When I started setting up my smart home a decade ago, I went with Philips. It had the best product range at the time, and its LED lights were reliable, easy to control, and had a lot of cool effects and scenes. Then came Yeelight, and while its lights and light strips didn't quite have the same reliability, they were significantly more affordable.
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These days though, I predominantly turn to Govee for anything related to smart lighting — the brand does a great job with wall lighting, LED bulbs, and I really like the Glide Hexa Pro light panels. Govee's products stand out for the seamless integration with Google Home and Alexa, and there's an API that lets you plug the products into Home Assistant, and the likes of Elgato. This lets me control various lights in my office from my Stream Deck+, and that's just cool.
Another brand that I use extensively is Sonoff. It isn't anywhere as popular as Govee as it is aimed at DIY users, but the brand makes the best smart switches in the market, and is now expanding its portfolio considerably. I set up its smart switches to control the down lights in my living room two years ago, and they've been faultless.
Installing smart switches like the Matter-enabled MINIR4M takes a bit of effort as they need to be wired, but it's a one-time process, and after that, you don't need to worry about any signal issues whatsoever. Most Sonoff products have Zigbee integration and Wi-Fi connectivity, and the latter is handled by way of eWeLink, a smart home platform that lest you control the brand's switches, set up schedules and times, and so much more.
The best part about Sonoff is the tight integration with other platforms; it pairs seamlessly with Google Assistant, Alexa, IFTTT, and Home Assistant. Google Assistant has been unreliable of late, so I switched smart home monitoring to Home Assistant a year ago, and it was extremely easy to integrate all the smart switches into the platform and set up schedules.
What's interesting is that Sonoff is venturing out into other categories, and its $12 motion sensor and $20 temperature and humidity sensor are among the best you can get at the moment. I used a lot of Aqara sensors in the past, but ultimately got frustrated with the connectivity issues and decided to not bother with the brand. Sonoff even makes smart plugs with built-in energy monitoring, and smart LED bulbs that cost just $10. These bulbs are on par with the best smart light bulbs, but they cost a lot less.
My favorite Sonoff product is the NSPanel Pro, which is a $120 dashboard that lets you control all of the brand's lights, motion sensors, smart switches, plugs, and security cameras. It acts as a Zigbee hub as well, and it comes with a stand that lets you use it on any surface.
Ultimately, it's great to see Sonoff getting into mainstream categories, as it allows the brand to undercut more established rivals. Now I just need it to make security cameras with local storage.
This is one of the best smart plugs currently available, and the best part is that it includes energy monitoring. At just $30 for a pack of four, you get a stellar value as well.
