Smart sound is the future, and it’s here already. With a voice assistant built-in to your home audio product, you can ditch the remote and stay in control using just your voice. It doesn’t take much to create a smart audio set-up in your home, and a smart speaker is a great place to start.
Which smart speaker should you choose?
If you’re thinking of getting a smart speaker, you’ve got a choice of three voice assistants from the best-known tech companies in the world:
- Amazon Alexa
- Apple Siri
- Google Assistant
They’re all incredibly clever and helpful, so whichever one you go for you won’t be disappointed. Your decision might simply come down to the other compatible smart products you own already. If you’ve got lots of Apple products dotted around your home, you’ll probably want Siri to help you control them.
Smart speakers are great for work and play
Even when the party’s over, a smart speaker will keep helping you out. When it’s time for bed, it can become your very own personal assistant. Ask it to set your alarm, check if you’ve got any meetings at work, and even find out what the weather will be like in the morning – just in case you need to take a brolly.
Need some inspiration to get through that pile of washing up? Just ask your smart speaker to find a motivational playlist from your linked streaming service, and away you go.
Friends coming over? Link a few smart speakers together in a multi-room set-up, and you can have the music follow you as the party moves around your home.
Audio Pro and Sonos both received Awards from What Hi-Fi? for their multi-room families this year, and both offer smart speakers with Amazon Alexa built in. The Audio Pro Addon C5A and the Sonos One are both great options if you want to make your home audio instantly smarter.
Smart soundbars bring the cinema home
There’s more to entertainment than music. What about those nights where you want to chill out on the sofa with a good film, but don’t even have the energy to lift a remote and scroll through your streaming library? Luckily, smart sound applies to home cinema, too.
Lots of great soundbars now have a voice assistant built in, including the Sonos Beam – another What Hi-Fi? Award winner. You can ask it to find movies from your favourite genre or director, and do everything from pausing the action to turning the volume up and down using just your voice. The only time you’ll need to move is to reach for the popcorn!
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