Buying Guides

A smart plug, a smart bulb or a smart speaker is a sensible first purchase. Each is inexpensive, plugs or screws in without touching the wiring, and shows you how the app and voice assistant behave before you commit to more.

Before you buy anything else, decide which platform the home will be built around: Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa or Home Assistant. That choice decides which devices work together, so it is worth making once and early.

Start with a problem rather than a product. A lamp you switch on every evening, a heater you forget to turn off, a front door you want to check from work: each points to one device that earns its place. Buying a box of gadgets first and looking for uses later is an easy way to end up with a drawer of unused gear.

Keep the first purchase cheap and reversible. If you end up disliking the app or the voice assistant, a smart plug can be moved, repurposed or given away. A hardwired switch cannot.

The right device depends on who lives in the home and how long they will stay. A renter needs gear that installs without drilling or rewiring. A share house needs devices that housemates can share, or take with them when they move. An older relative needs something simple that keeps working when an app or account does not.

Renters should favour plug-in, screw-in, stick-on and free-standing gear, and talk to the landlord or agent before fixing anything to walls or doors. Your state or territory’s tenancy authority explains the rules on changes to a rental.

If several people share the home, think about accounts before you buy. Shared devices work best on a household account or a platform that supports several users, so nobody is locked out when one person moves out or changes their phone.

For an older relative, simplicity and reliability matter more than features: a device that works by voice or a physical button, keeps working through an internet outage, and can be managed by a family member from another home.

Where you buy affects more than the price. Australian retailers stock different slices of the smart home market and run their own returns and price-match policies, while an imported or second-hand device can arrive with a different plug, a radio frequency that is not used here, or an account lock from its last owner.

Compare like with like. The same product can be sold under slightly different model numbers by different retailers, and a cheaper marketplace listing may be a different regional version. Check the model number, the plug and the supported frequencies, not just the product name.

Look for the RCM mark on mains-powered gear. When you buy from an Australian business, Australian Consumer Law gives you consumer guarantees; the ACCC explains what they cover and how to make a claim.

Keep the receipt and the box until you are sure the device works in your home. A returns window is the cheapest way to find out that something does not suit you.

Smart devices often stop working because a company retires an app or a cloud service, not because the hardware fails. Devices that support an open standard such as Matter, or that keep working locally without the internet, carry less of that risk.

Look at who makes the device and how they have treated earlier models. A brand that keeps publishing updates for older products is a safer bet than an unknown name selling similar hardware for less.

Prefer devices that work locally. If a switch or sensor needs a company’s server to respond, it stops being smart when that server goes away. One that works through a local hub or Matter controller keeps going.

A hub can tie different brands together and keep automations running without the cloud, but not every home needs one. Work out what you want to connect before you buy a hub.