The most common options for the best smart speaker are Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant – for most folks, it’s a choice between these two. Apple’s Siri is also an option, but it’s only available on two smart speakers at this point, and generally isn’t quite as capable as the other two overall, so it’s more of a marginal option. Mostly.
But for the majority, it’s Alexa or Google Assistant. And actually, for most people, the choice won’t make too much difference still – they’re both able to play music pretty comprehensively, they can both answer most question types, they both offer a lot of smart home control.
To help decide which is right for you, read our in-depth comparison of the two: Alexa vs Google Assistant. The gist of all this is that we’d slightly recommend Alexa more overall because it’s a bit more flexible and has more cool additional abilities you can add. Google Assistant ties into the Google ecosystem better, though, so if you’re deep into Google services, that will probably the better choice.
Honestly, though, if talk of advanced extra skills and ecosystems makes you shrug, you can choose either and be happy – it will probably come down to the hardware.
For the speakers themselves, consider their size, design, audio quality and any of the additional hardware features we've talked about, such as having a screen or a smart hub inside. Price will obviously be a major factor, but it's likely to be something you'll consider in combination with the above – you might well choose a smaller and nice-looking option if it’s going prominently in your living room, but if you want a powerful music speaker for the office, your priorities will be a bit different. When it comes to speakers of all kinds, bigger usually means better sound.
Finally, a vital component of a smart speaker is the microphone, naturally. Everything we’ve recommended has a strong mic setup, designed to pick voices out from other sounds, and to hear you from across a room.
Grab a smart speaker with a built-in smart screen and you'll get you even more. You get the brains of a smart speaker, you generally get some strong speakers, but that screen opens up options: you can pull up a live view of compatible security cameras, watch videos, skim through recipes, and get visual notifications – they're much more than just digital photo frames. Although they'll do that, too.
Check out our best smart bulbs to integrate into your home setup, or go all out with our best smart home gadgets to connect even more.