Readers' Choice Awards 2022: Smart Home Devices

Welcome to the 2d year of PCMag'south survey on what readers retrieve of their smart domicile devices. After all, the smallest apartment or the grandest mansion tin can be an automation curiosity with the right equipment. Desire to deck out your crib with smart lights, smart thermostats, smart plugs, robot vacuums, and smart displays with virtual assistants like Alexa or Google Assistant to help you command it all? The first decision is which brand ecosystem to choose, and we're here to aid you effigy that out.

Smart Lighting 2022

If you're just looking to dip a toe into the smart dwelling realm, the all-time place to start is with a smart bulb or two. You can put them on a schedule, take them follow scripts (say, using IFTTT to make a light turn blueish when rain is arriving), alter their color, and a lot more. Last yr, nosotros gave a shared award in this category to a couple of big names, Philips Hue and TP-Link's Kasa Smart. Of the three bulb makers in our survey results last yr, they tied for showtime at 8.five out of 10. But in 2022, things are different: Kasa Smart kept the same score, but Philips Hue vicious to eight.four (tied with Leviton). And both are backside the new male monarch of the well-lit hill, Wyze, which earned an 8.6 for overall satisfaction.

You know Wyze for having incredibly low-priced still high-quality home surveillance cameras. Last year, information technology came out with the very cheap Wyze Bulb, now selling for $7.99. This might be the cheapest smart LED in existence, which goes a long mode toward making reviewers and customers happy—PCMag's obviously are, every bit the Bulb earned a PCMag Editors' Option. The Wyze Bulb'due south value score is nine.0, the highest number beyond always measured in our lighting survey. There weren't that many Wyze users, though, and so information technology didn't go scores for extras similar color selection—which is fine, considering the electric current Wyze Bulb doesn't do colors, across adjusting white color temperature.

No other bulb maker this year beat Wyze on any measure, but if you do want colors in your bulbs, yous'll desire to consider Kasa Smart and Philips Hue. Their standout scores include Philips' 8.eight for reliability (tied with Wyze), and 8.7 for color choice—far and away the top score for colors, where even Kasa could manage merely vi.9. But Kasa gets elevation marks for vocalization controls (higher than devices such as the Amazon Repeat or Google Nest Hub smart speaker) with a 8.6.

For more, read The Best Smart Light Bulbs of 2022.

Smart Thermostats 2022

Some other upstart takes over a smart habitation category in the survey this yr. Last time, Ecobee stood out against the competition from Honeywell and Google Nest and took the seal of choice with a 9.1 satisfaction rating. This year, withal, Ecobee dropped to a (even so stellar) ix.0 and was outshone by another: Emerson.

Emerson's Sensi brand thermostats have low prices and in some places are even provided to customers by utility companies. That accounts for the value score it got: 9.1. Emerson too crushed it with a nine.2 for ease of use, viii.8 for setup, and 8.iv for energy savings.

While it didn't win this yr, Ecobee is the competition that was merely barely browbeaten. It has higher scores than Emerson for reliability (ix.2), automatic temperature (9.ane), and scheduling (nine.0), and for its mobile app (ix.1). You won't regret getting an Ecobee, except yous'll pay a little more. Even and so, Ecobee'south value rating is much higher than Google Nest's. The two leaders are tied for the likelihood to exist recommended (nine.0), but Ecobee edged slightly ahead of Emerson on the Net Promoter Score that nosotros make up one's mind using the aforementioned recommendation question.

Google Nest and Honeywell round out the smart thermostat choices, as they did last twelvemonth. But Google Nest managed to proceed the same overall score of viii.7, while Honeywell fell from 8.8 downwardly to 8.5, slipping to fourth place.

For more than, read The Best Smart Thermostats of 2022.

Smart Plugs/Ability 2022

This survey has had a lot of changes in the winners from the previous yr then far, merely that stops now. The Readers' Choice winner for smart plugs and power strips and the like remains Kasa Smart from TP-Link. It offers Wi-Fi outlets, smart plugs, and more.

It may not all be amazing news, however, since the overall satisfaction readers take with Kasa Smart fell from 9.0 to 8.8. That score is still high, but the competition for the satisfaction score is a lot tighter than in 2022. Both Smart Life and GE have an 8.7.

Kasa Smart's power/plugs take the top score for reliability (8.9, tied with GE), ease of use (8.9), likelihood to be recommended (8.7), energy reporting (eight.2), and an 8.9 for both vocalisation controls and quality of their mobile app.

Where Kasa doesn't come out on meridian is value. That goes to Smart Life (eight.9), tech support goes to Amazon (7.9), and it has a tied setup rating of eight.5 with two other companies, GE and Amazon.

The lowest-scoring vendor in the category is almost ever Belkin's Wemo make.

For more, read The Best Smart Plugs and Power Strips of 2022.

Smart Displays 2022

We rated smart speakers and their integrated virtual assistants most recently in our 2022 survey on headphones and speakers. Google came out on top for that one. That's not going to modify when you graft a screen on to the speaker, at to the lowest degree not this year. Smart displays—those devices that are substantially a smart speaker with an LCD—are a great mode to take control of your smart home, and the Google Nest brand is the one readers similar all-time.

Google Nest is the new logo/await for anything and everything Google has for smart homes, but here, we're talking near the Google Nest Hub and Google Nest Hub Max, the smart displays you tin can use to collaborate with Google Assistant. Readers gave the brand an 8.6 for overall satisfaction, compared with Amazon's Echo Show line of smart displays, which got an 8.three. While there are companies making smart displays that comprise Google Assistant or Alexa, none of them were in use with enough PCMag readers to make the cut. This is a caput-to-head-fight betwixt the 2 large-name companies.

That said, it'south non much of a fight. Google Nest comes out ahead of Amazon on all just ane criteria we asked people to rate. And we enquire about a lot. Non merely the usual stuff, such every bit value and ease of utilize, but besides smart-display-specific items such as the quality of the screen and audio, how well the virtual assistant does finding facts and info, how it does streaming media, and key to this survey, how well it controls a smart dwelling house.

The only item where Amazon won is under communications—using the smart display like a speaker telephone—with an 8.iii (Google Nest got an viii.2). Google rules in every other spot, with standout scores like a 9.two for timers, alarms, and reminders; 9.1 for setup, 9.0 for reliability, and 8.9 for screen quality. Peradventure most telling, people like the Google Banana, rating information technology an eight.5 compared to Alexa'due south 8.2. And video streaming, a must on a smart display, gets an viii.8 on Google Nest—probably because it'due south great for YouTube, whereas an Amazon Echo Show's video streaming got an eight.2.

For more than, read The Best Smart Displays of 2022.

Robot Vacuums and Mops 2022

Last year, we got enough responses for only 1 vendor (iRobot), so we didn't mitt out an award. This time, nosotros got two brands with the requisite number—plenty to at least do some comparing. Sadly, they don't appear to be part of a production category that people are very fond of. Apparently, the PCMag audience is fine with running traditional dust suckers themselves. Probably because fifty-fifty the almost independent robot cleaner is going to need some attention occasionally.

That said, if you're ready for a circular robot maid to get the floor cleaned, iRobot—our winner with an overall score of 7.9 out of ten—is the brand you lot want.

iRobot's numbers are typically ahead of its lone competitor (Ecovacs) in this head-to-caput, in detail in our most important measures of overall satisfaction and the likelihood to be recommended. That vii.9 overall score is up from the 7.6 iRobot would accept had last year, if it hadn't been the just vendor. This year, its best numbers come from simple setup (viii.5), ease of apply (8.4), and the quality of the mobile app (viii.3).

There are a couple of key areas where Ecovacs, makers of the Deebot brand of vacuums, comes out ahead. One is value—hard to crush the Ecovacs viii.ane, probably because it has some sub-$200 vacuums in its roster. iRobot'south value score was seven.2—and that's well down from the great 8.4 it had for value last year, when this wasn't even a competition. The second is most a tie: For bodily cleaning, Ecovacs is slightly alee with an 8.0 to iRobot'southward vii.9. Something to consider, if cleanliness is your key criteria.

It'due south interesting to notation that when nosotros asked questions in this survey, we phrased them for "vacuums and mops," but the response shows that robot mops are barely used. Simply two percent of the qualifying answers admitted they had a mop-only robot. In that location were a few more (six per centum) with combo mop/vac devices, but overall, no one wants robots dumping water on the floor.

For more, read The Best Robot Vacuums of 2022 and The Best Robot Mops of 2022.

Total Results

Readers' Choice 2022 Smart Home Devices -- Full table results

The PCMag Readers' Option survey for Smart Home Devices was in the field from July 13, 2022, to August ii, 2020. For more information on how our surveys are conducted, read the survey methodology. Wondering about smart locks? This yr, we'll be asking about them in a hereafter survey on smart habitation surveillance cameras and security systems.

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Near Eric Griffith

Eric Griffith

Eric Griffith has been writing nigh computers, the net, and engineering science professionally for thirty years, more than half of that time with PCMag. He was previously on the founding staff of publications like Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine, all of which are now defunct, and it's not his fault. He spent six years writing exclusively about Wi-Fi, but don't inquire him to set your router. At PCMag he runs several special projects including the Readers' Pick and Business Selection surveys, and yearly coverage of the Fastest ISPs and All-time Gaming ISPs, plus regularly writes features on all tech topics. He's the author of two novels: BETA Exam ("an …