TechDrum Digital Revolution, July 2018 | Page 22

Smart Home BUILDING A MINIMALIST SMART HOME: What you need to have. I f you’re only just starting to build your smart home, you’d be forgiven at balking at the price. Some of the latest and greatest connected home tech can be eye-wateringly expensive, but luckily there are plenty of cheap smart bulbs, connected cameras, smart speakers and other devices out there. As the smart home has matured, prices have dropped, and there are much cheaper alternatives for many types of products. Now, the likes of Nest, Philips Hue and the like are still pretty expensive, and similarly, there’s plenty of white-label dross floating around on Amazon. Wyze Cam $19.99, wyzecam.com | Amazon We haven’t had chance to test out Wyze Cam yet, but it’s one of those products that seems to defy logic. Designed by former Amazon employees, it’s a 1080p smart home camera, with motion detection, night vision and free What we’ve tried to highlight, however, is some bargain access to your recorded clips. smart home tech from decent brands. We’ve tested most of this The Wyze Cam is just $19.99 stuff, and it gets our thumbs up. It might not be the best, but it’s – US only right now – and the good for the price. Let’s get our bargain hunting hats on and go company has just launched an shopping. updated version, still at the same price. The only thing to be wary of is a truly basement level 10fps recording, but if you’re looking to take your first step with a home camera, it offers staggering value. Google Assistant $49.99, store.google.com The Google Assistant equivalent to the Echo Dot is the Google Home Mini, which one-ups its rivals in terms of looks. The mesh covered speaker comes in a range of funky colours, including coral and pale grey, and certainly looks the part. Google Assistant is a great ecosystem, and the Chromecast tie-in works nicely, plus the Google Home Mini will work as a Bluetooth speaker as well. Like the Echo Dot, Google also isn’t shy about slashing the price even further on the regular. The one downside, considering the not- great audio quality, is that there’s no audio out, which does let the ensemble down for music listening, somewhat. 20 July 2018 |TD