Best smart speakers for 2024: We tested Alexa, Google, Apple and Sonos
If you’re looking for your first smart speaker or looking to upgrade your current assistant, there are a lot of things to consider. Is it more important that your speaker sounds great, is easy to install, or fits within a budget? Sometimes you don’t have to choose just one of these things for your perfect smart home. From setting timers to making lists to controlling other aspects of your At homelike lights or other routines, this guide is designed to help you sort through the sea of options when it comes to finding the best smart speaker. This guide is backed by CNET’s years of research and testing of voice-activated devices and smart speakers, starting when they first on site.
What is the best smart speaker?
Amazon Echo speakers are among the most affordable and easy to install smart speakers available. That’s why the fourth generation Amazon Echo is our pick for the best smart speaker overall. It probably best suits the needs of most households. Although it’s a few years old, the device has improved sound quality over the previous generation, is compatible with a range of smart devices, and costs relatively little: $100 (though it’s often on sale for $80 or less).
The fourth-generation Echo may not be the best choice for your particular home. Almost any smart speaker you can control lights, play music, ask questions, set reminders and much more with simple voice commands. The decision may simply come down to which brand you’re already invested in. If you have an affinity for a particular company’s products, whether you’re devoted to Amazon, Apple or Google, choosing a speaker is easy.
For those who don’t rely on a particular platform (or just want something different), our top picks, along with the 4th-generation Amazon Echo, include the 2nd-generation Google Nest Mini, the 5th-generation Amazon Echo Dot, the Apple HomePod Mini, and the new Sonos Era 100. Read on to find out why.
Best Smart Speakers of 2024
In the best smart speakers category, we favor Amazon for the smart home, thanks to Alexa and the $100 fourth-generation Amazon Echo.
The latest Echo (not to be confused with the fifth-generation Echo Dot or Echo Pop) combines the usual Alexa smarts with a great-sounding speaker that has a built-in Zigbee radio. It’s a nice addition that lets you connect Zigbee lights, locks, sensors, and other devices to your setup without needing a separate hub device.
The Echo even comes in handy when you’re away: Alexa can send you notifications if your smart speaker’s microphones detect the sound of breaking glass or a smoke alarm.
What helps the Echo take the top spot is its sound quality: this speaker delivers loud, room-filling sound with plenty of clarity and bass control. While there are better-sounding speakers out there, like the Sonos Era 100 and the Echo Studio , neither can match the Echo’s price.
Read our Amazon Echo (4th Gen) review.
If you’re looking for a budget smart speaker, there aren’t many more feature-packed smart speakers than the Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen). It offers a wealth of features, including a temperature sensor, an Eero Mesh extender, and the ability to tap it for an alarm clock.
The Echo Dot (5th gen) also sounds better than other speakers in its price range, including the Echo Pop and Google’s Nest Mini, with plenty of vocal clarity and decent bass. The microphones are sensitive enough to hear you from across the room, even when another speaker is playing.
While Google’s Nest Mini is a bit more advanced in terms of its responsiveness, the Amazon Echo Dot is better in every other way and is the best smart speaker under $50.
Google has done an admirable job of catching up to Amazon in the smart speaker race. At this point, choosing between the two companies’ cheapest smart speaker devices comes down to nitpicking.
Google Assistant now has nearly as many capabilities as Alexa, making the $50 Google Nest Mini a solid alternative to the Amazon Echo Dot if Google Assistant is your preference. Plus, in our tests, Google Assistant is slightly smarter than Alexa.
It responds more flexibly to voice commands if you forget the exact names of your smart home devices. Plus, Google’s grouped commands, called routines, work with more types of smart devices than Amazon’s comparable routines.
Google Assistant can recognize multiple voices, so if you both ask questions about your schedules, you’ll both give different answers (though Alexa can now do this too).
Overall, Google still has the edge when it comes to intelligence, and the Google Nest Mini is a great, inexpensive way to tap into that intelligence.
Read our Google Nest Mini review.
Apple’s tiny, Siri-compatible smart speaker bridges an odd gap between $100-priced competitors like the Google Nest Audio and Amazon Echo and cheaper speakers in smaller housings like the Nest Mini and Echo Dot.
Features like intercom, audio handoff and stereo pairing make this small smart speaker very practical. It looks good and sounds great.
When it comes to smart homes, Siri and HomePod Mini are only available on devices that work with Apple’s smart home platform HomeKit.
There are fewer HomeKit-compatible devices available than devices that work with Alexa or Google Assistant.
If you like Apple (and if Siri is your favorite smart assistant), or if HomeKit is your favorite smart home platform, then you’ll love Apple’s smart speaker.
For those who already use an iPhone, Apple TV, or the original HomePod, adding this smart speaker to the collection is a logical step.
Read our Apple HomePod Mini review.
Replacing the Sonos One would be a tough task, but the company has managed to not only make the Era 100 sound better, but also give it a bit more functionality.
In addition to Apple AirPlay 2 and Sonos’ own multi-room system, the Era 100 now features Bluetooth, putting it in line with the Roam and Move portable speakers.
The only downside to the Era 100 is that the speaker no longer offers a choice between Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. While adding a Nest Mini would seem to defeat the purpose of a speaker like this, it should solve the problem for those already in the Google ecosystem. The problem reportedly lies with a change in Google’s rules, so perhaps there’s hope that Assistant can be added in the future.
Either way, the Era 100 sounds great and Alexa fans will love it.
Read our Sonos Era 100 review.
Other smart speaker options
The smart speakers above are our current favorites, but you have plenty more options if you’re looking for something specific in audio performance. Read our breakdown of Alexa vs Google Assistant vs Siri if you want to learn the pros and cons of each device and choose a smart home device based on the platform.
We’ve seen several new smart speakers launch over the past year or so (namely the Apple HomePod , Amazon Echo Pop , the Sonos Era 100 , and the Era 300 ), but most of the models have been around for much longer. The Era 100 is the best of these new speakers, and while the $40 Pop is interesting in its own right, the Dot (5th gen) offers more features for just $10 more.
If you like the idea of off-the-shelf technology but want something a little more visual, check out our list of the best smart displays. Smart displays essentially combine a smart speaker with a touchscreen, allowing you to watch videos on YouTube, make video calls, scroll through photos and control your smart home gadgets with a touch. Amazon and Google both have several options worth considering in the category.
read more: Best Smart Displays for 2024
Decide what platform or features you want so you can quickly narrow down your options and find the best smart speaker for you and your family.
Smart Speakers FAQ
Are there also stereo smart speakers?
Yes; almost every Amazon Echo smart speaker can stereo pair with another Echo speaker. The list is quite long, so check out Amazon’s stereo device compatibility page. Here is a list of speakers that you can pair together for stereo sound.
All of Google’s smart speakers can be paired in stereo, as long as they identical modelsGoogle’s Nest Audio speaker is the best choice for stereo pairing. Buying two of these speakers often gets you a discount off the suggested retail price of $99 per speaker.
You can set up the speakers in your Google Home app, telling Google which speaker is the right and which is the left. Bass and treble settings are also adjustable via the Home app.
Apple’s HomePod and HomePod Mini can pair with identical speakers for left- and right-channel stereo listening. You can also pair your HomePods to your Apple TV for surround-sound theater. The smaller speakers won’t blow you away, but it’s a nice added feature.
If theater surround sound for your TV is your biggest smart speaker priority, Sonos offers the best audio quality, in our opinion. Two Sonos speakers (of the same model) can be stereo pairedor you can opt for a better choice of smart soundbars (Beam or Arc).
What is the smartest voice assistant?
These days, the race between Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa is extremely close. Apple’s Siri is on the board, but in a solid third place when it comes to reliability, knowledge, and understanding of human requests.
Overall, we prefer Google Assistant for its superior cadence, natural tone, and ability to understand (and answer) questions and consistently answer follow-up questions.
It’s close enough that you can safely invest in Google Assistant or Alexa based on other preferences, such as speaker style, device, and compatibility with other popular smart home products.
Alexa is almost as good as Google Assistant, so you really can’t go wrong with whichever assistant you choose. You’ll learn its quirks and how to interact with it to get the best responses and useful information.
Just for fun, we’ll dive deeper into each assistant’s “personality” here.
Which smart speaker is the loudest?
In our tests of Apple, Amazon, and Google smart speakers, we think the Amazon Echo Studio delivers the most in terms of sheer volume. The Sonos Era 100 is a close second for powerful sound, and it’s also our current pick for best sound quality . Particularly if you’re considering using your speaker in a stereo pair or as a theater system for watching TV.
Which smart speaker is best for free music?
Amazon smart speakers can play music from free or paid subscription tiers on Pandora, Spotify, and other popular music streaming platforms. Additionally, if you have an Amazon Prime account, you can play music from the extensive Prime Music catalog.
Google smart speakers offer similar music streaming options. But while Amazon requires a paid Prime subscription for ad-free listening via Prime Music, Google includes a cheaper YouTube Music subscription for free with its smart speakers.
