Finding the right smart speaker for your home may seem easy enough, with plenty of options now available to pick from, but the task is actually anything but.

Chiefly, this is because speakers still require you to understand a bit about the smart assistant you want to be the dominant voice in your home. Else, things can become fragmented between devices quite quickly.

Soon, hopefully, the smart speaker you pick won’t gatekeep you from the benefits of other ecosystems, but, for now, we’d suggest thinking long and hard about who you jump in with.

The smart capabilities of these speakers, naturally, are a big factor in how we decided on our pick of the current best options available. If you’re seriously looking into one, sound quality and design are obviously also huge elements to weigh up - just as they are with the best wireless speakers. And we’ve provided more advice on choosing a smart speaker in the section below our picks.

Without further ado, let’s explore our top recommendations.

Our Top Pick: Best Smart Speaker

For

Against

  • Not the cheapest option

It’s hard to look past the Sonos One when deciding which the top smart speakers are. It gives you the choice between Google Assistant and Alexa as the voice assistant - though these can’t run concurrently, of course - and offers a sound profile that’s balanced, rich and a joy to fill your space with.

The design, as is typical of Sonos, too, with the rounded block featuring a touch control panel on the roof. Voice control, as well, is stellar - the speaker can pick up your requests from afar and is more than capable of becoming the central commander of your home.

This alone - along with the very palatable price tag - is enough to make it a standout smart speaker, but it also perhaps ignores the biggest benefit of going with Sonos - multi-room audio. If you’re looking to build up an arsenal of speakers that can easily link sound from room to room, or perhaps form a one-room surround sound setup, you can get things off to a great start with the One.

Smart speakers we also recommend

While the Sonos One is at the peak of this list, it’s not necessarily the right speaker for every home - or, indeed, every budget. That’s why we’ve also selected the following devices for you to consider.

  • Powerful sound A premium home for Alexa

  • Not the most attractive design

This is proper, high-fidelity sound performance, with 3D audio more than just a nickname for an overrated feature. If you pair the Studio with lossless music, you’ll hear just how well-tuned this speaker is.

  • Classy design Solid sound

  • Not a Zigbee hub

The Nest Audio is a replacement for the original Google Home speaker. It’s designed to be compact enough to slip into any room, but deliver a bigger experience than the popular Nest Mini.

Google also now has a speaker that’s more appealing than its previous efforts. The Nest Hub is great for bedrooms, the Nest Hub Max is best suited to kitchens, and the Nest Mini and Nest Audio provide two size options for every other room.

For Google fans, this model slots easily into the home to provide music, information and voice control whenever you want it.

  • Cute design Surprisingly good sound output

  • Siri is not as strong as Google Assistant or Alexa Undercut by cheaper, impressive rivals

After the disaster that was the original Apple HomePod, the smaller, newer HomePod mini is a thankful step in the right direction for Siri and HomeKit fans.

Despite its miniature stature, the HomePod mini sounds great. It will appeal to many Apple users locked firmly into the Cupertino company’s ecosystem - particularly those with an Apple Music subscription - and that’s a good enough reason alone to go for this model.

We’re still happy to recommend the HomePod mini, of course, especially with its new, vibrant finishes, but this isn’t the right speaker for everyone.

  • Unbeatable value Great mid-range entry into Alexa

  • Design not for everyone

The latest version of Echo improves the offering with new technology, a faster Alexa, and better sound.

We’re not totally sold on the new design, which has transformed the cylindrical shape into a literal ball of sound, but it does give the Echo range a shake-up and makes it even more distinctive. Some will love it, some won’t, but that’s not, in itself, too much of an issue.

How to choose a smart speaker

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 or complex queries, as well as a way to control other smart devices. What’s more, while these speakers range massively in price, you get roughly the same smart assistant experience whether you spend big or small.

Are smart speakers safe?

What size smart speaker is best?

This all depends on how you’ll use it. Perhaps your smart speaker will be used by your kids to ask who the Prime Minister 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 want to also 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 this before you buy.

Does smart speaker size affect sound quality?

You could choose a big 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 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 to respond. The same applies in a noisy room. So, better and more numerous microphones can help. Of course, smart speakers make mistakes, too, so better microphones can help them be more accurate.