needs. BE10000 speeds run up to 5,188 Mbps on 6GHz, 4,324 on 5GHz, and 574 on 2.4GHz for 4K and 8K streaming or AR/VR gaming. The wiring is future-proofed too, with a 10G WAN/LAN port, four 2.5G ports, and USB 3.0, and a tri-band backhaul keeps units talking without stealing your bandwidth. AI-Roaming hands devices between nodes seamlessly, and TP-Link HomeShield adds security and parental controls. Sold for U.S. use.

Dreame's L50 Ultra is built for homes that mix carpet, hardwood, and the occasional raised threshold. The ProLeap system lifts its legs to clear door tracks and steps up to 6cm, and 3D structured light plus AI route it around shoes, cables, and furniture instead of bumping through them. Vormax suction (rated 19,500Pa) and a dual-rubber detangling brush handle hair on both floors and rugs, while dual flex arms reach corners and under low furniture. The PowerDock does the dirty work: self-empties for up to 100 days, washes mop pads in hot water, dries them, and refills solution. Five app carpet modes decide how it treats rugs.

The top Fire TV Stick, and the one to get if you want the interface to feel instant. A powerful processor delivers fast app launches and fluid navigation through the redesigned 2026 Fire TV experience, and 16GB of storage — double the cheaper sticks — leaves room for apps and games. It handles 4K with Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and Dolby Atmos, and Alexa search finds titles by actor, plot, or quote. Bonus range: cloud-gaming hundreds of Xbox titles via Game Pass (subscription and controller separate) and an ambient mode that turns an idle TV into rotating art. If sluggish sticks have frustrated you, the speed justifies the step up.