Top 5 Must-Have Smart Home Devices 2020
The year is still young but already some smart home devices are rising above the rest. The ability to control items around the house - from locks, to lights - with a simple command from your phone or with your voice is quickly going mainstream. Something that was just science fiction a few years ago is reality today. Smart home devices are evolving quickly and here is a list of the Top 5 Smart Home Devices to lookout for early on in 2020 to get you started. These must-have gadgets will get you well on your way to a smart home that works with you and for you.
Amazon Echo
The Amazon Echo is a Bluetooth speaker powered by Alexa, Amazon's voice assistant. This smart home hub can be used to control most of the gadgets in your house simply by the sound of your voice or the touch of a button. The line of Echo speakers and touch screens are accessibly priced and allow you to do everything from control your lighting, music and climate control to making video calls and viewing your security camera feeds. You can setup scenes with a spoken word, by the time of day or with movement on your property to set into motion a number of responses from your smart home.
SmartThings Smart Plug
The Samsung SmartThings Wifi Smart Plug is an inexpensive and easy way to turn regular home appliances into smart devices. It offers power usage reports, voice control and flexible scheduling. The power usage reports alone can be a real game changer when it comes to understanding what appliances and electric devices in your home are really costing you every month.
Ecobee Thermostat
The new Ecobee Smart Thermostat with voice control is their fifth-generation model and offers more features than ever. They have increased their Alexa and multimedia support, added more powerful audio components, and now have dual-band Wi-Fi. The app is extremely user friendly with a lot of their-party support. This smart thermostat continues to stay competitive offer the user flexible and total control over their home's climate control.
Ecovacs Deebot
A smart vacuum is an amazing time saver and a great way to enhance your quality of life. Many vacuums in this category can be quite costly but the Ecovacs Deebot N79S is relatively affordable and offers more for the price than many others do. Deebot offers long battery life and manual steering and supports features such as app control and Amazon Alexa compatibility. Most importantly it is rated quite highly for its ability to clean and to give your pet cat a ride from time to time.
Philips Hue
The Philips Hue lighting family of lighting products allows you to turn any light or lamp into a smart device. These smart bulbs let you to control not only the intensity of the light but also the colour. This established product line has been around long enough that it works with almost every smart system out there including Alexa, IFTTT and Siri. Phillips Hue White is a more economical version of the product and you can even pick up bulbs safe for outdoor use as well.