The last twelve months have been fascinating for fans of smart home technology. Seemingly everyday, a company thinks of a new way to spin a simple household item into the latest smart device for your living room or kitchen, or they develop an entirely new product you didn’t know you needed on your coffee table. The scope of home tech this year was wide and varied, with great new products and stellar updates coming from nearly every corner of the home.
The biggest name to enter the fray was undoubtedly Google, who came out swinging this fall with Google WiFi, Chromecast Ultra and Google Home. Mountain View wasn’t the only company to make waves in 2016, though. There were great contributions from standard bearers like Samsung and Roku, as well as smaller outfits like Nanoleaf. No matter which way you slice it, it was a great year for smart home gadgets.
Here are the year’s 5 best:
1) Amazon Echo Dot (2nd Generation)
The best entry into the world of smart home gadgetry and smart home control is not Google Home. It’s also not the Amazon Echo. No, it’s the Echo’s little brother, the Echo Dot. Amazon made a stroke of genius this year with the second generation Dot, a smaller, cheaper take on the original. At just $49.99, it was the best smart home buy in 2016. It doesn’t have the same speaker quality as the standard Echo, but no one buys the Echo for its speaker quality, they buy it for the smart assistant inside. The Dot offers Alexa at a price that is a veritable impulse buy.
2) Google Home
After much speculation, Google officially announced it was taking on the Amazon Echo this year at it’s annual I/O conference. Mountain View’s connected speaker, Google Home, is a valiant effort, a device that clearly learned from the journey of Alexa and hit the market with all the basics covered. No one really knew what the Echo was for, or what it would become, when it debuted in 2014. With Home, it’s a little clearer, but it is still far from reaching its full potential. That’s both a good and bad thing. Google should have pushed harder to have it ready to stand toe-to-toe with the Echo from day one, but we know it will improve over time and given the amount of data the company has accrued from 18 years of ruling search, that improvement could be vast and quick.
For what it is right now, the Home is a solid device. It can connect to various smart home gadgets, including Philips Hue bulbs, answer tons of trivia questions, tell you the weather and so much more. The Google Assistant is smarter than Alexa, even in its first go-around, and as more people use it, it’s going to hopefully become a powerful tool. That alone makes Google Home the most interesting home gadget of the year, but it hasn’t stolen Alexa’s lead just yet.
3) Chromecast Ultra
Not to be outdone by Roku, Google made sure its streaming platform was ready for 4K in 2016, as well. It’s wildly popular Chromecast line got an upgrade in the form of the Ultra, bringing UHD streaming to the masses with a simple, affordable option. Though more costly than the original Chromecast, at $69 the Ultra is still a great, cheap entryway into the world of 4K and HDR. That makes it a fabulous choice for people who just shelled out hundreds of dollars on a fancy new UHD TV, and don’t want to throw down another heap of cash just to watch the best possible content available.
4) Logitech Pop
Sometimes a great smart home device is more about simplification than packing in as many features as possible. Logitech’s clever smart switches help bring order to smart home chaos. You can program them to control various gadgets, including Sonos speakers and Philips Hue lightbulbs. The best part, though, is that you can set the Pop buttons to perform multiple actions with a single press, like lower your blinds and dim your lights, all with just one press. Smart home gadgetry is all about early adopters right now, which can leave friends and family members on the outside looking in when it comes to how your home functions. Logitech Pop bridges that gap.
5) Roku Ultra
The era of 4K is nearly upon us. Every month, more and more providers are adding 4K and HDR content, and that trend is only going to continue in 2017 and beyond. Roku has long been one of the best names in set-top boxes and that hasn’t changed in 2016. The company’s latest and greatest is the Ultra, a streaming box that comes with all the great features you’d expect from the Roku name. An outstanding amount of channels, a snappy and easy-to-use interface, plus support for 4K and HDR make it a media machine that will last you for years.
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