THE FUTURE OF HOME TECH: TRANSFORMING YOUR LIVING SPACE WITH THE BEST SMART DISPLAYS

Smart displays marry the audio smarts of a smart speaker with the added value of a tablet-size visual output. You can get Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant to show you the weather, ping your whole family, play the album cover of your favourite record, stream a TV show, follow a video recipe or make a video call. Hands down, smart displays are one of the coolest ways to interact with your digital butler. But there are so many smart displays, how do you pick the best one for you? Our testing has rounded up the best ones.

Finding the Perfect Smart Display for Your Home

The smart home display market is becoming increasingly crowded and, if you’re considering getting one for your home, the decision can get confusing. Luckily, we’re here to break it all down so you can make an informed decision. We’ve looked at camera upgrades, new speakers and the smart home ecosystems behind each of these smart home displays.

The Ultimate All-Rounder Smart Display

The mid-range Amazon model is best: just large enough to be clearly visible from across the room, with enough extra power and features, and with enough cameras and speakers, that it’s a great starting point for replacing a basic clock radio on a nightstand. It also has a built-in Zigbee smart home hub.

GOOGLE HOMES' BEST COMPANION: SMART SPEAKERS AND DISPLAYS

Finishing things off, the $99 Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is still the gold standard for speaker/smart display combo for die-hard Google users, especially for those who listen to a lot of media – the Chromecast skills couldn’t be better – and prefer to put it on their nightstand thanks to some novel radar sleep-tracking magic and built-in gestures.

Master Your Smart Home with the Best Control Panel

If you have a home full of smart devices, and you’re tired of cobbling together apps to access and control them, the Echo Hub should be a no-brainer. Its customisable screen portrays device status, live security feeds and controls, making it the best single source for smart home control.

PREMIUM SOUND AND INTERACTION WITH THE BEST ALEXA DISPLAY

Amazon’s Echo Show 10 is our pick for the best speakers in the Alexa smart-display lineup, with its rotating screen so it can follow you. A little pricey, but the digital pan-and-zoom camera help you look your best on video calls.

Budget-Friendly Smart Display Excellence

For budget-conscious shoppers, the Echo Show 5 offers an unbeatable price-to-value ratio. As long as you don’t have a preference for the larger screen size that others now demand, the Echo Show 5 will provide the entire smart display experience in a small, cheap, 5.5-inch package. Yes, it’s suited for smaller rooms such as offices and bedrooms, but it can also act as a digital picture frame on your nightstand, providing a constant, pleasant touch to your daily life.

Elevate Your Walls with the Best Smart Display

And, while the Amazon Echo Show 15 still fits the ‘smart display’ bill, it’s more at home adorning a wall in your kitchen as a smart home command station target than it is held by a human hand. And the price point and the spot this device holds in the Amazon Echo Show family make it an interesting play for anyone who wanted to centralise their smart home control hub.

Decoding Smart Speakers and Displays

Smart speakers and displays are increasingly becoming part of home life, helping us control smart home devices and play media. They are also, by definition, advertisements for the way we live now. Many models come in a variety of shapes and sizes and with varying sets of features. Depending on your desires, budget and needs, choosing the best smart display might mean looking for ecosystem compatibility, screen size, speaker quality and/or a unique feature. Do you need something that can function as a control centre for your home? Or are you looking for something that fits into a tight space? The smart display world has something for everyone.

Keeping an eye on the latest smart-tech innovation and product launches will ensure you don’t get left behind: that your home remains at the front of the smartness curve. Smart displays won’t just bring us a future where our devices talk back. They bring us a future where they vividly respond to our commands.