The Best Cheap Smart Gadgets CNET Editors Use In Their

Smart home devices provide convenience and remote control of appliances around your use — but in return, they want you to pay. Fortunately, in our years of testing smart home devices, we’ve taken home and adopted many cheap gadgets with low initial costs but excellent returns on value. If CNET editors decided to keep it around, you know it has to be a worthwhile option.

Let us share with you the hidden gems we’ve found that offer excellent quality without hurting your wallet, broken down into some convenient price ranges. Take a look and see where you can start saving.

Read more: The Best Cheap Home Security Systems

Best smart home devices under $100

Cons

• No touchscreen
• No HomeKit or Google Home

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.

Pros

• More affordable
• Quick Gestures for hands-free control
• Edge-to-edge glass
• Bigger bass

Cons

• You still can’t connect the Mini to larger speakers via auxiliary cable, and there’s no digital display like Amazon’s newest Echo Dot has.

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.

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