The Best Cheap Smart Home Devices, According to CNET Editors

Faith Chihil, a social producer for CNET, loves this automatic pet feeder. “While you can't control it with your phone, the convenience of a battery-powered programmable dry food feeder is hard to beat! We bought the 10+ meal feeder on sale for ~$80 for our single cat, and it's been ticking strong for the past three years.”

“I appreciate that the bowl is slightly lifted off the ground, that you can control portion sizes and the number of meals, and that you can even pause or fast-forward to meals. It's fairly easy to wipe clean and, besides mealtimes, doesn't make a sound.”

Just because a device doesn’t connect to an app or the internet doesn’t mean it isn’t smart or beneficial, and this pet feeder is a great example of that.

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, but currently, it’s a steal at only $56.

It's priced well under 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 or not and proactively adjust your HVAC to save energy. Within the Alexa app, you can also see detailed information about your energy and HVAC usage.

It isn’t the flashiest smart thermostat, it has 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 due to 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, enable 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.

LED light strips have become very common in the last few years, and there are a lot of good options available. When you pair a great light strip with a fisheye camera pointed at your TV, you get the immersive TV viewing experience you didn’t know you were missing.

I’ve been using Govee TV backlights for a few years, and I don’t like watching without them. The Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite can fit TVs from 40 to 85 inches. Each set comes with a light strip, camera, and controller box. Once set up, the camera watches what is happening on the screen and the light strip attached to the back of your TV replicates the action in lights.

The results are impressive and it not only makes the TV feel larger than it is, but it gives the impression that what’s happening on screen is expanding beyond.

Smart lights are a great way to get started or expand a smart home. If you have a lot of light fixtures, replacing all of those bulbs can get expensive and potentially introduce new headaches. 

This is why CNET’s James Bricknell chose Kasa Smart Light Swtiches for this list, and here are his reasons why, “A lot of houses these days have multiple can lighting in the ceiling, making it expensive to change all of them to smart bulbs. A much easier way is to replace the switch with one of these handy smart ones.”

This pack lets you outfit three different rooms with a new light switch and you can also get ones with three switches in one plate. Endless possibilities.”

It is worth noting that to use these light switches, your home needs to have a neutral wire to provide constant power to the device. Homes built in the mid-1980s should have this, but if you’re unsure, check with a licensed electrician. Like the Eufy smart camera above, if you only want a single switch to get started, you can get one for only $18.

When it comes to the air in our homes, the goal is usually to remove pollutants and smells with an air purifier. Sometimes, we want to inject a scent into our home with some kind of air freshener. For that, CNET public relations manager Ivey O’Neal decided to go smart with the Pura 4 Smart Diffuser and make her home smell beautiful.

“A smart diffuser where you can adjust scent settings and set a scent timeline all from an app on your phone. They have over one thousand scent options (I think?). I got it a month ago, and I'm obsessed!!”

After reading her glowing review and looking at the device myself, I bought one too. The range of scents is truly mind-boggling. The ability to schedule when the scent is on and how strong it will be is great. There’s also an RGB light that you can customize for different times of the day.

Often, an unsung hero of the smart home is smart plugs. These handy gadgets allow you to do all sorts of useful things with devices that aren’t smart, from remotely controlling lamps to scheduling when it's on or off. You can even monitor energy usage for devices.

CNET’s John Carlson tells us why he chose the Kasa Smart Plug Mini as his go-to device under $50. “Yes, there are a multitude of smart home plugs out there. I have several from different manufacturers over the years that turn on lights, power up my printer in the home office when I need to print something from the living room and so on. What this Kasa smart plug offers is a feature I'd wanted that goes beyond a simple switch.”

“It can automatically turn OFF the power to a device after a set amount of time. This is a feature that Apple’s HomeKit still does not offer. Why is this important? I set up a Kasa switch in my kitchen and plugged my espresso machine into it. I can activate it remotely to turn it on and start warming up the machine, and after about 10 minutes, it’s ready. But too often, I start the machine while I’m working, get distracted or busy, and lose track of time. Instead of the espresso machine continuing to draw power, the Kasa switch shuts off after 30 minutes.”

Ring is the brand that popularized smart video doorbells, and it is still out here making excellent devices that include a wide range of features. With that comes a broad range of prices too. You can still get one of the best video doorbell cameras on the market for right at $50.

The Ring Video Doorbell Wired brings HD video and two-way talk to your front door, so you can know who’s there without leaving your couch or even being home. The video doorbell has impressive motion detection, so you know when someone is at the door before the button is pressed, day or night.

This particular model needs to be hardwired to your home for power. If you have an existing dumb doorbell, you should be able to replace it without a problem. If you don’t, you’ll need a battery-powered option, and that will run you $100 for the Ring Battery Doorbell.

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.

As with the Kasa Smart Plug Mini, 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. Since it’s from Amazon, you can control it using Alexa. 

This smart plug doesn’t have the energy monitoring of the Kasa option, but you’ll have all the other functions.

We don't typically track the humidity levels inside our homes, but too much moisture or too little humidity can cause issues with the home, electronics and more. CNET’s James Bricknell found the Govee Bluetooth Hygrometer Thermometer as the perfect assistant for solving this problem.

“I never thought having a basement would be as worrisome as it is. I'm constantly concerned about the temperature and humidity down there. I also have some sensitive equipment in my garage that doesn't like the humidity.

These two Bluetooth devices from Govee can tell me both the temperature and the humidity through the Govee app. And, because they are smart, they can trigger other products, like the heater in the garage, so it will keep the air dry as needed.”