Smart Home for Beginners: Start With These 5 Devices

The Smart Home Starter Pack

The smart home market is overwhelming. There are smart plugs, smart bulbs, smart locks, smart speakers, smart thermostats, smart curtains — you get the picture. Most of them are solutions looking for problems. We narrowed it down to five devices that genuinely make daily life easier, and we ranked them in the order you should buy them.

• 1. Smart speaker (Google Nest Hub or Amazon Echo Show) — the brain of your smart home
• 2. Smart thermostat (Ecobee Premium) — saves $100+/year on energy bills
• 3. Smart lock (Yale Assure Lock 2) — never fumble for keys again
• 4. Smart bulbs (Philips Hue starter kit) — set schedules, scenes, and wake-up lighting
• 5. Smart plugs (TP-Link Kasa) — make any dumb device smart for $10 each

Automate the things you forget, like turning off lights. Keep manual the things you enjoy, like adjusting music.

— Sophie Winters