Your home is your sanctuary, your hang out space, your office, and your safe place. Putting the time and effort into setting up your space exactly as you want it makes staying at home more fun, and more efficient. Interior decor is one side of it, but your tech setup is just as important. With Smart Voice Assistants and voice-control, your home works with you through everything. You can count on Best Buy.ca’s selection of smart home technology to make both working and relaxing from home easier, and smarter.
Smart home voice assistants synchronize and work with plenty of devices. Chances are you already have more than a few ready to pair up in your home. However, if you want an entire revamp, you have a plethora of devices to choose from. You can use smart voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri to make your home as easily accessible as possible. Let’s run through some of the different ways you can bring your home into the future by making it effortlessly voice controlled.
Enjoy your favourite programs with a voice-controlled Smart TV setup
The days of fighting over the remote are over. This is due in part to a much better selection of shows and movies to stream that we can all agree on. But more importantly, it’s the fact that you can just use voice control instead.
A device, like the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Media Streamer with Alexa, connects to your existing television. The Fire TV Stick lets you press just one button to easily access all your favourite TV shows, movies, or video clips. You can also use its voice control settings to pause, change the volume, power on and off, and mute. All it requires is to be plugged into your TV’s HDTV.
If you’re in the market for an entirely new Smart TV, Best Buy has got plenty of options in store for you. Smart TV’s come with built-in assistants and are compatible with smart home devices, so you can easily access a voice control assistant. A television, like the Sony 55″ 4K UHD HDR LED Android Smart TV, has a built-in Google Assistant. It’s also compatible with any existing Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Apple HomeKit. All you need is the power of your vocal chords to chime in exactly what you’re in the mood for.
For more tips on how to get the most out of your TV with voice control, check out Darren’s blog post: How to control your TV with a Voice Assistant.
Stay safe and in the light with smart locks, lights, and power outlets
One of the best ways to benefit from voice command technology is by controlling your home’s lighting and security. Being able to use voice commands to lock doors and control lights is truly a game changer. It benefits your safety and just makes life that much easier. Removing the extra step and setting up voice control for your lights and locks is a lot easier than you may think.
You can plug virtually any lamp into a smart plug, such as the Amazon Wi-Fi Smart Plug with Alexa, and connect it with your Amazon Echo. Another great option is the Philips Hue Smart Bluetooth Plug, which can connect with both Alexa and the Google Assistant. All you need to do is easily set it up in the app on your phone or tablet one time, and you can control your lights with ease for good. For more information on Smart Plugs, check out Leonard’s post on the Best Buy Blog.
Another option is to use smart bulbs in your lighting fixtures. Bulbs, like the VV2 A19 Smart LED Bulb, connect to your Amazon Alexa, and they come in a variety of colours. Using smart bulbs means you don’t need any kind of plug-in connection; you can just connect the bulb itself to your Amazon Alexa app. Looking for more info on smart lights? Check out Best Buy’s Smart Lights Buying Guide.
The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock Pro + Connect Wi-Fi Bridge is a great example of a smart lock that can be used with voice commands. This may sound sketchy to some, but it is designed to only respond to your specific voice, and the voice command feature can be turned on and off as you desire.
Set up voice-controlled speakers throughout your home
There’s nothing quite like the sound of music, except for the sound of your own voice controlling the music. Using voice-controlled speakers makes it a lot more simple to turn down, up, on, or off your favourite tracks and podcasts. You can find a large variety of speakers available with built-in voice control. One of my favourite soundbars with built-in voice control is the Bose Soundbar 700 Smart Speaker. It’s sleek, but loud, and it connects with Alexa and Google. You can work, create, or just relax away to your chosen background noise without having to worry about moving an extra finger. And if there’s a dance party going on in your kitchen, you can easily DJ just by using your vocal chords.
If you’d like a speaker system arranged around the house, Sonos is the way to go. The Sonos One Voice-Controlled Smart Speaker allows you to pair with both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. You can add multiple speakers to this system throughout your home and control them together or individually.
Check off your to do list with your voice-controlled smart assistant
Some of the simplest things we have to do on a day-to-day basis can take up the most time. Smart home assistants save you time and effort by living up to their title and being your actual assistant. You can use a device like the Google Nest Hub or the Amazon Echo Dot to do all of your tedious tasks for you. We’re talking anything from making purchases to checking the weather, sending messages, setting dates in your calendar, taking on the phone, and more. These devices can also act like a home base for all your other smart home tech. You can strategically purchase and sync all your home tech to pair with your “home base” assistant so you can control your entire home coherently and with ease.
For more ways to make your home smart, check out more of the latest articles by our team of tech writers on the Best Buy Blog.
