James Bond These days smart tech can act as all manner of home help, from personal assistants to your very own doorman. How fancy.
From roving robots to a very clever washing machine, we select the top digital domestics for some serious smart-home smugness.
Amazon has supersized its Echo Show smart speaker to create its biggest Alexa-powered display yet, designed primarily to cling to your wall. Throw commands at it and the voice emanating from this 15.6in smart speaker can remind you of incoming calendar appointments, add stuff to your shopping list, guide you through recipes and keep you entertained.
Customisable widgets are on hand, so you can leave digital sticky notes for others in your house, track Amazon packages or get real-time traffic information. Register your face and it will also display personalised content, like calendars and reminders. It’s brilliant for communal video calling.
A huge strength is its compatibility with connected home devices, making them voice controllable. Hook it up to your Ring Doorbell to have a peep at who is at your door or use it on compatible TVs – great if you’ve mislaid the remotes!
When Alexa isn’t dutifully answering your commands, it doubles up as a photo frame, with a camera cover and mic mute button thrown in for good measure.
One of the easiest gateways to Alexa, this diminutive spherical speaker comes with a built-in LED clock, and buttons up top for adjusting volume and muting Alexa’s ears.
Google’s battery-powered doorbell records clear footage when pressed or motion is detected. It recognises faces and animals and even identifies when packages are left or taken. HDR also ensures details are clearly visible, and 6x zoom lets you enlarge footage.
Video clips are stored for up to three hours, so you don’t need a cloud subscription for basic security and recordings. For up to 60 days of video history, you will need to subscribe to Nest Aware for £5 per month. This also unlocks access to facial recognition smarts, allowing you to assign names to people detected by the camera, so it can announce when they’re at the door.
The 3:4 aspect ratio lets you see the entirety of a person, and packages on your doorstep. Motion zones also prevents active neighbours triggering alerts.
