The default Alexa speaker, and the easiest on-ramp to voice control. The newest Echo Dot puts out more sound than its size suggests for music, podcasts, and audiobooks from Amazon Music, Spotify, or over Bluetooth, and it's a capable little smart-home hub: built-in motion and temperature sensors fire routines like lights-on when you walk in or a fan when a room gets warm. Pair multiple Dots for multi-room audio or wire one into Fire TV. A useful bonus if you run eero: it doubles as a mesh extender for more coverage. Amazon states it doesn't sell your personal information, and a mic-off button is there when you want it.

The D20 Plus hits the value sweet spot: most of the flagship convenience without the flagship price. Its 5L self-emptying dock means up to 150 days between bag changes — genuinely set-and-forget for busy or pet-heavy homes — and 13,000Pa Vormax suction with an anti-tangle DuoBrush handles long hair and fur without you picking strands off the roller. It vacuums and mops in one pass with adjustable suction and fine-grained water control, and Pathfinder mapping builds editable maps that support no-go zones and multiple floors. Voice control works across Alexa, Siri, and Google Home. Worth noting it pairs only over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, so position your router accordingly during setup.

If color depth is the point, the SuperColor A21 is LIFX at full strength: 1,600 lumens of deeply saturated RGB across billions of shades, with CRI 90 rendering and a wide 210-degree beam that actually fills a room rather than spotlighting one corner. Tunable white sweeps from crisp 9000K daylight down to a warm 1500K for circadian-friendly evenings, and the app adds themes, scheduled scenes, plus music sync. The practical win is no hub — it pairs over Wi-Fi with native HomeKit (via Matter), Alexa, Google Home, and SmartThings, so there's no bridge to buy. The tradeoff is the usual one: each bulb sits on your Wi-Fi directly.

A wired floodlight and security camera in one fixture, for the spot where you want light and a record of what tripped it. The 2,600-lumen LEDs flood the area on motion, a built-in siren adds a deterrent, and you get 1080p live view with color night view and two-way audio through the Blink app. Customizable motion zones keep alerts to what matters rather than every passing car. It taps your existing outdoor wiring, so it skips battery swaps—but that means you need that wiring in place. Cloud storage runs on a Blink subscription after the free trial, with local backup via a Sync Module sold separately. Works with Alexa.

The Cube's clever trick is its shape: the body extends for full capacity or nests down for storage, so it isn't a bulky eyesore the rest of the year. It pulls up to 20 pints a day across 1,500 sq ft and adjusts humidity from 35% to 85%, making it a sensible basement, bathroom, or crawlspace unit. The larger tank means far fewer trips to empty it, and for set-and-forget you run the included hose to a drain or sink. The SmartHome app plus Alexa or Google voice control let you adjust it remotely, while auto-restart resumes your settings after an outage and a washable filter saves on replacements.

The lock that unlocks before you touch it. The U400's headline is UWB—your iPhone or Apple Watch in your pocket trips the door as you walk up, no codes, no scanner—and it backstops that with fingerprint, keypad, NFC, app, and a physical key so nobody's ever stuck outside. Matter over Thread lets it sit on Apple, Alexa, Google, and Home Assistant at once, and the rechargeable battery tops up over USB-C instead of a drawer of AAs. The fine print: UWB approach-unlock leans on the Apple side, voice unlocking is Apple/Alexa only, and it's a tall deadbolt. The most forward-looking lock on this page.

A weatherproof two-socket plug that finally makes string lights, fountains, and inflatables run on a schedule instead of a memory. Each outlet is independently controlled and rated 15A, the IP64 housing shrugs off rain, and the long-range 2.4GHz radio reaches up to 300 feet with no hub. The compromises on this older EP40: no energy monitoring, and no Matter or HomeKit—it's Alexa and Google only.

About the cheapest way to drop a sharp Blink camera into a room. The third-generation Mini 2K+ is a tiny plug-in cam that now shoots 2K with up to 4x zoom and clearer two-way audio thanks to noise cancellation, covering a wide area indoors. It's genuinely versatile: mount or set it anywhere there's an outlet, take it outside with a weather-resistant adapter (sold separately), or use it as a plug-in chime so you hear an alert when someone presses a Blink Video Doorbell. Footage stores in the cloud with a 30-day trial, and the person and vehicle detection that cuts nuisance alerts needs a Blink subscription after that.

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.

A wireless probe that takes the guesswork out of cooking meat — push it in, set the target in the app, and it tells you exactly when to pull the steak or the turkey. The Bluetooth repeater in the charging block stretches the range across the house, and the guided cooks are genuinely good. One probe, so it is a single-roast tool; the multi-probe Pro sets exist if you cook for a crowd.

Blink's second-generation doorbell is the budget pick that gets the fundamentals right: a head-to-toe HD view with infrared night vision so you see the whole package, not just a face, plus two-way talk to handle visitors from the app. The headline is endurance — up to two years on the three included AA lithium batteries, so you mostly forget it's there. Two things to know before you buy: it needs a Blink Sync Module (sold separately) to store footage, and the person-detection alerts come with a Blink subscription after the 30-day trial. Installs wire-free in minutes or taps into existing chime wiring, and it answers to Alexa.

The lowest-effort way to grow herbs indoors—nine plant pods, automatic watering and nutrient dosing, an adjustable LED grow-light arm, and app and touch control over Bluetooth, all running quietly on a windowsill or counter. Drop in a pod and basically walk away. The lock-in to weigh: the plant pods are proprietary refills, so your ongoing growing stays inside the Click & Grow ecosystem.

For people who don't want their door to look smart at all. Level hides the entire mechanism inside the deadbolt—from the hallway it reads as an ordinary lock—while quietly carrying Apple home key, so you tap your iPhone or Watch to get in like tapping to pay. Matter over Thread connects it across Apple, Google, Alexa, and SmartThings, and the 15-minute screwdriver install fits standard doors. The catch: that invisibility costs more than bulkier rivals, there's no keypad in the box, and it leans hardest into the Apple world. If design is the deciding factor, nothing else is this clean.

A hyper-local weather station with no moving parts to wear out—solar-powered sensing for wind, rain, UV, temperature, and even lightning, beaming updates every few seconds up to 1,000 feet, and tying into Alexa, Rachio, and IFTTT for weather-driven automations. It's the data your forecast app can't give you. The trade-off of the no-moving-parts design: the haptic rain gauge can mis-read very light precipitation.

A water bottle that nudges you to actually drink it—a SipSense sensor tracks every sip, the app syncs to Apple Health, Fitbit, and smart rings, and an LED puck glows when you've fallen behind, for up to 21 days on a charge. The insulated steel keeps water cold for hours. The compromise: the electronic puck has to come out before a deep clean and needs the occasional USB-C top-up.

A sprinkler controller that waters on the weather, not a dumb timer — it pulls local forecasts and skips cycles before rain, which is where the water-bill savings (and utility rebates) come from. A DIY swap for most existing systems in under an hour, and the app is the best in the category. It wants the separate enclosure outdoors; 8 zones covers most homes, 16-zone for bigger yards.