Every year, the smart speaker market follows the general smart tech trend, delivering a newer and smarter range of impressive features and products.

So, when it comes to deciding on the best smart speaker for you, it helps to not only think about the sound quality, but its smart capabilities. And perhaps the most important smart feature to consider before buying is which voice assistant you want. For example, would you rather use Amazon’s Alexa, or do most of your other smart products use Google Assistant? Perhaps you’re an Apple loyalist and want to stick to Siri. If you already own a smart speaker, it’ll make sense to stick to the same system.

Aside from the voice assistant, you may also want to consider which speaker is most compatible with your other smart home tech like smart lights or security cameras, ensuring that everything works seamlessly together.

Additionally, you might want a speaker that will be powerful enough for a party, or you might be looking for something more modest for a bedroom. Some speakers have a clock face, others have a temperature sensor, and you can even buy a smart speaker to extend your mesh Wi-Fi network.

Whatever you’re looking for, Pocket-lint’s team has been reviewing and researching the best smart speakers on the market right now, starting with the versatile, powerful, and beautifully designed Sonos Era 100.

Best smart speakers: Our top picks

After testing and listening to the Sonos Era 100, we can say that thanks to its easy EQ adjustments, aesthetic design, and easy Alexa integration, it’s the best smart speaker you can currently buy. Additionally, you can use Sonos Voice Control or Alexa voice control to operate the speaker. If you choose the latter, you’ll be able to use it just as you would any other Alexa device to control your smart home or ask for the weather forecast.

You can use this Sonos speaker individually or as part of a multiroom system, but even on its own, the performance is out to impress, and it can be adapted to suit its surroundings too. The soundstage is expansive and detailed across the board, vocals are crystal clear, the bass is rich, and there’s plenty of power behind the audio performance.

The Amazon Echo Studio is an Alexa smart speaker that is all about power. Because of that, it’s best placed in a communal space like the living room or kitchen.

Under the shell, there’s a 1″ tweeter, three 2″ mid-range speakers, and a 5.25″ woofer that deliver a whopping 330 watts of power. The Echo Studio will easily fill up most modestly-sized living rooms with assertive audio made up of crisp highs and solid lows. Despite lacking some features that other Alexa speakers have, like a built-in temperature sensor and Eero mesh Wi-Fi, the Echo Studio does double up as a Zigbee hub to expand your smart home and communicate directly with smart home accessories.

If you’re looking to upgrade sound and smarts without completely splurging, the Amazon Echo Dot (2022) is a great budget alternative.

This tiny Alexa device is much better for solo listening than for entertaining, however, so we’d recommend using it in a smaller space like a bedroom because it will struggle to fill larger spaces. Despite lacking a little in depth and body, the 44mm driver still manages to deliver a balanced sound. If you did want to boost the audio, you could use it in stereo alongside another Dot.

And despite its small size, the speaker is packed with features. Firstly, it has a temperature sensor built in which can tell you how warm the room is. If you have a smart thermostat, you can create routines to adjust the heating if the temperature drops below a certain point. This smart speaker can also be used to extend your Eero mesh Wi-Fi system, extending coverage by up to 1,000 square meters.

Amazon’s mid-range smart speaker, the Amazon Echo, is loud enough to be used in communal spaces like the kitchen without being overly pricey.

Featuring a sleek and spherical shape, the Amazon Echo certainly stands out. You can buy it in either Glacier White or Charcoal, promising to blend in whether you place it in a colorful or more nuetral space.

When it comes to sound quality, it’s an undeniable step up from the Echo Dot. It’s crisp and full-bodied, which ultimately means that you don’t need to crank it up to hear finer details. That’s just as well because it struggles with some distortion when the volume is maxed out. In terms of features, it can double up as a Zigbee hub to control your smart home tech, and it even has a temperature sensor.

Google doesn’t offer a ton of smart speaker variations. In fact, there are just two. The Google Nest Audio is the biggest and the best of the pair. Of course, that means it’s more expensive than the Nest Mini, but it’s still very reasonably priced.

What’s most convincing about this speaker is the voice assistant itself. And fittingly with Google’s impressive search engine skills, the speaker’s search and response capabilities are as good as it gets. The design of the Nest Audio is love or hate, but being boxy means it will fit nicely into tight spaces.

Despite being quite compact, the audio quality is solid and surprisingly loud. The performance isn’t too bassy, either, so you’ll be able to use this to listen to podcasts and the radio as well as music. Our only issue with the sound setup is that it’s not omni-directional, so you’ll need to be wary of the speaker’s placement.

A relatively new speaker, the Apple HomePod (2023) boasts stellar sound, modern styling, and almost instant response times.

A major selling point for the Homepod 2 is the sound quality — you won’t find many speakers this size that offer so much depth and body. The vocals come across with plenty of detail and the bass packs a punch without feeling overwhelming. Granted, the midrange sometimes suffers from a little muddiness but that won’t be a huge problem for most.

Compact, subtle, and powerful, the Sonos Roam is our top tested choice for the best on-the-go smart speaker you can buy.

When it comes to smart assistants, the Roam gives you the flexibility to choose whether you want to use Google Assistant or the Alexa voice assistant and works anywhere with Wi-Fi connection. When you’re away from home, you’ll be able to play music using Bluetooth instead. It’s also water-resistant, so you can take it anywhere and not have to worry about accidents like a sudden downpour of rain or splashes from a pool.

Admittedly, there are a few issues, like the fact that the sound feels a little repressed at lower volumes, and it will need an internet connection to work to the best of its abilities. Having said that, it’s a great listen with an expansive soundstage. It has a surprising amount of power, and as you’d expect from Sonos, it delivers plenty of bass. It’d be even better with more than 10 hours of battery life, but you can’t have it all.

The bottom line: What is the best smart speaker?

As things stand, the Sonos Era 100 is our favorite smart speaker. While the $200 is a hefty tag note that the sound is impressive, the speaker totes a stylish design, and packs in Alexa smarts. Additionally, the Sonos Era 100 promises multiroom functionality, Bluetooth capabilities, capacitive controls, and line-in functionality.

However, not everyone wants or needs something so pricey. In this case, there are some great budget offerings available right now, such as the Amazon Echo Dot (5th Generation) which, at only $40, costs a fraction of the price. While the sound quality can’t compare to the top dogs on the list, it still comes with a whole host of nifty smarts.

What can smart speakers do?

Smart speakers are extremely versatile. Most commonly, however, users can benefit from using the speaker’s virtual assistant as a verbal search engine for both basic and complex queries, along with controlling other smart devices. And while these speakers range massively in price, you get roughly the same smart assistant experience whether you spend big or small.

Of course, they’re also a great way to enjoy your music and podcasts. Whether this is through streaming or casting, most now offer support for the major platforms — Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, and Audible, to name a few.

Are smart speakers safe?

All smart speakers feature microphones, and, though they generally have a switch or button to turn them off, this does also slightly defeat the point of having one. Pocket-lint has spoken to Amazon about its privacy measures, but, as a general point, we’d say the always-listening concerns people rightly hold against smart speakers is something that’s improving all the time.

For the most part, the microphones only work once the wake word is uttered, and companies have done a lot of work to reduce the amount of false-positive recordings – we’re certainly moving towards a time when your voice data and privacy can be classed as very secure. For now, though, we’d still recommend checking out the official, up-to-date FAQs directly from Amazon, Google, and Apple if you have any concerns.

What size smart speaker is best?

This all depends on how you use it. Perhaps your smart speaker will be used by your kids to ask who the President was in 1967 to help with their homework, in which case a small, simple, and cheap speaker may suffice. If you plan to use a music streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music, though, then you will want something with more audio oomph. This tends to be what separates the entry-level and the top-tier picks.

If you also want to pick up smart home devices, such as smart lights, don’t forget that they sometimes require a sold-separately hub. A smart speaker – providing it has a Thread radio, Zigbee chip, or another manner of communicative interoperability – can replace this, so it pays to know what you’ll need before you buy.

Does smart speaker size affect sound quality?

You could choose a Hi-Fi speaker that needs a shelf to itself or a tiny one that can hide in the corner of the kitchen, bedroom, or living room. Some petite speakers have poor audio playback while others, like the recently-released Apple HomePod mini, produce a sound that’s way bigger than you would expect. While the most basic speakers can connect to Hi-Fi speakers to improve their sound, if music playback is important, you’re better off choosing one with bigger speakers built-in.

Are smart speaker microphones important?

In short, yes. If you’re playing back music, the microphones need to hear the wake words through the noise to respond. The same applies in a room full of people. So, better and more numerous microphones can help. Of course, smart speakers make mistakes, too, so better microphones can help them be more accurate.