5 Of The Best Google Home Compatible Devices You Can Buy In 2024

While smartphones have gotten impressively more capable at handling a variety of tasks over the years, it's not the only product category that is being blessed by innovation. Most notably, smart home technology has been on a steady rise with everyone looking to automate their living room, kitchen, and bedrooms.

Smart speakers, doorbells, lights, and motion sensors are just a few of the many devices that can transform your house into a smart home. Once you start populating more than a handful of devices, there comes a need to manage them efficiently. Google Home is one such popular solution that offers a way to add all the smart devices in your house in a single place and control them with your phone, tablet, or even smartwatch. 

Though the app's feature set allows for a wide range of controls, you still need to ensure the products you choose are compatible with Google Home. Fortunately, there's an abundance of smart devices that work with the service, and here are five of the best ones you should consider. Picks have been made based on not just popularity and effectiveness, but also by taking into account reviews from trusted sources, more about which you can find at the end of this guide.

Equipping your home with smart gadgets like lights, plugs, and thermostats is only half the battle — you still need an intuitive way to control all of these devices. While the Google Home app for Android and iOS is going to be the go-to hub for managing your smart home, a product like the Nest Audio extends this functionality using voice control. 

At $100, the Nest Audio is designed to be situated in a common area, like the kitchen, or the living room. It can then be added as an accessory in the Google Home app, and subsequently be used to trigger the Google Assistant, unlocking a mountain of actions. 

Apart from serving as a smart assistant capable of dimming the lights, or switching the thermostat on, the Nest Audio utilizes its two drivers to push out decently loud music, with ample bass. SlashGear's review of the Nest Audio discussed how the smart speaker is a great multipurpose gadget that caters to your home automation requirements.

The Nest Mini, though quite old, is another solid option for those who need a smart speaker that won't break the bank, while doing pretty much everything the larger and more expensive Nest Audio can with regard to controlling your smart home. It retails for $50, but can often be found for much less in local stores.

After a spectacular 11-year run, Google has officially discontinued it Chromecast devices. While Google has had a history of sunsetting several of its services, the end of the Chromecast line came as a shocker to many. Fortunately, Google isn't halting production of its streaming device, since the new Google TV Streamer is essentially an upgraded version of the Chromecast we all know and love.

It still offers the same promise of converting your existing TV into a smart one, and brings the goodness of 4K HDR video with support for Dolby Vision and Atmos for a great movie watching experience. One of the best features of the Chromecast was its ability to talk to the other smart devices in your home, so you could dim the lights without having to reach for your phone. The Google TV Streamer continues to bring this convenience to the Google Home ecosystem. 

You can effortlessly cast videos from YouTube or other apps on your phone to the big screen, too. Google TV offers a sleek user interface with support for nearly every streaming app you could ask for, such as Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and more. Google is also pushing its AI features with this product, which it says should help with better recommendations. At $100, the Google TV Streamer is an affordable way to modernize your television and add to your Google Home collection. 

There is no feeling as gut-wrenching as second guessing if you actually locked the door while being a few miles away from home. The abundance of affordable smart locks has since addressed this concern, while providing a lot of other features. The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock retails at just over $200 and works harmoniously with Google Home, HomeKit, and several other smart home platforms. 

As highlighted in Tom's Guide's review, the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock is easy to install, and works seamlessly when set up. It features Door Sense, a sensor that notifies you if your door hasn't been properly shut. The smart lock can be configured to automatically lock the door when you leave your house, and unlock it when you are in proximity. 

Another huge use case of a smart lock is handing out temporary entry access to friends or family without being there in person. Not only can you remotely lock and unlock the door using your phone, but the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock lets you create guest keys that work within specified time frames. It is battery operated and works with your existing set of keys, which makes the installation a lot easier, too.

The perfect accessory to pair with your new lock is a smart doorbell, and the Nest Doorbell is one of the most popular options out there. Preventing porch pirates, ensuring the safe delivery of your packages, or simply being able to identify visitors while you're away from home are all essential reasons to get a video doorbell.

The 2nd Generation Nest Doorbell retails at $180 and comes in a hardwired version too, giving you the peace of mind of never having to swap batteries ever again. CNET's review of the Nest Doorbell praised its audio and video capabilities, making it reliable during both day and night. 

Being a product offered and sold by Google itself, the Nest Doorbell has excellent integration with the Google Home app. You receive any alerts through the app on your phone, and can view automatic video recordings of up to three hours without any subscription. For longer cloud-based recording support, you can subscribe to the Nest Aware program. The doorbell follows the sleek and minimal aesthetic of other Nest products, which is important given that this will be sitting on your front door for everyone to see. 

Perhaps the simplest yet most effective way to cozy your home up is to use the right lighting. Philips has been at the forefront of smart bulbs, and its Hue White Starter Kit for $70 is a great first buy if you are just getting into integrating your home with smart devices. There are a couple of different bundles available, but all of them include the Philips hub that acts as a bridge between the lights and your home network.

While you might need to install the Philips Hue app on your phone for initial pairing and setup, the light bulbs are fully compatible with Google Home and can be controlled using voice commands, or through other gadgets in your home like the Nest Audio or Google TV Streamer. The light bulbs produce a warm white illumination, which is perfect to add relaxing vibes to your room. You can always purchase and add more light bulbs to the hub, and control them using Google Home.

The Philips Hue app offers other features too, like the ability to set routines, or create scenes, which are custom presets you can configure if you have more than one Philips light bulb. Compatibility across HomeKit, Alexa, and Nest products is also mentioned in Tom's Guide's review of the Philips Hue White Starter Kit.

All products on this list were chosen based on expert reviews from trustworthy sources such as Tom's Guide, CNET, and through our own reviews here at SlashGear. With Google Home becoming the mainstream smart home ecosystem of choice for many, you can find several other great additions for your home. 

Always be sure to check for the product's model, since many devices like the Nest Doorbell, or Google Chromecast share the same name across different generations. Relying on expert reviews and customer feedback can also prove to be helpful when picking products for your smart home. While not having full compatibility with Google Home isn't the end of the world, it does make life much easier when you can control everything at once place.