Best smart speakers in 2024: Amazon, Google, Sonos & more
Are you looking to get one of the best smart speakers for your home? We’ve listed our top picks for the best speakers that can listen to your commands.
The best smart speakers are at the core of any smart home ecosystem. They’re going to be the devices you use to control the rest of your smart home devices most often, so investing in one is a big deal. With a wealth of features and ecosystems out there, which one is the best?
We’ve listed our top picks for the devices we think you should invest in below. Just note that these are ecosystem-dependent, and we’ll be sure to note if any have Matter support, too.
1. Amazon Echo (Fourth Gen): The best smart speaker for Alexa
AmazonThe latest Echo Dot can produce a roomful of sound and control almost all other smart home devices. Aside from its dome-shaped design and Alexa integration, this Echo speaker has a built-in Thread border router, making it compatible with the Matter smart home standard.
Priced affordably at $100, the 4 generation Echo speaker is known for its loud, clear, and bass-heavy sound quality. If you have more than one of these speakers, you can even pair them together to play sounds in multiple rooms. If you have an Echo TV, these speakers can also double up as wireless satellite speakers for a better movie-watching experience.
The Echo (4 Gen) speaker looks almost identical to its cheaper sibling, the Echo Dot, but it misses out on Matter support.
2. Google Nest Audio: Best smart speaker for Google Home
GoogleThe Google Nest Audio is the best smart speaker for people in Google’s smart home ecosystem. It has a sleek and minimalist design that can easily blend with the aesthetics of your living room.
The Nest Audio packs a punch when it comes to audio output. Thanks to its array of mics, Nest Audio can easily pick up voice commands from the far corner of the room or even in a noisy environment.
The Nest Audio is a versatile speaker that lets you control your smart home devices and is also compatible with most smart home ecosystems like Alexa, Smart Things, Matter, and others. This allows you to easily blend devices built for other standards into your smart home setup.
Powered by Google Assistant, the Google Nest Audio is the smartest speaker around. It can identify multiple voices and respond based on their unique calendars and preferences.
3. Apple HomePod Mini: Best smart speaker for HomeKit
AppleSimilar to Amazon and Google, Apple has a smart home ecosystem, and the HomePod Mini is the perfect smart home speaker for users tied to Apple’s ecosystem – HomeKit. This tiny speaker looks unique and sounds good, too. But it’s a bit costly compared to what you get from the competition at the same price point.
It does almost everything that an Echo or a Nest audio would do. Its features like intercom, audio handoff, and voice pairing make it the perfect speaker if you already have devices like iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV. But, if you have the choice of picking another ecosystem, you might want to look at those options first.
4. Sonos Era 100: Best sounding smart speaker
SonosThe Sonos Era 100 is a brilliant speaker that offers a ton of smart features alongside with excellent sound reproduction. It’s multi-room functions with other devices are also second to none, if you’re willing to pay the price.
Besides Apple’s AirPlay 2, the Sonos Era 100 can be used with Amazon’s Alexa. But, due to Google’s policies, it doesn’t support Google Home. However, you can easily control most of your devices and listen to your favorite track by summoning Alexa.
So, if you’re in the Alexa ecosystem, this might be the best premium smart speaker out there currently. The lack of Google Home support is a shame, but if you’re on another ecosystem, then you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better speaker out there.
5. Echo Dot Kids edition: The best smart speaker for Kids
AmazonA smart speaker for the upcoming smart generation, the Echo Dot Kids edition has been designed for the little champion at your home. It has a unique, kid-friendly design and can play their favorite music, stream songs from Amazon Music or Spotify, help them with homework, tell stories, and more.
Instead of Alexa, kids can use Hey Disney and get the weather updates from Mickey, set a reading timer with iconic characters like Dory or Olaf, and more.
Since it is designed for Kids, Alexa will offer kid-friendly responses and can filter explicit songs. It also provides parental controls and lets parents set daily time limits, and review activities in the Amazon Parent Dashboard.
Honorable mentions
How to choose the best smart speaker
Picking up a smart speaker depends on various things. While there is no set parameter for deciding which one is the best, every gadget has its set of pros and cons. Moreover, the requirements vary for each user.
Yet, the best smart speaker is the one that is available in your budget, has a great set of speakers, and is compatible with most of your smart home devices. If the speaker has features like multi-room connectivity, Bluetooth, and more, it will make life easier.
Last but not least, if you prefer a digital assistant based on the device ecosystem, like Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri, you can choose the speaker that works best with the digital assistant of your choice.
Which is better, Google Home, Homekit, or Alexa?
The choice of voice assistant is also based on the ecosystem you’re a part of. If you have many devices that work with Alexa, other AI assistants, such as Homekit or Google Home won’t be of much use to you.
That said, Google Home is slightly more contextually aware than its rivals, while Alexa has many skills to enhance its usability. Both Google Assistant and Alexa work great on their respective devices.
However, the choice depends on the devices that you use and the ecosystem you’re a part of. But, right now, we’d say that Google Home is the best choice for most users, given how well Google Assistant can function compared to its other AI counterparts, Siri and Alexa.
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