How CNET Editors Save Money With Cheap Smart Gadgets in Their Own Homes

A smart thermostat may be the most surprising smart home device to land in this price category. Regularly priced at $80, the Amazon Smart Thermostat is a great deal and you can find it even lower with discounts.

It’s priced at much less than many of the other smart thermostats but the Amazon Smart Thermostat packs an intelligent punch with its features and ease of use. This device can detect whether you’re home and proactively adjust your HVAC to save energy. Within the Alexa app, you can also see detailed information about your energy and HVAC use.

It isn’t the flashiest smart thermostat, with a clean, minimalistic design that can fade into the background. What it lacks in appearance, it makes up for in features. You can even use Alexa to set up automations to trigger other smart devices in your home to adapt based on what the thermostat is reading.

Eufy is a part of the Anker brand and is known for making excellent security cameras with impressive features at affordable prices. The Eufy Security Indoor Cam E220 is one of our favorites and even tops our Best Home Security Cameras for Apple HomeKit and Siri list.

The E220 makes this list because of its price and features. Perhaps the most impressive feature of this camera is the pan and tilt function with a 2K camera resolution. This allows you to move the camera remotely, enabling you to see all around the area. Smart object detection means the camera will follow a subject once it has entered the view and the 2K resolution lets it all happen in good clarity.

A two-pack of the cameras costs $100 but if you only want or need one, you can pick that up for $56.

The Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) offers a lot for a little. Aside from access to Google Assistant, you get a 7-inch display to act as a photo frame, entertainment screen, visualizer timers and so much more. In addition to those uses, the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) also has the ability to track your sleep if you place it in your bedroom. There is no camera on the device; the sleep tracking is done via a radar sensor. We love this device so much that it even topped our list of best smart displays.

Apple’s HomePod Mini is an audio marvel, given its small size and the quality of sound it produces. It won’t be rattling the windows at your next party but it does a great job playing audio from various sources, including Apple Music, Spotify and more. You’ll have access to Siri for your voice commandsand with Thread built into the speaker, it’s also a smart home hub.

LED light strips have become very common in the last few years, and there are a lot of good options available. When you pair a great light strip with a fisheye camera pointed at your TV, you get the immersive TV viewing experience you didn’t know you were missing.

I’ve been using Govee TV backlights for a few years, and I don’t like watching without them. The Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite can fit TVs from 40 to 85 inches. Each set comes with a light strip, camera, and controller box. Once set up, the camera watches what is happening on the screen and the light strip attached to the back of your TV replicates the action in lights.

The results are impressive and it not only makes the TV feel larger than it is, but it gives the impression that what’s happening on screen is expanding beyond.

Smart lights are a great way to get started or expand a smart home. If you have a lot of light fixtures, replacing all of those bulbs can get expensive and potentially introduce new headaches. 

This is why CNET’s James Bricknell chose Kasa Smart Light Swtiches for this list, and here are his reasons why, “A lot of houses these days have multiple can lighting in the ceiling, making it expensive to change all of them to smart bulbs. A much easier way is to replace the switch with one of these handy smart ones.”

This pack lets you outfit three rooms with a new light switch and you can also get ones with three switches in one plate. “Endless possibilities.”

It is worth noting that to use these light switches your home needs to have a neutral wire to provide constant power to the device. Homes built in the mid-1980s should have this but if you’re unsure, check with a licensed electrician. Like the Eufy smart camera above, if you only want a single switch to get started, you can get one for only $18.

Often, an unsung hero of the smart home is smart plugs. These handy gadgets allow you to do all sorts of useful things with devices that aren’t smart, from remotely controlling lamps to scheduling when it’s on or off. You can even monitor energy use for devices.

CNET’s John Carlson tells us why he chose the Kasa Smart Plug Mini as his go-to device under $50. “Yes, there are a multitude of smart home plugs out there. I have several from different manufacturers over the years that turn on lights, power up my printer in the home office when I need to print something from the living room and so on. What this Kasa smart plug offers is a feature I’d wanted that goes beyond a simple switch.”

“It can automatically turn OFF the power to a device after a set amount of time. This is a feature that Apple’s HomeKit still does not offer. Why is this important? I set up a Kasa switch in my kitchen and plugged my espresso machine into it. I can activate it remotely to turn it on and start warming up the machine and after about 10 minutes, it’s ready. But too often, I start the machine while I’m working, get distracted or busy, and lose track of time. Instead of the espresso machine continuing to draw power, the Kasa switch shuts off after 30 minutes.”

Ring is the brand that popularized smart video doorbells and it is still making excellent devices that include a range of features. With that comes a range of prices too. You can still get one of the best video doorbell cameras on the market for right at $50.

The Ring Video Doorbell Wired brings HD video and two-way talk to your front door, so you can know who’s there without leaving your couch or even being home. The video doorbell has impressive motion detection so you know when someone is at the door before the button is pressed, day or night.

This particular model needs to be hardwired to your home for power. If you have an existing dumb doorbell, you should be able to replace it without a problem. If you don’t, you’ll need a battery-powered option and that will run you $100 for the Ring Battery Doorbell.

This adorable fabric-covered puck is the Google Nest Mini (2nd Gen), and it is the best way to add voice controls around your home because the device is so affordable and can blend into any decor. You get direct access to Google Assistant for help with questions, timers, reminders, playing music and more. It doesn’t have quite the Apple HomePod Mini audio chops but this is half the cost and accessible to those with Android phones.

Nanoleaf is known for its pricey light panels like the Hexagons but the brand’s Essentials line of smart lights brings the company’s expertise to a more affordable set of devices.

These are excellent general-purpose light strips and can be used all over the house. They are indoors only, as the lights aren’t rated for water and dust resistance. The Nanoleaf Essentials Smart LED Lightstrip works great under cabinets, shelves and more. 

Nanoleaf packed this affordable light strip with features, like access to the excellent effects library and other options in the Nanoleaf app. It also set the lights to support Matter and Thread for better connectivity.

The newest version of the Echo Dot is a small powerhouse, with surprisingly good sound quality and Alexa’s natural affinity for controlling a variety of home devices. The sound is better than a Google Nest Mini but it’s a larger device and you won’t be able to wall mount it as easily. Instead, it works better as a desk companion, kitchen assistant — or, as we’ve found, as a smart bedroom alarm clock, if you get the version that includes an LED clock on the fabric globe.

The Echo Dot 5 also has extra sensors that can pair with an Amazon thermostat so you can use it as a clever satellite sensor for controlling temps.

Emporia’s smart plug looks like typical fare for controlling plug-in devices around the home — until you open up the Emporia app and realize it has amazing features for tracking and managing your electricity use. If you’re worried that a gadget is sapping more power than it should, you can get charts showing you energy use over time and unexpected spikes.

In addition to setting on/off schedules, Emporia can also automatically make schedules to avoid use during peak use hours, when electricity is more expensive for many users. It’s one of the most thorough solutions we’ve seen.

The Amazon Smart Plug is an easy way to make dumb appliances smart. This no-frills smart plug from Amazon lets you remotely control the power for anything you plug into it and even set up schedules to turn on and off at set times. Because it’s from Amazon, it’s especially easy to control using Alexa. 

This smart plug doesn’t have all the energy-saving tricks of some plugs but it’s especially easy to use and set up.

GE Cync Smart Light Bulbs are some of the easiest to set up that I’ve ever tested. The lights just simply work. The 60-watt equivalency provides plenty of brightness to the room, and with a full range of colors and tunable whites, you can dial in the perfect look for your room. The lights connect directly to Wi-Fi and work with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

This dual smart plug from Kasa brings all the functionality and features from the brand’s indoor smart plug but is wrapped in a waterproof case. Rated at 15 amps and 1,875 watts per outlet, you should have no problems running most outdoor devices. There are multiple ways to use this plug, whether with schedules, control via the app or with your voice through Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.