10 Best Smart Home Products Coming in 2020

The Consumer Electronics Show is packed with the latest and greatest products that are currently in development and set to release very soon. I wandered the massive show floor to find the best Smart Home products that were introduced. Here are the top 10 (or maybe 12) products that I am looking forward to seeing this year.

Body Guardz Smart Doorbell

Body Guardz announced a Portable Over-Door Camera. This is unlike any other smart doorbell on the market as there is no wiring involved. All you have to do is charge it up, then place it on top of your door. When someone comes to the door, it will detect a person with the motion sensor and notify you of the movement and you can see who is at the door.

Features/Specifications:

• No tools needed
• 135 degree field of View
• Motion detection
• 4x digital zoom
• 2-way audio
• Compatible with Google and Amazon assistants
• 90-decibel siren/alarm

The expected price will be $280. No release date announced yet. Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.

Lockly Vision Smart Doorbell/Lock

Lockly has offered many different types of locks and handles but were lacking in smart home capabilities. With the introduction of Lockly Vision, that is all about to change. This new product is both a doorbell camera and a smart lock combined into one product!

Feature summary:

• Live HD Video Monitoring and Recording
• 2-Way Audio
• 3D Fingerprint Sensor & PIN Genie Touchscreen
• Online & Off-line access codes
• Voice control support from Amazon, Google & Apple HomeKit

It comes in Satin Nickel or Matte Black and will cost $399. Pre-orders are coming soon. Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.

SoundForm Elite (Google Home Speaker + Wireless Charger)

The SoundForm Elite by Belkin is a Hi-Fi Smart Speaker with Wireless Charger. The texture of the base looks and feels like the other Goole Home speakers, but the wireless charger on top and touch controls on the front really make this speaker stand out.

Feature Summary:

• Powered by Acoustics by Devialet
• High-Fidelity sound
• Fast Wireless charger
• Google Assistant built-in
• Can be used for multi-room audio
• Push-Push dual woofer (with vibration-canceling technology to make sure your device doesn’t vibrate during music play)

SOUNDFORM Elite comes in white or black and will cost $299. Currently up for pre-ordres. Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.

Royale’s Mirage Smart Speaker

This is definitely the most unique smart display I have seen. The speaker has an immersive 360 degree Sound Experience with a Flexible AMOLED Display.

• 5 megapixel camera with on/off switch
• 4 touch buttons on the top panel
• Ambient lighting for parties, work, and home
• Uses Amazon’s Assistant (Alexa)

They had a sneak peek of their Google Assistant smart display, but they didn’t provide details of when it will be available.

The Mirage Smart Speaker will be available in Q2 of this year and will cost $899. Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.

Lenovo Picture Frame

Years ago one of the most popular Doorbusters for Black Friday was the smart picture frame with an SD card. I know because my parents had a few all over the house. Those quickly became outdated since we never took out the SD card to add new photos. Well here is the picture frame of the future, the Lenovo Smart Frame.

This is a 21.5” Wifi connected frame that lets you easily display your latest photos hands-free. The device itself mounts to your wall and can easily be rotated for portrait or landscape use. It has a matte screen finish with an anti-glare layer. It uses a color tone sensor to change the picture’s brightness with the ambient light in the room.

The Smart Frame has a built-in gesture sensor so you can easily pause, play or slide through a picture or video.

Like Google Smart Displays, the Smart Frame has a built-in AI to automatically display the highest quality images and also puts them into collages. The Frame uses an app that will let you connect with your favorite photos services like Google Photos, it also has hundreds of art pieces in its library.

There will be different frame colors and materials available to suit your room’s design. It will be available at the end of August this year and is expected to cost $399. Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.

Kohler Smart Appliances

I saw Dan from @WhatsInside at CES and he recommended that I go check out the Kohler booth. They have all kinds of products coming out that will integrate with your smart home through Kohler Konnect.

Some of my favorites

• Smart Faucet that will dispense the amount of water you tell your google assistant that you need
• New mirror that has the Amazon Assistant built into the bottom
• A fully integrated shower that can be controlled via touchpad or voice assistant.
• Kohler Moxie – which is a smart speaker showerhead. It is $229 and will be coming out this year.

Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.

TP-Link Lights, Outdoor Plug and Power Strip

TP-Link showed off many of its new smart home products. Here are some of them:

• Kasa Smart LED Strip Lights – 6.6FT long and have 10 present animations. They will cost $69 and they are expandable up to 33 ft with the Light Stip Extension.
• Kasa Smart Outdoor Plug with 2 Outlets. It is IP64 rated, Has Sunrise & Sunset timers and works with your Amazon or Google Assistant 
• WiFi Smart Power Strip with 6 Surge Protection Outlets & 3 USB Ports.  You can control 6 different Outlets. The USB ports are not smart but are great for charging your phone. The outlets also track the energy consumed by the plugged-in devices.

Brilliant Smart Switch Dimmer

I haven’t ever talked about Brilliant products but they announced something I thought was pretty neat. It has the ability to automatically turn on the lights with a motion sensor, dim the lights with its slide, double-tap to change the scene and capacitive touch to turn the lights on-off.

Brilliant devices connect to SmartThings, LIFX, Phillips Hue and more. They are available now for pre-order (expected to launch in April) and will cost $69.99. Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.

WeMo Sense Plug/ WeMo Home Kit Remote

WeMo announced two impressive products at CES. The first is a much smaller smart switch outlet. This Smart Outlet will cost $25 and will be available in the spring.

They also announced the WeMo Stage. It has 3 different buttons, which gives you 6 different scenes in your home by using a single or long-press for each button. The Stage is compatible with other WeMo devices and has Apple HomeKit support and will be available this summer for $50.

Ring Outdoor Lights

Ring introduced two new smart bulbs:

• A19 Dimmable LED bulb
• PAR38 Smart LED Bulb for recessed lighting

Both of these will use the Ring Bridge to be able to adjust brightness, set schedules and control them from the ring app.

They also announced 3 new solar-powered outdoor lights. These are wire-free solutions to light up walkways around your home. They have the Solar Floodlight for large outdoor spaces. The Solar Pathlight for walkways & the Solar Steplight for steps and tight spaces. These are all motion-activated and will need the Ring Bridge as well to control through the app. A Ring Bridge can support up to 50 devices around your home.

If you have Ring cameras already, you will be able to have the lights trigger the camera to start recording and other helpful automations.

These devices will be available starting April 1st. Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.

Philips Hue Outdoor Lights

This year at CES Philips Hue showed off tons of their offerings and showed me what it is like to have a fully integrated smart home. They announced a few new products for their outdoor lineup:

• Lily XL – new brighter spotlight
• New Econic pathway lighting in a new size
• New Power Supply option to use more devices from one power source.
  All should be released sometime in March.

In Europe they have additional devices that are currently available like the Appear, Attract, Lily XL, Resonate, Daylo, Impress & Nyro coming this year. 

One of the most impressive devices to see from them was their Philips Hue Sync Box. The Philips Hue Box has 4 HDMI inputs that change the lighting in the room based on what the TV is displaying. It will also allow you to control what input you are on with your voice from your favorite assistants as well as changing the intensity of how the lights interact with what is on your TV.

Philips Hue Sync is $229 and is currently available. Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.

GE 2 Wire Smart Dimmer Switch

And last but not least we have a plethora of new devices from C by GE. I was able to take a tour to see what it will be like having all their devices in action in your home. They are working hard to make their smart home products available to use anywhere and also offer some new wire-free devices.

First up the have there new Hubless Smart Switches. One of the biggest questions I receive on the channel is ‘will this Smart Switch work without a neutral wire?’ And the answer has always been ‘No’. That is up until these new devices have been announced. There are three different types of installs and three different types of switches.

Depending on when your home was built, you will need to get the switch that is compatible with your wiring. Other homes just need the switch with two wires. Newer homes I would use the switch that has 3 or 4 wires.

Then you can choose your face function, Dimming + motion sensing, dimming or just on/off.

For wire-free devices, they also have smart switches, remotes, and smart sensors. These allow for easy install and work over a BLE signal. 

These new C by GE products will be released throughout 2020. The Switches will Got $40 to $50 and the best part is, they don’t require you to purchase a separate hub. Click here to find out more or to purchase when it becomes available.