My 10 Favorite Smart Tech Devices I Tested This Year

I review a lot of smart home tech, and my home is often full of robots rolling on the floor, voice assistants talking, and notifications chiming from my phone. Most smart home devices have a short lifespan in my house—once they’re tested, they’re out the door—but the ones I really love, I hold onto. Here are the ones that impressed me so much that I kept coming back to them. 

The Brisk It grill is my favorite smoker

Credit: Amanda Blum

I spent the summer with six smart grills on my patio, and I used them often with friends. While there were a few that really impressed me (The Kamado Konnected Joe, The Masterbuilt Auto Ignite 545 Digital Charcoal Grill), the one I kept was the Brisk It Origin. More a smart smoker than smart grill, it smoked flawlessly and with very little effort on my part. You just choose from your phone what you’d like to cook, send the recipe to the grill, and put your food on the grill when instructed. The grill takes over for the most part, raising and lowering the temperature and adjusting the smoke level. I was never passionate about smoking (or grilling, to be honest), but the Brisk It requires so little effort that I often use it as an easy alternative to my oven. It turns out you can smoke almost anything. 

The BedJet 3 is my favorite luxury

The BedJet is a smart climate control for beds that shoots air into a billowy top sheet that hangs over you like a cloud. You choose how cold, hot, and powerful you want the air to be, and can use it on hot nights to cool down, or cold nights to warm you and your sheets. My favorite BedJet setting is “turbo,” which gives me a jet of 110 degree air, and there’s nothing more luxurious to me when I climb into bed on a cold night. It’s not the most aesthetically pleasing piece of tech—basically an air hose that hangs off the end of your bed—but I love it.

The Smart Coop helped me get my first chickens

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I finally got chickens this year, and I did it, at least in part, because of the Smart Coop: a fully functioning coop run with smart cameras. Those cameras have AI that can count your chickens, identify intruders, and notice an egg out of the nesting box (and I love watching my sleeping chickens on a closed-loop video). The double-walled coop offers insulation to keep my chickens out of extreme weather, and the run is a good size for my flock of four. 

I still use my PlusLife Molecular COVID Test

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I still use an at-home, rapid PCR COVID test, and if you have vulnerable friends or family members, the PlusLife NAAT Test Device is a real gift. It’s the easiest way to quickly and reliably find out if I have COVID or just allergies. As an interesting bonus, this particular test connects via Bluetooth to virus.sucks and shows a test assay graph in real time—so instead of a simple “positive” or “negative” test result, I can see just how much virus was detected. I find it both fascinating and reassuring. 

Dreo are my favorite smart fans 

This year I tried four Dreo smart fans, including ceiling fans, standing fans, and desk fans, and they’re among the best fans I’ve ever used. You can easily adjust a Dreo fan’s strength and direction through an app, and they’re easy to take apart to clean them. It’s single best feature, though, is the “natural” setting that varies the power of the fan so it feels less like an artificial wind and more closely resembles a breeze. If you’re going to start with a Dreo, I recommend the Polyfan.

The Oura Ring is my favorite fitness tracker

An Oura 4 is already out, but since I placed the Oura 3 on my hand a few months ago, it’s nearly become an addiction. It tracks my sleep, steps, and energy level, and I can bring the data into other health apps I use, like Guava. I particularly use my sleep data often to gauge whether I need to adjust my sleeping conditions. Wearing my Oura Ring has become a habit, and I use it enough that when I misplaced mine last month, I know I’d need to replace it. 

The K10+ Pro is my favorite robot vacuum

I have favorite vacuums, and you’ll hear me talk about Roborock a lot, but my favorite is the K10 from Switchbot. This year, the K10+ Pro improved by ditching the mop function and letting the K10 shine as a well-priced super vacuum small enough get a tight radius around obstacles—like an M&M that moves about the floor. If you’re looking to go all-in on a robot vacuum and mop, you should still consider splurging on a Roborock, but for any small house, office, or room that just needs a great vacuum at a great price, the K10+ Pro is a great way to go. 

The Terra Kaffe TK-02 is my favorite smart espresso maker

I tested every smart espresso maker on the market, and the one I was most reluctant to send back was the Terra Kaffe TK-02. It makes very good coffee and froth, and it’s easy to use through its app or touchscreen. I especially loved that I could preload beans every once in a while and change the water every few days, and otherwise let the machine take over from beginning to end.

Credit: Amanda Blum

The Bird Buddy is my favorite bird feeder

Credit: Amanda Blum

What can I say, I like to watch birds—in particular, my hummingbirds. Unlike previous Bird Buddies that don’t hold a solar charge well, the Hummingbird feeder is fantastic. The video and images are stunning and built for sharing, and it’s also a fantastic gift (for you, if no one else). The new Bird Buddy subscription allows you even name your favorite birds. 

The Mammotion Luba is my favorite robot lawnmower

Credit: Amanda Blum

On my block, I tested robot lawnmowers on the lawns of anyone who’d let me. For me, one robot mower was the clear winner: the Mammotion Luba. It reliably left the dock, mowed the lawn regardless of light or weather conditions, and returned to the dock. The Luba didn’t care about dips in the lawn or hills, and it traversed rocky paths and anything else I threw at it. At almost $3,000, it’s obviously expensive, but it can be worth the investment if you want the best robot mower for your lawn.