Karlston Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 The 8 Best Smart Speakers With Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri Chatty speakers from Google, Amazon, and others are popular. But which one is right for you? There are dozens of smart speakers on the market, and picking the best one keeps getting tougher. First, you need to decide which voice assistant you prefer. There are three worth using—Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri—and each has its ups and downs. Right now, we prefer Amazon and Google-powered smart speakers, as they are the most widely available and user-friendly. Second, you need to decide which speaker has features that are most important to you. Is music quality your biggest concern? Do you want a touchscreen, or is voice assistance alone enough? Does your speaker need to connect to your other smart home gadgets? That's where finding the best option gets trickier. Don't fear, you'll find what you're looking for! We've tried enough smart speakers to know what's the best right now. Below, you'll find our favorite options in all varieties of styles and ecosystems. As with all our buying guides, we've used every one of these speakers (and many others that didn't make the cut). For more WIRED recommendations, check out our guides to the Best Google Speakers, Best Smart Displays, and Best Alexa Speakers. Updated for June 2020: We've updated links and pricing, and swapped our picks for the best smart soundbar and best portable speaker. 1. Best Overall Sonos One Photograph: Sonos Connects to Alexa, Sonos, AirPlay 2, or Google Assistant. There are louder speakers and some that are more portable, but no smart speaker is a better buy than the Sonos One right now (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It sets the bar in a number of areas, including sound quality, stable multiroom audio, and smart-home utility. Plus, it's probably compatible with whatever ecosystem you prefer—it comes with Alexa enabled but also supports Apple's AirPlay 2 and Google Assistant. On the audio front, the Sonos One sounds great. It has a balanced sound profile and robust (but never boomy) bass for a speaker its size. It connects to about 100 streaming audio services around the world, which is most of them. It's also one of the best smart speakers to buy if you plan to build a home theater setup—it connects to Sonos' larger speakers and its TV soundbar. It's worth noting that Sonos has been in a bit of hot water this year over the fact that older speakers will no longer be getting software updates. Unfortunately, this is a reality of computer-powered speakers; unlike their analog predecessors, you can't expect them to last forever. The Sonos One costs $199 at Amazon or Sonos 2. Best Alexa Speaker Amazon Echo Photograph: Amazon Connects to Alexa. Amazon's latest Echo speaker brings the same bold bass and wide soundstage as the older Echo Plus, but it costs significantly less, making it one of the best values around. My favorite part about the Echo is that I can put it anywhere—kitchens, bathrooms, even smaller living rooms—and it easily fills the room with sound. Alexa also makes getting news and weather updates and setting kitchen timers and alarm clocks convenient, but I also like that I can turn off the microphones with a physical button, for when voice assistant-wary friends and relatives are over. If you're after a simple, audio-focused device that doesn't get in the way, this is the best you'll find. The Amazon Echo costs $70 at Amazon 3. Best Portable Speaker JBL Link Portable Photograph: JBL Connects to Google Assistant. WIRED Reviews Editor Jeffrey Van Camp has used JBL’s Link Portable for quite a few months and really likes it. Not only does the 360-degree speaker sound great for its size, but it also comes with a cradle, so all you need to do is just plop it on there for recharging. And with Google Assistant on board, it’s easy to get answers to pretty complicated questions (or you can just ask it to crank out your favorite tunes). It comes with Wi-Fi so you can easily stream at home, but the Bluetooth connection lets you stream tunes from your phone on the go. You’ll get around 8 hours of playtime on a single charge, it’s IPX7 water-resistant so it can survive submersion at 1 meter for up to 30 minutes, and the controls at the top are super simple to operate. The JBL Link Portable costs $180 at Best Buy or $180 at JBL Another Alternative: Ultimate Ears' Blast (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is getting a little long in the tooth, but it's still a fantastic Bluetooth speaker with great bass, loud volume, and 12 hours of battery life. Add to that its IP67 water- and dust-resistance rating and a built-in Wi-Fi connection for streaming while at home, and you've got a truly go-anywhere option. It's a good alternative if you prefer Alexa. 4. Best Smart Soundbar Yamaha YAS-209 Photograph: Yamaha Connects to Alexa. With a wireless subwoofer, room-filling virtual surround sound, and Amazon's Alexa onboard, the Yamaha YAS-209 is the best smart soundbar you can buy right now. It's compatible with Spotify Connect and has both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections, which makes it a great soundbar for all-around listening in your living room. The Yamaha YAS-209 costs $350 at Amazon Another Alternative: The Sonos Beam ($399) (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is another good option. It isn't our favorite soundbar for the money, but it has Alexa, Google Assistant, and Airplay support (with some Siri) out of the box. 5. Best Google Assistant Smart Display Google Nest Hub Max Photograph: Best Buy Connects to Google Assistant. Smart displays are great in the kitchen, but they often have speakers that are too weak to help you dance your way through meal prep. That's why we like the Google Nest Hub Max, which boasts a pair of pretty impressive speakers below its 10-inch display. You won't get the same fidelity as you'll get from stand-alone smart speakers, but it's enough to have a small dance party while the lasagna bakes. Plus, you can use a stop hand gesture to pause music without having to touch the screen or use your voice. The Nest Hub Max is our current favorite smart display for a number of other reasons, too. We like that it can use its camera to identify individual members of the house, only showing information pertaining to each, and the larger display makes it great for watching YouTube tutorials. Google also recently added support for group video calling through Duo and Google Meet, making this an even better pick if you regularly connect with friends (using those services) over these days. The Google Nest Hub Max costs $230 at Best Buy Another Alternative: The JBL Link View ($277) (8/10, WIRED Recommends) isn't the prettiest smart speaker, but it has 2-inch, full-range drivers for slightly better sound than the Max. 6. Best Alexa Smart Display Amazon Echo Show (2nd Gen) Photograph: Amazon Connects to Alexa. The Echo Show (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is a great Alexa-powered alternative to the Nest Hub Max. It's more usable than third-party Alexa devices because it can call and network with Amazon's other Echo speakers. The new version looks much nicer than the first Echo Shows you may have seen, with a full-size 10-inch screen. The screen is where it shines. You still have to talk to Alexa to do almost anything, but the screen lets you see what music is playing, pause the audio, skip to the next song, and view lyrics on some Amazon Music tracks. It can also play Amazon Prime videos and has a video version of Alexa’s daily flash-news briefing. Voice and video calls are supported, though to do video you’ll need to call another Echo device with a screen. The Echo Show costs $230 on Amazon 7. Best Mini Speaker Amazon Echo Dot (3rd Gen) With Clock Photograph: Amazon Connects to Amazon Alexa. If you aren’t in it for the music, the Amazon Echo Dot With Clock (3rd Gen) and Google's Nest Mini (7/10, WIRED Recommends) will give you most of the perks of owning a smart speaker, and you can use them to smarten up existing speakers on the cheap. The sound is very similar between models, and they have nearly identical footprints, so you can easily make an argument that one is better than the other based on the ecosystem alone. We used to prefer the Nest Mini for this reason, but now that Amazon has added a simple clock to the front of the Echo Dot, we like the Alexa-powered option a little better. The tiny display on the Echo Dot With Clock comes in handy. It can tell you when your timers are going to expire in the kitchen or when your alarm is set for the morning. Of course, it tells the time too. That makes it our favorite bedroom and kitchen companion—removing the need for an alarm clock or egg timer. You can also ask it the weather, have it answer your random questions, and play white noise at bedtime to help you sleep. It also presents an easy way to get a smart assistant into the places in your home where you don't normally listen to music. The Amazon Echo Dot With Clock costs $60 at Amazon or Best Buy. Another Alternative: The aforementioned Nest Mini ($49) is also a great mini speaker if you prefer Google Assistant. 8. Best Party Speaker Sonos Move Sonos Connects to Google Assistant or Alexa. If you’re looking for a great speaker for a socially-distanced party, WIRED Reviews Editor Jeffrey Van Camp has enjoyed the time he’s spent with the Sonos Move (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It’s got an IP56 water-resistance rating to withstand splashes of beer, a handle to carry it, and a nifty charging cradle for when you bring it back inside. It gets about 10 hours per charge, and is the first Sonos speaker to offer Bluetooth, for when you want to bring it outside the confines of your home Wi-Fi. Big, bold bass and an intelligent EQ that’s always listening to the sound around it make it punch well above its weight in terms of audio volume and quality for its size. It might not be enough to fuel a full outdoor dance party for more than a few people, but it certainly has the ‘oomph’ to get a smattering of friends off your lawn chairs to bust a few moves during summer quarantine. The Sonos Move costs $399 at Best Buy or Sonos Another Alternative: The Google Home Max ($299) is a cheaper alternative that can get incredibly loud and pump out some excellent bass, but its size and weight mean you're likely not moving this speaker around the house much. Honorable Mentions Photograph: Bose Bose's Home Speaker 500 ($299) has Alexa, and a bit extra. It's certainly not cheap, but this Bose speaker does sound pretty good (not as clear as a Riva or Sonos One, but great on the whole) and gets loud. It has hands-free Alexa, Bluetooth, a 3.5-mm auxiliary port to connect directly to your phone or MP3 player, and six useful preset buttons that you can assign to open a specific playlist or album from Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, and TuneIn. The display on the front shows album art and a few other prompts but isn't nearly as effective as those on true smart displays like the JBL Link View. The Polk Smart Assist ($149) and Sony XB501G ($200) are other competent Google speakers. They both sound excellent and make good picks if the price is right. Amazon's Echo Studio ($200) is the best-sounding Alexa speaker. Don't buy it for music alone, but the Echo Studio is right up there with the Google Home Max in terms of bold bass and room-filling soundstage. Its odd shape keeps it from the top of our list. The Harman Kardon Allure ($90) brings the bass. Harman Kardon's shapely speaker (7/10) is not for everyone. It’s bulky, has lights on it, and looks like an egg ... but it also spits out wicked bass. Just keep in mind that it’s an Alexa third-party speaker, so it may have some compatibility issues if you already own other Alexa speakers. What About Siri? Apple has released one Siri-powered speaker, the HomePod. It isn't one of our top picks, but is it any good? Apple's HomePod ($299) is for Apple junkies. The one and only Siri speaker sounds fantastic, but it's only for people who live a complete Apple life. It works only with Apple Music (though that's changing soon) and can't control as many devices as its competitors, yet it costs $299 on Apple's store—and that's down from its initial $349 price. Read our full review to see if it's a good pick for you. Why We Prefer Google Assistant Speakers (for Now) There are a lot of reasons to love Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, and honestly, it works pretty well. If you want to use your voice assistant to shop or use Amazon services like Prime Music or Prime Video, chances are an Alexa-powered speaker is best for you. Google Assistant has fewer skills and is compatible with fewer smart home devices than Alexa, but it can do enough to qualify it as truly useful, and Google is adding new skills at a rapid pace. Speakers with Google Assistant work better when you network them together, and they're compatible with a wide variety of Google apps and services. Google is better at answering random questions and telling you where to go out to eat, since it can access and send information to your phone through Google apps. Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Music, and YouTube Music are the main ways to play music with Google Assistant, covering most of your bases. The service can also send Netflix shows and movies to your TV if you have a Chromecast attached. Should You Wait to Buy? Now is a great time to buy any of these speakers. There will be more new releases this year, but these should remain useful for several years, since many of the improvements have to do with the services powering each digital assistant rather than the speaker hardware itself. It's worth noting that none of these smart devices will last forever: like every product with a computer inside it, eventually every smart device will be made obsolete. Stick to things that are made by major brands and support the big ecosystems, and you'll generally get more life out of your purchase. Even Sonos, who used to have an excellent track record of support, is mothballing some of its older devices this year. The 8 Best Smart Speakers With Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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