Smartening Up My Home: A Journey Towards Automation
My house is working toward a PhD. Little by little, it's getting smarter.
The transition started a few years ago, out of necessity. After peering beneath my bed to retrieve a fallen item, I was horrified to discover a thick coating of dust on the floor. My old-school corded upright vacuum was too bulky to fit all the way under, so I picked up a robot vacuum to handle the dirty work for me.
Then, I got a dog, which led to the purchase of a smart air purifier to help combat allergies and asthma, and a pet camera to keep an eye on my fur baby (and my home) from my phone, 24/7. The doorbell has also been helpful for keeping an eye on my deliveries. I can get a notification on my phone when a package arrives, so I know it's safe and secure.
Since then, my little Florida beach bungalow has transformed into a test bed for the latest home tech, growing smarter by the week. Now, I walk into the bedroom and tell Google Assistant to turn on the lights. I ask Alexa to reorder protein powder and dog food, and they arrive at my doorstep two days later. I adjust my thermostat via an app on my phone from the comfort of my bed.
I receive severe weather warnings and recipe ideas on the screen of the smart display in my kitchen. Even my air fryer sends me a notification when it's done preheating.
These days, there's a smart version of pretty much every home device you can think of. In general, these products connect to the internet, allowing you to control them from your phone through a companion app. Most also support various forms of voice control.
Many smart home companion apps support scheduling, making it easy to program your devices to perform specific actions at certain times. After her bike was stolen, for instance, the Editor-in-Chief programmed her smart garage door to automatically close every night at a specific time.
With Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, you can set up routines for your devices to work together and perform multiple actions at once, such as adjusting the temperature and lighting when you arrive home. With Apple HomeKit, you can control your devices using Siri voice commands or from an Apple Watch and create scenes to trigger several devices simultaneously. Using IFTTT, a service supported by many top smart home brands, you can link various internet-connected devices and easily program them to respond to real-world events, like setting your lights to turn on automatically at sunset. Additionally, the rollout of Matter, a new smart home interoperability standard, makes setting up and integrating connected gadgets easier than ever.
Exploring the Best Smart Devices
What follows is a rundown of the best smart devices we've tested for every area of the house. While we've organized them by room to help keep things organized, that doesn't mean you can't use most of these gadgets just about anywhere.
Be sure to check back regularly, as we continuously test new products and add them to this comprehensive guide.