Author: Eric Ravenscraft / Source: reviewgeek.com
If you rent your home, you could feel left out of the current smart home renaissance. Fear not, though. There are still quite a few gadgets you can get to smarten up your rental.
Not all smart home devices require modifications to your home itself. In some cases, you may even be able to make minor modifications to your home with your landlord’s approval.
We’ll break down the easiest options first, then move on to the gadgets you might be able to install with a little help from the owner.Voice Assistant: Amazon Echo ($50-100) or Google Home ($50-130)
Nothing’s quite as cool as controlling your smart home gadgets with your voice. Walking into a room and asking Alexa or Google to turn on the lights, or telling it to turn everything off when you go to bed is what makes having a smart home worthwhile. While Microsoft and Apple both offer some form of smart speakers, it’s Amazon and Google that are leading the pack in supported smart gadgets. Which one is best for you can come down largely to personal preference, but both are a solid start to your smart home.
First up, there’s the Amazon Echo lineup. If you want a smart speaker with some great speakers for playing music, the 2nd generation full-size Amazon Echo ($100) is a great fit. To fill out the rest of the rooms in your home that don’t need high quality music, you can get the Echo Dot to field your voice commands. The Dot starts at $50, but it frequently goes on sale for $30-40 each, so you’re better off waiting for a deal.
On Google’s side of things, the choices are remarkably similar.
The full-size Google Home is priced at $130. Like the larger Echo, it comes with some robust speakers to fill the room with music. For smaller rooms that don’t need to play crisp audio, the Google Home Mini costs $50. Like the Echo Dot, the Google Home Mini frequently goes on sale, so if you need to buy a few, wait for a sale and then stock up.Lights: Philips Hue ($69 for Basic Starter Kit)
Smart lights are one of the coolest ways to trick out your smart home without spending a fortune. In our experience, Philips Hue is the best, most complete system for smart lights. You’ll need a Starter Kit ($69) that comes with a hub, but once you have that, you can add new bulbs to virtually any existing socket in your house and immediately control it from your phone or with your voice assistant.
Basic white bulbs can cost as little as $11 a piece when you buy them in a group. If you want bulbs with a little (or a lot) more color,…
The post The Best Smarthome Products That Are Rental Friendly appeared first on FeedBox.