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