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With so many smart home products on the market today, it’s challenging to decipher which brands are worth your money and which brands aren’t. But with a little due diligence, you can make your buying decisions a lot easier. Here are a few red flags that you’ll want to look out for when choosing devices to outfit your smart home.
1Poorly Rated Mobile Apps
One of the easiest ways to determine if a smart home product is worth your time is by looking at the brand’s app. If you’re going to interact with a product every day, it’s likely that you’ll be primarily using the mobile app to do so.
This means you’ll want to avoid any friction that comes from a poorly designed or maintained smart home application. We’ve also discussed someexceptional smart home appsfor things like your TV in the past.
So, when you find that you’re interested in a device, ensure you check the app reviews to see how well it’s rated by the community at large. You’ll want to sort by “recent” reviews if possible. And if you notice an app has mostly negative reviews, that’s a clear sign that you need to consider avoiding a product or brand altogether.
Additionally, reviews can also be a good indication of how a brand will respond to your concerns about a product. Now, that’s not to say ALL negatively rated apps should be an immediate deal-breaker. But it is important to take note of what most people are saying before investing your money into a specific device.
2Only Positive Reviews
A recent trend in the smart home device industry is to attach some sort of bonus or reward to a positive online review. The way it works is simple: you buy a product and inside the packaging is a postcard or a flyer offering to send you a gift for reviewing the product on sites like Amazon or Trustpilot.
The problem is, for many of the reviews prompted by this tactic, the person using the product hasn’t spent a lot of time using it. Plus, some are worried that if they leave a less-than-stellar review, that the company won’t send their gift. This means many people tend to leave more positive reviews than they would if they weren’t being subtly bribed by the company.
More so, sometimes companies decide to only publish positive reviews to make the brand look better than it is. Not only is that dishonest, but it can lead to you wasting your money if you’re not careful. You should always be suspicious of brands that only have positive reviews—statistically, not everyone will like a product that they purchase.
3Poor Big Four Compatibility
Currently, most reputable smart home device brands support at least one of the big four smart assistants in the industry: Apple Home, SmartThings, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home. Most offer support for two or three. This is because most reputable brands understand that smart home owners prefer to use one of these assistants to streamline interactions with their tech.
Therefore, if a brand isn’t readily compatible with the big four, or if they insist you use only their proprietary app, that should make you think twice before making a purchase. Part of the reasoning here has to do with future-proofing.
If a company’s product doesn’t support the established standard, you should be concerned that the product might not be around for long. But there is also the slight concern that a device with poor big four support isn’t well-developed enough to stand out among the offerings that are.
4Brands Ignored by Large Smart Home Industry Publications
As a tech reporter, I’m often approached by little-known smart home manufacturers touting their latest products. Many times they’ll offer to send a review unit of their newer merchandise as a way of garnering exposure. But typically, the reason these companies don’t have a large foothold in the industry is because their products aren’t exceptional.
Now, I’m always flattered when companies want me to test their cool new gadgets. However, I’ve learned over time that the amount of media coverage a product gets is almost always related to the quality of that product.
I say this because I know, for a fact, that I am not the only journalist who gets invited to review smart home products. But if many other journalists are ignoring a device, they’re likely doing so for good reason.
That’s not to say that large publications don’t slip up sometimes and ignore outstanding, lesser-known smart home gadgetry—some do. However, for the most part, I’ve noticed that if a product is being ignored by industry professionals, then it’s probably not worth your time.
5Unreasonably Deep Discounts
Like it or not, buying smart home tech on the cheap is seldom a good idea. Think about it: you’re often installing devices that keep your home safe, connect to your home’s electrical system, and/or automate important tasks.
But what if your cheap garage door opener keeps opening in the middle of the night? Or what if that cheap smart plug shorts out and starts a fire? Or what if that cheap robotic vacuum gets hacked and becomes an internet window into your home?
Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look for the best price, but it does mean that you should avoid smart device deals that are deeply discounted for no apparent reason. You should also keep in mindways to protect your smart home from hackers.
6Brands That Influencers Love but Everyone Else Hates
This is the last red flag on our list and it speaks to the way in which more and more influencers are being used to promote products. Social media is still a battleground for companies looking to cash in on celebrity influence. If an influencer seems to love a particular product, and yet no one else does, then it’s likely they’re being paid to promote that product.
Of course, not all influencer marketing is bad, but some influencers shouldn’t be trusted. Their job is to influence you in some way—hence their title—and most well-established influencers are great at doing so without you realizing it. This is why thinking critically is so important before opening your wallet.
Overall, this list of red flags isn’t meant to dissuade you from experimenting with your smart home or getting excited about new technology. That’s part of the fun. More so, this list is meant to help you separate the figurative wheat from the chaff, so you may feel confident that you’re building the smart home of your dreams, instead of the one in your nightmares.
