Smart Home Products: Best Voice Assistant

Time passes and technologies are becoming more and more advanced as well as part of our daily life: isn’t this the meaning of Home Automation? That branch of technology developed to make our home smarter and always connected with us and our habits. But now there is one more step: what is called Smart Home Products, and in this guide, we will show you the best Voice Assistant smart speakers!

How it is possible to manage the sockets, the garden, the floor cleaning, the temperature of the rooms, the kitchen and much more, independent, smart and connected. However, each of these solutions needs its own app to interface with it, making it a bit complicated. A Smart Home is able to centralize all smart home products so that they can be controlled directly and with a simple voice command! But in reality, these voice assistants also have much more capabilities: let’s see them more closely!

Smart Home Products

In the introduction, we have tried to explain to you in a few words what are the potentials of a smart home products, focusing on their ability to interconnect with other smart home technology devices (compatible) so that they can be controlled even faster – with a simple voice command – and in an extremely intuitive manner.

In short, the smart home products can be seen as the “central brain” of a smart home manager, able to administer the home automation component of your home. But in reality, voice assistants are even more than that! Therefore, before seeing the best voice assistants to buy, let’s analyze some main features:

The world at your fingertips: the first and crucial feature of a voice assistant is the Internet connection that puts you in touch with the outside world, with you and with the various services to offer. Through a simple voice command you can ask questions, book a taxi or buy a pizza, listen to the radio or a song on Spotify, buy tickets for the cinema, know the weather forecast, set a destination on the navigator, set and manage a commitment, call someone, reply to a message, get traffic information, set an alarm and much more! Incredible right?
Smart home manager: in addition to everything we have just said, your voice assistant can interconnect with other smart home products in your home and – always with a simple and fast voice command – you will be able (for example) to turn off the lights in one certain room, turn on the heaters in another, make a coffee, turn on/off an appliance, change the smart TV channel, turn on the audio system and much more. In short, the only limit is imagination! And if you have a little practice with these home automation systems, then a world will open up!

These smarthouse devices are generally quite inexpensive and are often sold in different formats depending on whether you are looking for performance or better technical features. However, with regards to Domotics, each voice assistant is compatible with certain brands/devices, so your choice will essentially have to fall on the “most compatible” one with the smart ecosystem of your smart house.

Best Voice Assistant

Online, especially in recent times, many smart home products are spreading, often also very cheap. In reality, it is difficult to verify how reliable they are and above all if they are able to perform at least most of the functions we mentioned in the previous paragraph. But above all, it is difficult to identify their compatibility with smart home automation systems. So, we will list the best voice assistant to buy:

Google Home / Home Mini / Nest Hub

Directly from Big G, these two smart speakers can help you in any operation by connecting to the Internet and other smart devices in your home. Their “voice” is that of Google Assistant and you can just say “OK Google!” To access their endless features! Both are available in various colors and, depending on the technical specifications, you can decide whether to take the Mini version (cheaper) or the standard.

The compatibility is huge and not only includes music services (like Spotify or Play Music) and entertainment apps (like Netflix or YouTube), but are also provided on the industry Home automation where you can control smart home devices from Philips, Nest, and Netatmo (for smart thermostats), TP-Link, D-Link, Sony, Xiaomi or Nvidia and of course all the devices of the Google ecosystem like Chromecast or surveillance systems.

Google Home Mini supports Bluetooth and WiFi connections, has a built-in speaker with 360° audio and can be configured with Android and iOS operating systems. The same thing goes to Google Home, bigger and with touch top, dual-band WiFi (2.4 GHz + 5 GHz) and dual speaker.

• BUY | Google Home Mini from B&H Store
• BUY | Google Home from B&H Store
• BUY | Google Nest Hub from B&H Store

Apple HomePod – HomeKit

Apple HomePod is a strong and concrete answer to Google Home especially aimed at those who already own or intend to create an ecosystem of Apple devices. This voice assistant has a simple and compact design, and in the upper part includes a touch screen from which to control it (as well as with voice commands) making simple taps.

Needless to say that here too the possibilities are endless and the only limit is imagination! His voice we know well – Siri – and to talk to her you will just have to say “Hey Siri!” To activate it and ask for everything that comes to mind. Being essentially a smart speaker, it can play music with excellent quality, and if you buy two Apple HomePods they will connect together to offer an even better musical experience. We have integrated WiFi and Bluetooth technology, but this smart device is only compatible with iOS devices.

There is wide compatibility in terms of apps and services, but above all accessories, with which you can create here to a real ecosystem (Apple HomeKit) including smart cameras, smart sockets, lights, sensors and much more. There are also important partners like Philips, Nest, and Netatmo.

• BUY | Apple HomePod from B&H Store

Amazon Echo / Dot / Plus / Spot / Input

The most famous smart home products from the Amazon in the world has already reached its third edition and provides four versions (for all budgets) of its voice assistant: Amazon Dot, Amazon Spot, Amazon Echo, and Amazon Echo Plus.

The speaking voice of these smart speakers is called Alexa voice assistant and has nothing to envy to the two previous competitors. These smart home products can practically answer all your questions, plan your day and help you manage smarthome appliances in your house just as we told you in the first paragraph. Depending on how much you want to spend then, you can get more microphones in it, better quality audio and higher performance technical features.

Even the Alexa voice assistant is compatible with many music and entertainment services, and of course with the proprietary ones like Amazon Prime Video or Amazon Music as well as with famous brands like Philips. In our opinion – the best buy among the three is Amazon Echo which provides good hardware at a better price than the previous ones and with a very compact and elegant style.

The newcomer is Amazon Echo Input which saves money compared to the previous ones because it does not include a speaker, but only sensors and software (Alexa voice assistant). It can be connected to any of your installations or speakers (via Bluetooth or a traditional AUX cable) and even in your car!