Amazon will even go a step further with integrations with receivers, sound bars, and TVs through its Fire Cube TV product which will switch HDMI inputs and other functions with your voice through Alexa. Both companies allow you to use your voice to control your media hardware as well as tell either Alexa or the Google Assistant what media you want to play on a specific screen.

Now the Apple TV unfortunately can’t be controlled to turn on and off your TV using Siri. Overall through, I quite like the Apple TV. It has a dedicated remote which the Google Chromecast doesn’t have, and it also has something similar to casting called Airplay where you can stream media from pretty much any Apple device with a screen to your TV. Next up, let’s talk smart lighting and this category is pretty interesting because neither Amazon, Apple, or Google, produce their own smart lights.

Unlike with the speaker and media device categories, there are generally two approaches to doing smart lighting in your home.

You either make the light bulb smart or you make the switch smart. You can also use a combination of these two approaches because some light fixtures you find just are not going to have a smart bulb equivalent to the ball that the light fixture takes. The main players in smart lights right now are Philips, GE, Lifx, IKEA, and Eufy. These smart light manufacturers make LED bulbs that can typically be categorized into three groups: plain white, bulbs that go from daylight to warm white, or multicolored bulbs. These types of bulbs either connect through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and some may require a hub that you will need to connect to your Wi-Fi router. Smart lights save you a lot of time and steps throughout your house.

You can turn all of your lights off at night with just your voice, you can make sure you turn them all off while you’re away from home through the smartphone app. typically you can create routines with them so you wake up with your lights dimming up with sunrise colors and you can usually set geofencing with your lights so they automatically turn on when you arrive home and turn off when you leave. There are also other accessories you can get with your smart lights like wireless dimmer switches that you can assign to control a variety of lights in your residence. Philips Hue probably has the most accessories and different types of smart lights available today and they’re the brand that I have in my residence and we did a review of the Philips Hue lighting system, which if you’re interested, I’ll leave a link to that below. For smart light switches some popular brands out there are Wemo, Casa, Ecobee, and Lutron.

These switches connect to your home’s Wi-Fi network and replace the switch you have in your existing wall, allowing you to either control the lights with the switch, a phone app, or with a smart assistant. These are a great option if you’re doing a home remodel or building a new home where you already need light switches anyways or if you just don’t want to or can’t put smart bulbs into a fixture. Next up, let’s talk climate control and mainly we’re talking smart thermostats here. These are thermostats that are Wi-Fi connected and can be controlled by your smart assistants. Some popular ones include the Nest Learning Thermostat made by Google, the Ecobee 4 which Amazon has a sizable stake in, and various smart Honeywell thermostats.

Some you can program like more traditional thermostats with weekly schedules, while others like the Nest, learn your usage patterns and use AI to predict what the temperature should be set to. Most of them now allow you to stick sensors in different rooms around your house to aggregate the temperature data in your home to give you a true home temperature. Most smart thermostats will also work with the big three smart assistant platforms and their installation is pretty easy.

Smart Home Security Systems

Next let’s talk smart home security systems. Home security has been around for a while with brands like here in the US like ADT, CPI, and Brinks, but there are also new players in this space now as well ,that give a different type of experience to their customers, allowing them to place sensors, base stations, cameras, and other equipment anywhere in their home that they want. The three new main players in this space are Nest, Ring, and of course, SimpliSafe. Each of these players does come with a monitoring service, but they’re optional. Nest’s monitoring service is through Brinks home security where SimpliSafe and Ring have their own in-house security systems that are cheaper than the Brinks service, which is a bit more pricey. With all three services, the types of devices offered are somewhat similar. There is usually a home base, sensors for the doors and windows, motion sensors, cameras, smart locks, smart doorbells, and a key fob to disarm the system. Do note none of these services offers long term contracts. Besides the monitoring service and consumer tech focus, the other benefit of these services is that they typically integrate with the main platform assistants, so you can ask Alexa to arm your alarm, or ask Google to see the downstairs living room camera etc.

Some of these services also offer smoke detection and water leak detection devices etc, they’re not just keeping your home safe from burglars but also safe from other issues that can affect homeowners. The last and final category of smart home devices is appliances and accessories. The basic concept is that these are smart devices like your typical home appliances such as your stove, refrigerator, washing machine, but also home accessories that can connect to your smart home platform like smart blinds, robotic vacuum cleaners, smart scales, smart plugs, etc. Smart accessories are typically going to cost you less to buy so if you’re just starting your smart home, my recommendation would be to get some smart accessories first that mesh with your smart home platform and then get appliances as you need them over time.