11 smart home gadgets that will give your house serious brains

11 smart home gadgets that will give your house serious brains

There’s no doubt about it, smart home tech feels like it’s finally on the cusp of mainstream adoption.

After a decade or so of languishing in the consumer tech background, connected home products are getting some proper time in the spotlight – and this year’s CES show in Las Vegas has seen a slew of smart home devices launched and teased.

No need to trawl the web for details, though: we’ve picked out the highlights for you.

Heatworks Tetra

Small enough to sit on your kitchen worktop, this compact appliance (created in partnership with Frog Design) has space for a couple of place settings’ worth of cutlery, crockery and glassware, which it’ll clean in 10 minutes, using just over two litres of water. That’s seriously fast and seriously eco-friendly.

The Tetra (US$299) can be controlled and monitored through a companion app, which allows you to tweak pressure and cycles, or trigger the cleaning remotely. How dishy!

Due: Late 2018

Lenovo Smart Display

Lenovo’s forthcoming Smart Display is a sleek Google Assistant-powered slab with a touchscreen (available in 8in and 10in varieties) that’ll actually show you results gleaned from your voice searches – calendar entries, requested YouTube clips, weather reports – as well as allow you to make video calls and play music.

It’ll also function as a hub for controlling all your other smart home products and systems, making it sound something of a steal for its US$200+ asking price.

Due: Summer 2018

Nokia Sleep

Nokia’s Sleep (US$100) isn’t just a Wi-Fi-equipped pad that slips under your mattress to keep tabs on how well you sleep (including your snoring), its IFTTT integration means you can hook it up to other smart home kit, so you could set up a system where your smart lights dim as you drift off, or your smart blinds rise and your smart heating system kicks in when you begin to wake. Dreamy.

Due: Winter 2018

Nanoleaf Light Panels

Nanoleaf’s HomeKit-friendly square light panels can be linked together to create a wall-illuminating pattern, which will change colour with nothing more than a touch. The company’s existing triangular panels are limited to 30 connections but these can be linked in groups of up to 1000. It’s not clear exactly how much that would cost but we’ve already started clearing space on the wall.

Due: TBC

LG WK7 Smart ThinQ speaker

LG’s answer to the Amazon Echo and Google Home, the WK7 smart speaker arrives with Google Assistant baked in, giving you as the same voice-powered hub talents as the Home.

However, LG’s pitched the WK7 as something of a premium audio option, making much of its Meridian-tuned sound profile and lossless Hi-Res Audio compatibility. There’s also Google’s Chromecast capabilities built in, plus you can use it as a hub to control all of LG’s ThinQ AI smart home products.

Due: Soon

Philips 7703 Series TV

While we wouldn’t advise settling into a particularly enthralling episode of Peaky Blinders while chopping vegetables, Philip’ new 24in TV is blessed with Google Assistant and a built-in mic. That means you can change channels or adjust the volume with naught but your voice – a real boon when your hands are busy stuffing a chicken for the Sunday roast – while the hefty speaker unit means it can act as a very passable Bluetooth music system too.

Due: Late 2018

Ecovacs Winbot X

Most robot window cleaners need mains power to stick limpet-like to your patio doors and start sluicing off the grime, but Ecovacs’ Winbot X (US$450) is the first we’ve seen to have a rechargeable battery, so it can run an entire cleaning cycle – in which it’ll automatically wend its way around your windows – totally cable-free. How’s that for flexibility?

Due: Q2 2018

Netatmo Smart Home Bot

Not a gadget as such, but Netatmo has launched a Facebook Messenger bot for its smart home gear (which includes security cameras, thermostats and weather stations), so you can use natural text commands to control and query your kit. From straightforward orders such as, “turn on the kitchen lights” to more complex queries like, “is anyone home right now?”, it’s all at hand via the Smart Home Bot. Handy for when you’ve got a sore throat from bellowing at Alexa.

Due: Out now

Ring Beams

Fresh from impressing us with its video camera bell (a device which takes the existential dread out of answering the door), Ring announced its acquisition of Mr Beam, a company with a neat line in easy-to-install outdoor lights.

That means you’ll soon be able to trigger Mr Beam’s wireless, modular, motion-sensing LED lights with Ring’s doorbells and security cams, or controlled via the Ring app. Neat.

Due: TBC

Philips Hue and Razer Chroma

Philips has a smart lighting system for your home, Razer has a smart lighting system for its gaming products – and now the two are going to play nice.

Yep, if you have some Hue lights, the V2 bridge, the latest Hue app, and a PC running Razer’s Synapse 3 software, you can coordinate them with your Chroma kit and have one hell of a light show to accompany your PUBG sessions.

Due: Out now

Aeolus

Meet Aeolus, a wheeled household robot capable of recognising thousands of items, picking them up and putting them in places they belong. Thanks to its modular build, you can also attach brooms or vacuum cleaners for cleaning.

The downside is likely to be its price, which will likely be in the “cheap runaround car” region. That’s a lot to shell out just to avoid having to fetch your own beer from the fridge.

Due: 2018

Nanoleaf Remote

It might look like an accessory for the most deluxe Dungeons & Dragons campaign ever, but Nanoleaf’s glowing 12-sided, HomeKit-compatible Remote is a shortcut to one of 12 different smart home preset profiles – just flip it so that the profile you want (for your lights, heating or music playback) is facing upwards and that profile will magically come into being.

Due: Spring 2018