Here Are the Best Smart Speakers to Buy in 2026.
Smart speakers are a crucial element of any smart home system. They serve a variety of functions: they play music, movies, or podcasts; act as a smart assistant, answering your questions (or, more likely, setting timers); and act as a smart home control center to which all your devices connect. The best smart speaker choice will likely depend on your preferred smart home platform and the devices you already own, but sometimes the decision can be a bit more complex.
The Best Smart Speaker for Most People: Amazon Echo Dot Max
The best smart speaker for most people is one that most people can use. By this, I mean the device should be widely available and not tied to a specific platform. You should be able to buy a speaker and integrate it directly into your home, regardless of your existing devices or subscriptions. In this regard, Amazon’s Echo line is the most flexible choice. And among Amazon’s many Echo devices, the Echo Dot Max offers the best value for money.
The Echo Dot Max isn’t Amazon’s most expensive or cheapest speaker. Rather, it’s a middle ground, offering the features most people look for in a smart speaker at an affordable price. As PCMag notes in its review , the Echo Dot Max can “fill a medium-sized room with sound” and has a “well-balanced sound,” making it great for casual listening. However, it may lack the directional sound of Amazon’s more powerful speakers, so if you’re looking for stereo sound or something more powerful, you might want to consider a more expensive model.
The Echo Dot Max should meet most tech needs. Since it’s an Amazon product, it has Alexa built-in, including the Amazon Alexa+ voice assistant. It supports Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and LE Audio. It also supports several smart platforms, including Matter, Thread, and Zigbee, and comes with smart sensors like a temperature sensor, ultrasonic sensor, Wi-Fi radar, and light sensor. That’s why it’s my top pick: no matter what devices or services you already use, you’ll be able to use the Echo Dot Max seamlessly. You can have a Windows PC, iPhone, Spotify, and a host of other smart home devices, and they should all work with the Echo Dot Max.
The Best Smart Speaker for Google Users: Google Home
If you’re a dedicated Google Home user, the Google Home speaker is likely your best choice. This year, Google updated its smart speaker , its first since the Nest Mini in 2019, and it shows: the speaker looks a bit more modern, like a combination of the Nest Mini and HomePod Mini—which isn’t a bad thing.
As a Google product released in 2026, the Google Home speaker is entirely Gemini-centric. This means you can issue complex contextual commands to Gemini, combine multiple queries into one, or make corrections mid-query. According to Google, the new assistant is intelligent enough to correctly interpret these various commands; it encourages users to ask complex questions based on its accumulated knowledge. For example, you can ask Gemini what the weather will be like at your favorite sports team’s next game, and it should be able to answer—assuming you’ve previously told it which team you support. However, to access Gemini’s best features, you’ll need to pay a Google subscription, which somewhat diminishes the value of these benefits.
Speaking of AI, since this is a Google Home speaker, it works best with Google Home smart devices. Reviews say it’s easy to set up with existing Google Home systems, and the Google Home app works well. If you have Google Home Premium, you can take advantage of features like asking Gemini to view camera feeds (“What happened to that vase that broke while I was away?”). You can also connect the Google Home speaker to other Nest speakers, as well as Google TV.
It’s not just Google Home that makes this speaker worth considering. Reviews say the Google Home speaker sounds great, even with its smaller 58mm internal driver, with improved bass and overall sound quality compared to the Nest Mini. Furthermore, CNET claims it has “the best sound quality for a $100 speaker,” so it could be a good choice even for users who don’t necessarily want to use Google Home or Gemini—though they’re the ones who will get the most out of it.
The Best Smart Speaker for Apple Users: HomePod mini
Apple users won’t be disappointed with the Amazon Echo. But if you’re truly integrated into the Apple ecosystem (e.g., iPhone, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Music, etc.), the HomePod mini is the perfect choice. It’s the only smart speaker on the market that natively works with Siri (except for the much more expensive Denon Home 150), and while that may not appeal to users who’ve had negative experiences with Apple’s voice assistant, it does mean it will work across your various Apple devices.
When properly set up, you can use HomePod mini to add items to your shopping list in Reminders, send messages to friends in iMessage, search for items in Find My Phone, and, of course, control smart home devices through the Home app. HomePod mini can also recognize the voices of up to six different family members, so Siri can distinguish who’s speaking. And if you buy more than one HomePod mini, you can use the intercom feature to broadcast a message to all HomePods simultaneously.
HomePod mini works best with Apple devices and platforms. This means it’s easy to connect to an Apple TV (and if you have two, you can pair them together). It’s also designed for Apple Music: you can ask Siri to play anything from the service or your library, or if you have a song playing on your iPhone, you can hold it close to the speaker to transfer the track to HomePod.
Apple claims the HomePod mini uses “computational audio” to simulate the sound of a larger, more powerful speaker. While this may not lead you to believe otherwise, I can confirm that the sound quality is excellent, especially for a speaker of this size. It’s plenty loud, with excellent separation between the highs, mids, and bass. It’s not the cheapest mini speaker on the market, but it’s the cheapest from Apple. The flagship HomePod costs almost three times as much, but it offers significantly more power, which may appeal to Apple fans.
Best Portable Smart Speaker: Sonos Move 2
Most smart speakers are designed for stationary use, but the Sonos Move 2 is designed to be taken on the go. This portable speaker has an IP56 rating for dust and water resistance, meaning you can safely take it to the beach, lake, park, or anywhere else exposed to adverse weather conditions.
Being a Sonos product, it’s no surprise that the Move 2 offers excellent sound quality. PCMag claims the portable Sonos speaker “produces powerful stereo sound” with a “pleasing blend of well-defined lows and highs.” This speaker features dual left and right tweeters for stereo sound, with the ability to increase the volume if desired—though PCMag notes that rich, deep bass can be achieved even at moderate volumes.
The Move 2 supports Sonos voice control and Alexa, making it a bit more versatile than some of the other platform-specific options on this list. This speaker also supports Wi-Fi 6 and Apple AirPlay 2, though it uses Bluetooth 5.0, which is a bit outdated. The biggest drawback here is actually the price. It’s the most expensive speaker on this list, and unless you really need Alexa or Sonos voice control, you might be better off with a higher-quality Bluetooth speaker. Still, it’s about the best you can find among portable smart audio devices.