With the best smart home devices, you can automate your home and achieve so much by uttering a few phrases or simply tapping on your smartphone. You can easily switch on or off electrical appliances, lock your doors, dim or brighten the lights, and so much more without stress and your physical presence.
These devices allow you to create an innovative, seamless environment to control whether you are at home or away from it. It doesn’t matter anymore whether you left your heater running at full blast or that you left home without switching off the lights. These and more can be handled with your smartphones when you are using smart home devices. These smart devices not only give you convenience, but they also ensure that your home is the epitome of the modern world that we live in.
Suppose you are going to start your journey into smart home devices. In that case, you will be looking at investing in several devices ranging from smart lighting to smart switches and plugs, smart speakers, smart security cameras, smart thermostats, etc. These devices can be connected, allowing you to create a network of devices working together. For instance, your smart lights can come up automatically if your smart video doorbell or smart security camera detects activities.
Before purchasing smart home devices, you must know that they must be compatible with themselves before communicating with each other. So whether you are buying them simultaneously or at different times, compatibility is something that you must look out for.
If you’re starting in smart home technologies or simply expanding your journey, you must know the best smart home devices in 2021 to invest in. In this article, we discuss a few of these.
Eufy Video Doorbell 2K: Best Smart Video Doorbell
This is the best smart wireless video doorbell that you will find anywhere in the world based on its performance, reliability, and price. This device records in 2K, so it produces very detailed footage with an aspect ratio of 4:3, allowing you to see whoever is at your door at full length. These features are why it is the best as they give it a decisive edge over its competitors.
This device doesn’t require a monthly subscription, unlike many others. The videos are stored online securely. A bundled base station keeps a record of the footage, up to 16GB, which is about two weeks, so it doesn’t incur an ongoing cost.
The app also has an excellent layout, and the system integrates well with Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa makes it an even better choice for your smart home design. In addition, it allows users to be in charge of how and where their video is stored and does not require any maintenance cost.
Amazon Echo: Best Smart Speaker
This smart speaker is a new speaker with pretty impressive features for an affordable price of $100. It has a powerful sound output, spherelike profile, and numerous other features that make it stand out. It has some strong competitors, including Google Nest Audio speaker, Apple sandbox, Apple HomePod Mini. However, the Amazon Echo still stands out because it has a more powerful speaker with impressive bass. It also has an in-built Amazon Sidewalk Hub and Zigbee receiver, making it more reliable and seamless to connect to lightbulbs, Wi-Fi, and other devices.
This speaker is powered by Alexa, which supports a lot of third-party devices. You can ask this speaker to play your favorite song, set a timer, tell you the weather, etc.
Philips Hue – Best Smart Light Bulb
If you are going to talk about smart home devices and the smart home experience, one of the top products you will mention is smart bulbs. These bulbs are easy to install. All it takes is to screw them in. There are many things that you can achieve with smart bulbs using an app or your smart speaker. For example, you can make them come on or off, change light colors, dim or brighten the light, etc. Of all the smart bulbs you’ll find in the market, Philips Hue stands out the best.
The starter kit for Philips Hue has four A19 60W LED smart bulbs and a Hue bridge with which you can easily control the lighting in your home through the app. In addition, there is an extensive menu setting of customized light that has millions of color variations. The white color alone has up to 50,000 variations.
The setup process for the Philips Hue has just three straightforward steps, and the scheduling routines are evident. With this, you can easily go to sleep with your lights on at night, and you can do something similar with your wake-up routine.
Nest Thermostat E: Best Smart Thermostat
For many people, the first thing that comes to mind when they think of smart thermostats is Nest Learning Thermostat. Nest is one of the first to introduce machine learning into systems for cooling and heating the home. As a result, they’ve been recognized as one of the best manufacturers of thermostats.
The Nest Thermostat E is one of their most recent and most effective products from Nest. It is also very affordable and shows that people don’t have to break the bank for an excellent thermostat. This product retains the smart features of Nest thermostats and removes several unnecessary features so that it’s more cost-efficient and users can save money.
However, you should note that this thermostat is not always the best choice to go for in a few situations. An example of such a situation is if you are using a high-end multi-stage cooling or heating system. It may be better to stick to the Nest Learning Thermostat in this case. However, if you don’t mind the slightly lower quality and you have a setup that’s more compatible with the Nest Thermostat E, then it is an excellent choice.
Arlo Pro 3: Best Smart Security Camera
Arlo Pro 3 has an advanced system with several excellent features, including an in-built siren and easy web control. Unlike the Arlo Ultra, it lacks the 4K resolution, but the 2K resolution is equally very impressive. It has a 160o field of view, two-way audio, and night vision which is common with many cameras. Other smart features include motion tracking and automatic zooming, which help the camera up every possible thing. In addition, the camera has HDR support and can zoom in up to 12x.
This camera also integrates well with other smart home devices and supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Users can also combine it with HomeKit, but they have to pay to access all its features.
There’s a three-month free trial period, followed by a cheap basic subscription fee of $3 per month for each camera. Without payment, features like cloud recording, object detection, etc., will be lost. In addition, an event-based seven-day free cloud storage option is not available on the Arlo Pro 3, unlike other products.
Overall, this product is a massive upgrade to the previous Arlo Pro 2 product and is an excellent choice for people in need of outdoor security systems with a strong image quality without having to pay a hefty sum for Arlo Ultra.
Conclusion
There are many smart home devices that you can set up if you are looking to start your smart home journey. This article discusses some of the best smart home devices that you can get in 2021, but there are many others that you can check out to meet your different smart home needs.
Author Bio
Leon Collier is a blogger and academic writer from the UK who has vast experience working as an essay helper and paper writer. He loves to take on every challenge thrown at him and can deliver outstanding work regularly. When he’s not busy writing, he loves reading books and playing tabletop games with his friends. Follow him on Twitter @LeonCollier12.
