If you don’t have a smart home yet, you most likely will soon. According to Strategy & Stats, the market for smart homes was $101.1 billion a couple of years ago, and is expected to hit $755.8 billion by 2032. That includes everything from smart lightbulbs to fully equipped smart ecosystems for your house and yard.
Deciding on what products to install as you make your home smarter can be complex. Not every smart home brand sells every kind of smart home device—for example, the best maker of smart lighting doesn’t make smart thermostats—and the quality of their products can vary significantly.
“The smart home can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be,” says Andrew Gebhart, PCMag’s senior analyst for consumer electronics. “Devices are getting better at talking to each other, and whereas this was a field mostly for early adopters just a few years ago, now lots of big brands make gadgets. And plenty of gadgets come to market with discernible polish.”
To help you understand the landscape, we’re back with a full smart home survey, our first since 2021. Will Amazon or Google reign supreme in the smart home platform market? Which brands make the best smart lights, power plugs, and thermostats? Read on to find out.
(If you’re looking for robot vacuums and mops, take that separate survey now. Those results will be published in the fall.)
The Top Smart Home Platforms for 2025
Voice assistants on smart speakers and displays now saturate homes—one report says 75% of residences will have one by the end of the year—and have arguably become the top way to control smart home devices, surpassing automation hubs. They excel at facilitating quick actions like activating devices, cutting out the need to fumble with a phone app or a wall-mounted control panel.
One smart assistant stands taller than the other: Amazon‘s Alexa. While it hasn’t always been our readers’ top choice—Google won in our previous pre-2021 match-ups in this category—Amazon’s platform this year takes the top honors in almost every category.
(Note: Click the arrows in our interactive charts to view various elements of our survey results.)
The chart above tells the full story. Alexa trounces the Google Assistant in almost every way, particularly for setup, reliability, and likelihood to recommend. Google Assistant does, however, lead when it comes to mobile apps.
One survey respondent calls Alexa “easier to use than Google Home,” adding that it “works well with my other products, especially my various cameras.” Another says, “There are some negative aspects, but I feel that Alexa is a superior product/platform.”
It should be noted that the players here are in flux. Gemini, Google’s AI, will replace Google Assistant on almost every device possible. The smart home speakers and displays that haven’t upgraded yet will likely do so by the end of the year. Alexa, meanwhile, will eventually be supplanted by the AI-robust Alexa+.
Will Greenwald is PCMag’s lead analyst for consumer electronics, and he’s been reviewing smart assistants, displays, and speakers since Alexa first launched on the Amazon Echo in 2014. “Google Assistant and Alexa are about neck-and-neck with how easy they are to use and what they can do at this point,” he says.
“But Amazon has a better selection, with more smart displays in more sizes, including two extra-large—15- and 21-inch—models that can be mounted on the wall,” he adds. “Plus, there’s the Fire TV interface and a 10-inch model on a motorized base that can actually rotate to face you wherever you are in the room.”
It’s worth pointing out here that Google hasn’t released a new smart speaker or display in four years; the last was the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) in 2021. The company is also discontinuing the production of smart smoke detectors and locks, perhaps in favor of working with third parties on those devices.
When it comes to smart displays—devices that combine voice control with a touch screen—Amazon and Google are again the predominant brands, and again, Amazon takes the win.
Amazon leads Google in the majority of our criteria here. The exceptions are reliability, where the two smart display makers are tied, and trustworthiness, where Google leads Amazon.
Finally, we come to smart speakers, the products that introduced many households to voice control of a smart home. Alexa on Amazon Echo ties with Google’s Nest-branded speakers for satisfaction. But Amazon takes the win, thanks to leading in more categories, including a half-point win in likelihood to recommend.
The speakers tie for ease of use, and Google leads in terms of setup and use of a voice assistant to search for facts. But in all the rest of the categories, Amazon rules. For anyone new to smart homes who needs a quick, easy way to control everything, Amazon devices running Alexa should be your first choice.
Greenwald thinks he knows why people side with Amazon in the hardware categories above: “Amazon Echo speakers and Echo Show displays overall generally look and sound better than Google Nest Audio, Nest Hub, and Nest Mini.” On the other hand, Gebhart prefers Google’s smart speakers and smart displays. “I’ve always felt Google Assistant responds more fluidly to natural language,” he says, “and my Nest Hub plays well with my Android phone.”
Readers frequently say they have a “good experience” with Echo devices (which reportedly may be rebranded as Alexa as well). “My experience with the Amazon platform has been consistently positive,” one says. “I stream music to groups of speakers, control my lights, and manage my Ecobee thermostat. I was using Google for many years until Google seemed to give up. Amazon just works.”
Get Our Best Stories!
Your Daily Dose of Our Top Tech News
By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
To see which smart displays and speakers dominate in our lab testing, read The Best Smart Displays for 2025 and The Best Smart Speakers for 2025.
The Top Smart Lighting for 2025
Philips, which introduced connected bulbs with the launch of Hue in 2012, won our first smart home survey in 2019. However, in the intervening years, this category has had several different winners, with only TP-Link and its Kasa Smart brand winning more than once.
For 2025, there’s a new name in the winner’s circle, but it’s not new to lighting. Lutron is a company that dates back to the 1960s, and it’s always made dimmer switches for controlling other companies’ bulbs. Today, Lutron makes smart switches, primarily under the Caseta brand, that work with existing lighting.
Readers rate Lutron lighting equipment well ahead of the competition from Philips Hue, Kasa Smart, and even Amazon’s Basics line. The brand dominates when it comes to satisfaction, ease of use, and likelihood to recommend.
“I’ve been using Lutron Caseta switches since 2016, and those same switches still work well,” Gebhart says. “That’s quite a lifespan for a product in a rapidly developing field.”
Survey respondents are likewise impressed. “I’ve never had an issue with them in any shape, way, or form,” says one satisfied Lutron Caseta customer. Another reader calls the brand’s devices “reliable, accurate, and very functional.”
Recommended by Our Editors
Philips Hue scores well for reliability, voice control, and color choices. That’s not surprising, since the brand has a long history with some excellent reviews. But one thing Hue is not is inexpensive—the brand is at the bottom of the ratings for cost. If affordability is your primary concern, readers suggest Kasa Smart bulbs.
To see which lighting products shine in our lab testing, read The Best Smart LED Light Bulbs for 2025.
The Top Smart Plugs and Power for 2025
Lighting winners may change, but only one brand has ever won our Readers’ Choice awards for smart plugs and power strips. That’s Kasa Smart, a brand owned by TP-Link. It’s a Chinese company with no lack of drama owing to controversy in the US around its routers, but it remains the favorite of survey respondents.
Kasa Smart wins in every measure, though the competition was not robust this year. The only other brand to make the list is Amazon; the retailer’s cut-rate Basics line sells a number of smart plugs. Even though Amazon’s and Kasa’s prices are pretty evenly matched, Kasa still bests Amazon in our survey when it comes to cost.
One reader, echoing the sentiments of many others, calls Kasa “reliable and affordable.” But others aren’t so sure about the first part, saying they’ve had a few of the brand’s devices fail. Some claim the Kasa plugs lose pairing with the control apps over time and complain about frequent logouts in the app.
To see which brands power up in our lab testing, read The Best Smart Plugs and Power Strips for 2025.
The Top Smart Thermostats for 2025
We were surprised when Emerson won this award five years ago, as Google’s Nest brand seemed so dominant. But Emerson’s first smart thermostats—even then sold under the Sensi brand—have only grown in stature since, even as Emerson Climate Technologies was bought by an equity firm and had its name changed to Copeland.
Sensi is the definitive Readers’ Choice award winner for thermostats, ranking high above Ecobee (a previous two-time winner), Google, and Honeywell for satisfaction, reliability, ease of use, and likelihood to recommend.
“Just bought another [Sensi thermostat] for Mom’s house,” says one respondent. “They are great if you want to fine-control your home’s comfort and efficiency, and get regular reports on the hours that heat, fan, and AC are used.”
Google Nest thermostats score well for satisfaction—better than they have in past surveys—even after Google announced it would stop supporting older versions this year, essentially eliminating the “smart” aspect of Nest’s first-generation thermostats.
To see which thermostats heat up our lab testing, read The Best Smart Thermostats for 2025.
Full Results
The PCMag Readers’ Choice survey for Smart Home Devices was in the field from April 3 to June 9, 2025. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read our methodology.
PCMag Readers’ Choice: How Our Surveys Help You Find the Best Products
About Eric Griffith
Senior Editor, Features
Leave a Comment
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *