The best smart home gadgets to buy in 2026

Cameras, plugs, sensors, vacuums and speakers that make a home smarter without a pile of subscriptions.

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Smart Speakers & Displays

Cheap, ubiquitous hub for the new Alexa+ assistant; ads-adjacent nudging is the Amazon tax.

The unglamorous best first buy — automate any dumb appliance for the price of lunch.

Cheap door/motion Matter sensors that finally work across Alexa, Google and Apple without a proprietary hub.

Doubles as a Matter/Thread hub with local AI detection; setup is fiddlier than a Ring.

2026 models map and auto-empty well; you're paying for the dock, and they still choke on cords.

Longer-range Precision Finding and a louder speaker; still the best tracker for iPhone, useless on Android.