Here's everything in the CNET Smart Home (and what it costs)
From top to bottom, the CNET Smart Home is filled with innovative devices. Here's all of it -- along with the price tags.
Our living lab
Smart-home tech is on the rise, and we've been hard at work testing all of it out in the CNET Smart Home, our living lab for the connected living space. Click through for a look at all of the tech you'll currently find throughout the house -- along with how much all of would cost.
Amazon Echo
The centerpiece of the CNET Smart Home has to be the Amazon Echo smart speaker, which we use to control various gadgets using voice commands. We've got two of them -- one in the family room and one in the living room.
Price: $180
Number in CNET Smart Home: 2
Total cost: $360
Amazon Echo Dot
Head upstairs to the master bedroom, and you'll find the Echo Dot -- the smaller, quieter version of Amazon's smart speaker -- sitting on the bedside table.
Price: $90
Philips Hue
Another smart home tentpole: Philips Hue lighting. We started out with a set of Hue's second-gen color-changing LEDs.
Price: $200 for three-bulb starter kit, plus two extra color-changing bulbs at $60 each
Total cost: $320
Apple HomeKit
The second-generation Philips Hue Hub that we're using is compatible with Apple HomeKit -- which means we can control the bulbs using Siri commands. That includes color changes, something Alexa still can't do.
There aren't any service costs associated with HomeKit -- you just need a compatible iOS device and an iCloud account.
Price: N/A
Philips Hue White LED
We changed out most of the rest of the bulbs in the house with Philips Hue's more affordable, white-light-only smart bulbs.
Price: $15
Number in CNET Smart Home: 26
Total cost: $390
Philips Hue Go
Those original color-changing Hue bulbs started out in the kitchen, but we soon decided that they'd be put to better use in the kids' bedroom, where we added the bowl-shaped Philips Hue Go fixture into the mix.
Price: $100
Philips Hue Tap
For kid-friendly controls, we hooked all of those lights up with the battery-free Philips Hue Tap, then loaded it up with fun, colorful presets.
Price: $60
Quirky Porkfolio
We've long had a soft spot for the Quirky Porkfolio, a kid-friendly, app-enabled piggy bank, so we put one of those in the kids room, too. You can find them pretty cheaply on sites like Amazon.
Price: $20
Sleep Number Sleep IQ Mattress
Sleep Number makes a series of "Sleep IQ" mattresses that feature built-in sensors and a dedicated app for tracking your sleep. We put a twin-size model into the kids room, so a hypothetical smart-home parent could get an alert on their phone if their hypothetical young 'un got out of bed in the middle of the night.
Price: $800
Nest Cam
We've also got a Nest Cam in the kids room to keep an eye on that hypothetical kiddo. You'll also find Nest Cams keeping watch over the the living room, the family room and the garage.
Price: $200
Number in CNET Smart Home: 4
Total cost: $800
Nest Protect Smoke Detector
You'll also find a couple of Nest Protect smoke detectors throughout the house.
Price: $100
Number in CNET Smart Home: 3
Total cost: $300
Nest Learning Thermostat
Those Nest Cams and Nest Protects sync up with the Nest Learning Thermostat. We originally had two of them in the CNET Smart Home, but we replaced the one downstairs (more on that in the next slide).
Price: $250
Ecobee3 Wi-Fi Thermostat
That replacement for the downstairs Nest? It's the Ecobee3 Wi-Fi Thermostat. We swapped it in to test out its integration with Amazon Echo, but ultimately kept the upstairs Nest so we could continue testing out gadgets that work with both. They share the same price, so the cost comes out in the wash.
Price: $250
Haiku Smart Ceiling Fan
We wanted to test out smart ceiling fans, too, so we installed a pair of Haiku ceiling fans from Big Ass Solutions. They're awfully expensive, but they work with Amazon Echo, as well as both the Nest and Ecobee thermostats. And they sure are pretty to look at.
Price: $1,045
Number in CNET Smart Home: 2
Total cost: $2,090
Scout Home Security
We also wanted to try syncing a security system up with Amazon Echo, so we went with Scout Home Security, a system that promises to do just that.
Price: $320
Belkin WeMo Light Switch
We smartened up a whole bunch of the Smart Home's light switches by swapping them out for Belkin's Wi-Fi-enabled WeMo Light Switches. You can turn them on and off with Alexa commands. We even built four of them into a single fixture -- here's that particular how-to, in case you're interested.
Price: $50
Number in CNET Smart Home: 12
Total cost: $600
Garageio
We've tested out a lot of tech for the CNET Smart Home's garage, but ultimately, we settled on the Alexa-compatible Garageio for smarter garage door controls.
Price: $200
Number in CNET Smart Home: 2
Total cost: $400
Blumoo
Alexa-powered voice controls for your TV set and entertainment devices? It's possible with Blumoo's Bluetooth device controller -- you'll find one in our family room.
Price: $90
Philips Hue LightStrips Plus
At first, we used these Philips Hue LightStrips to decorate the coffee bar in the CNET Smart Home's kitchen. Now, we're looking into using them as bias lighting for the family room TV.
Price: $90
Pantelligent
Speaking of the kitchen, we keep Pantelligent's temperature-tracking smart frying pan close at hand. It's one of our favorite connected cooking gadgets.
Price: $200
Belkin WeMo Switch
We've even hooked the Pantelligent up with this Belkin WeMo Switch, setting it to cycle the burner on and off according to the pan's temperature. The result? Food that just about cooks itself.
Price: $40
iDevices Switch
It isn't the only smart switch in our smart kitchen -- we've also got a coffeemaker hooked up to this iDevices Switch. With a single tap on the phone, we can set a pot of coffee to start brewing from afar.
Price: $50
Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator
The biggest, flashiest smart thing in the smart kitchen has to be the smart fridge. It's the Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator, to be exact, and it's a $6,000 appliance with a 21.5-inch touchscreen on the door and cameras on the inside to keep an eye on your leftovers.
Price: $6,000
Samsung Wi-Fi Range
Take a few steps back from the fridge, and you'll see a matching Samsung smart range -- no touchscreen, though.
Price: $3,100
Whirlpool Cabrio washer and dryer
You'll find smart appliances in the laundry room as well -- specifically, this Whirlpool Cabrio washer and dryer.
Price: $1,400 for the washer, another $1,400 for the dryer
Total cost: $2,800
Neato BotVac Connected
And what smart home would be complete with a smart robot vacuum? We decided to go with the Neato Botvac Connected, which won our Editors' Choice award for its high scores in our cleaning tests.
Price: $700
DuPont Corian wireless charging countertop
Of course, not every product in the CNET Smart Home is a winner. Take this countertop that promises to double as a wireless charging surface for your phone. Sounds like a great idea, right? Unfortunately, it was a lousy performer.
Price: $4,980
Keen Home smart vent
These Keen Home smart vents were another idea that didn't play out so well in practice. The mounting brackets to hold them in place in the ceiling weren't secure enough, causing more than one to fall out. That's an obvious deal-breaker -- but fortunately, Keen Home fixed the problem. Now, with an integration with Ecobee in the works, we're optimistic that these smart vents can bounce back.
Price: $80
Number in CNET Smart Home: 3
Total cost: $240
Adding it all up
The total cost of everything listed here? That'd be $26,450.