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Get Amazon’s assistant to organise your home
If you love the idea of transforming your home and filling it with clever Alexa-connected gizmos but don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place. Creating a smart home that works for you is simpler than you might think, and can make things you do every day much easier – whether that’s the basics like setting a few alarms or timers, or more complex commands like changing the temperature or controlling your lights via smart home gadgets.
To get started, you’ll need speakers so you can talk to your assistant, and a few of the best Alexa devices like smart plugs, light bulbs or security cameras. We’ve rounded up our top picks below, but we have a separate rundown if you’re just after the best Alexa devices on a budget.
Related: Amazon Alexa vs Google Home
At a glance, here’s our rundown of the best Alexa devices in 2022:
We know the world of smart tech is all a bit daunting, so we have gathered up the best options from Amazon’s family of smart speakers so you can pick the one (or two, or three) that are the best fit for you, and some of the best gadgets that work with Alexa, so you’ll be able to use your voice to instruct your lights to dim to set the atmosphere for your movie night, arm your smart alarm system, or tell your robot vacuum to clean your floors.
On the tech team, we all have smart devices across our homes. When new products launch, we add them to our setups and use them the way you do. We thoroughly explore each category for our roundup, and our list includes expert recommendations from our hands-on testing and our rigorous research.
Just need the basic entry-level model from Amazon? The Dot is a great starter smart speaker to help link up all your other gadgets. It’s small, affordable, unobtrusive, and still packs a decent audio punch.
There are two main colour options: light and dark grey, but if you’ve got young children you could also pick up the Kids Edition, which comes in fun animal print designs for the same price.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi, 3.5mm stereo • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 10 x 10 x 8.9 cm • Weight: 328g
The standard Echo is a little bit more expensive than the Dot above, but it’s louder overall, making it a better option both for music. If you want to expand your smart home collection quickly, you can often find bundle deals to get the speaker as well as a smart light bulb at a reduced price.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi, 3.5mm stereo • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 14 x 14 x 13cm • Weight: 970g
If you want the best possible music quality from Amazon’s roster, the Studio is the biggest and loudest model. It’s also the only one with a 3D sound that promises to make it sound like you’re right in the middle of the recording studio. The chunky cylindrical design might stick out a bit in your home, though.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi, 3.5mm stereo • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 20.6 x 17.5 x 17.5 cm • Weight: 3.5kg
After a budget Alexa-enabled device with a display? The cheapest option is the Show 5. It costs under £100 and has a small 5.5-inch display that’s ideal for the hallway or kitchen countertop. The combination of the screen and built-in camera makes it ideal for video calling, checking your security camera feed, or scanning the weather forecast to see if it’ll rain tomorrow.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 14.8 x 8.6 x 7.3 cm • Weight: 410g
If the size of the screen on the Show 5 isn’t big enough, then the Echo Show 8 might be a better option. As the name suggests, its display is a larger 8 inches diagonally, and it’s a higher resolution too. Its videos will look sharper and any video calls you take will look better.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 14.8 x 8.6 x 7.3 cm • Weight: 1kg
The Show 15 has a huge 15.6-inch display, making it like an A3-sized calendar that you can attach to your wall. It has Alexa built-in, of course, and the always-on display will help you check out your schedule at a glance. We like how you can set profiles for every family member, and the device will automatically recognise who is talking or looking at the screen.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 40.2 x 25.2 x 3.5 cm • Weight: 2.2kg
If you’re just starting out with getting your home connected, smart plugs are a great way to kick things off. Want to switch lamps on and off while you’re out or get the kettle boiling before you reach the front door? We’d recommend going with our compact and Alexa-compatible top pick.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 7.25 x 5.15 x 3.06 cm • Weight: 120g
Smart video doorbells mean you can answer the buzzer while you’re out via your phone, and the best Alexa-enabled options can display what’s happening at your front door on an Echo Show device. This can make it more convenient when receiving deliveries, welcoming your guests or keeping an eye on any uninvited guests snooping around outside. There are loads of doorbell options, but we’d recommend Amazon-owned Ring for Alexa compatibility, and this weatherproof model is feature-packed and affordable.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi • Power supply: Rechargeable removable battery or hardwired • Dimensions: 12.8cm x 6.2cm x 2.8 cm • Weight: 124g
When it comes to outdoor wifi security cameras that play well with Alexa, we’d recommend going with one of our top picks, the Arlo Pro 3. It works well for watching over your front garden or anywhere around the exterior of your house, and we like how its motion alerts correctly flag whether any movement it spots was caused by a person, animal or car. With its 2K quality, it records higher resolution video than a lot of security cameras on the market too.
• Connections: Requires an Arlo Basestation to connect to wifi, included with this kit • Power supply: Rechargeable batteries (included) • Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 8.9 cm • Weight: 330g (per camera)
If you're looking to complement your Ring Video Doorbell with something to watch over the hallway or allow you to check in on your pets while you’re away, we’d recommend the Ring Indoor Cam. It’s affordable at under £50, records HD video and has useful two-way audio so you can talk to anyone at home when you’re out.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 4.5 x 4.5 x 7.5 cm • Weight: 105g
Can’t shake that nagging feeling that you haven’t locked the door when you’re away from home? While it’s more of an expensive upgrade for your connected home, we’d recommend a smart alarm system to keep an eye on your property while you’re out. You’ll be able to check on contact sensors (for doors and windows) and motion sensors from your phone and can arm or disarm the system with your voice via Alexa.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 26.5 x 26.5 x 19.8 cm (packaging dimensions) • Weight: 2.58kg (for all components)
Lighting is an essential part of your smart home, and we think Philips Hue bulbs are the best ones to pick when starting out. There’s an extensive range of Hue products that you can control with your voice via Alexa, remotely from your phone, or via schedules that turn them on whenever you like.
The only downsides are that they need to connect to a hub (included in this starter kit) and they’re a bit more expensive than some other rival lights – for a budget option, we recommend these Wiz bulbs.
• Connections: Connects to wifi through the Hue bridge, which comes with this kit • Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 8 cm (per bulb) • Weight: 40g (per bulb)
Giving you the benefits of Amazon's streaming devices and its Echo speakers in one gadget, the Fire TV Cube has eight microphones that allow you to speak to Alexa and control your TV from anywhere in the room. Once connected, it can stream the likes of Netflix, Disney+, All 4 and iPlayer on your telly, even if it isn’t smart.
You can ask the voice assistant to play specific shows, skip forward or backwards on the programme you're watching, and also control your smart home devices or give you a news or weather update.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi • Power supply: Mains power • Dimensions: 8.6 x 8.6 x 7.69 cm • Weight: 465g
“Alexa, tell the robo vac to clean the house.” While a robot might not replace your regular vacuum cleaner, they’re ideal for a mid-week clean – you just set them up and they do the work for you. Some of the best robot vacuums can be pricey but this top performer is more affordable at under £220, works with Alexa, and you can set it to a schedule too.
• Connections: Connects directly to wifi • Power supply: Mains power charging base, and a rechargeable battery within the vacuum • Dimensions: 32.5 x 32.5 x 7.25 cm • Weight: 2.7kg
Unlike standard Echo models that focus on spoken feedback to your Alexa requests, the “Show” variants can display information for you too. This could be something as simple as the upcoming weather forecast, a timer or a recipe video, checking your video doorbell or security camera, or joining a Zoom call from your kitchen countertop. The Amazon Echo Show models come in three screen sizes: 5 inches, 8 inches and 15 inches – and we’ve explained more of the key differences between each version in the roundup.
There isn’t a monthly fee for Alexa and no charge for using an Amazon Echo smart speaker. But, it might be worth paying for a compatible subscription service like Amazon Prime that expands the capabilities of your Echo, allowing you to listen to Amazon Music without ads and watch Prime Video on Show devices.
The voice assistant only hears the specific sound wave of its "wake phrase", which is set to “Alexa” by default. You can also change the phrase to “Amazon,” “Echo,” or “Computer”, something that's invaluable if you live with somebody called Alexa! The Echo speakers only listen out for the wake phrase so they can respond to your queries. Amazon says its employees do listen to some anonymised recordings, but you can also opt-out of this within the app. You'll have to go to the section about managing your data and pick that you don't want to save recordings or have them used to improve Alexa.
You’ll see the term “Alexa skills” often when looking into Amazon’s voice assistant, but all this refers to are the apps connected to your Echo speaker that expand what it can do. Want to listen to music on Spotify? There’s a skill for that. Need to connect your Philips Hue lights or Blink security camera too? You’ll need to enable the relevant skill via your Alexa app on your phone or on the Amazon site.