8 Best Smart Speakers on the Market
Updated: Sep. 29, 2022These smart speakers give you great sound and useful features to organize your life. Here are eight greats.
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All About Smart Speakers
Smart speakers are a great combination of tech and sound. They come with virtual assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant that help you with everything from creating grocery lists to organizing your schedule and ordering pizza. Some have sound capabilities that match high-end music speakers, adding to their usefulness.
Best for Your Bedroom
The Amazon Echo Dot With Clock is a smart speaker with an LED clock on the front, so you can replace your bedside clock. It has all the great features you’d expect from a smart speaker, including Alexa capabilities and music streaming.
Best for Sound and All-Around
The Sonos One (Gen 2) is the best smart speaker on the market. It features amazing, rich, full-room sound that even picky music lovers will enjoy. It also has a great app and is compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant. It’s easy to connect multiple Sonos One speakers to each other, and to sound bars, creating a surround sound system in your entertainment room.
Best Budget
Though inexpensive compared to other smart speakers on this list, the Echo Dot (3rd Gen) still has decent sound and all the Alexa capabilities of more expensive speakers. It’s also tiny, so it’s a great choice for your desk.
Best for Google
The sound of the Google Home Max comes close to the Sonos One. It features custom tweeters, dual 4-1/2-in. woofers, and AI that adjusts the sound for that room-filling, booming feel. It’s a smart home hub for Google Assistant-compatible devices, too.
Best for Alexa
The Amazon Echo Plus is an Alexa fan’s new best friend. It offers the best sound of all Amazon smart speakers, a built-in home hub for your Alexa-compatible devices, and all the additional Alexa capabilities you need. It costs a little more than other Amazon smart speakers, but the great sound is well worth the upgrade.
Best for Siri
The Apple HomePod isn’t just a booming speaker with pounding bass, it’s also a smart home hub for Apple smart devices. You can use voice commands to ask Siri questions, set up your schedule, create reminders, check weather and traffic reports and more.
Best for Kids
The Echo Dot (3rd Gen) Kids Edition is an Alexa smart speaker with built-in security aimed to protect your children. The rainbow-colored speaker can be customized by the parents to only voice-call certain people and to limit usage to certain times. And it only responds to kid-friendly Alexa commands.
Best for Connecting Rooms
The Echo Flex is a tiny speaker that plugs directly into a power outlet. Using the app, you can link several to make an inexpensive intercom system. They also have full Alexa capabilities, hands-free calling and a built-in USB port for charging your phone.
