This is BY FAR the best smart home device we've purchased. It allows us to see if our alarm is going off, even when we're on vacation or running errands. We live far enough from neighbors that it would allow us to call the fire department before our home is completely engulfed in flames. Even in a neighborhood with closely placed homes, it's easy for neighbors to not see a small fire until it really gets going.

The alarm rings out to our phones and also goes out through the alarm itself. Usually we get a warning before the alarm goes off- this is convenient because I'm a mediocre cook and I can turn the alarm off when the smoke is just from me burning our dinner. LOL.

I have a love hate relationship with Alexa. On one hand, it's pretty handy to be able to play music, tell her to add items to my shopping list, and ask about the school lunch menu for the day. On the other hand, she's another creature in my house who isn't listening to me. No, I don't want turnkey added to my shopping list, I want TURKEY.

In fact, my Alexa appears to think my 8 year old is the boss and seems to recognize everything he says best.

But for the most part, she's useful enough to keep her around, mostly to make sure groceries get added to my list while I'm using up ingredients cooking.

This is the corvette of Roombas because it empties itself (sort of). While there are plenty of other lower priced options for Roomba, that auto empty feature is pretty nice!

We've had a Fire TV stick for a while. It's a low cost, but useful item to have.

There are smart landscape lights! I haven't tried them but they sound like an awesome idea.

Mostly just a ceiling fan with a bluetooth speaker, but I'd dig being able to listen to music or an audiobook in the bath!

This kit is on my wishlist, although I'm still not 100% which lights I need to target first. My kids are always leaving their lights on in their room so I think I'd like to get bulbs to replace those first. It would be SO wonderful to not have to manually turn off all of the lights in the house.

My dad's house has a panel that they can power everything off when they walk out the door. Can you IMAGINE how much electricity you'd save? Kids y'all.

I am not sure how useful this would be for some homes, but if you worry about leaks, particularly when you're on vacation, this would be fantastic. It has an auto shutoff if it detects a leak in your home.

For the gardeners, this product might come in useful. I always worry about my plants dying during summer vacations, but I don't want to over water either.

While this seemed like a silly product at first glance, this would be EXTREMELY useful for washing hands when handling raw poultry, or for the kids to turn the faucet on to get water.

Skip the remote buttons and hook up your garage door opener to your phone instead. This would be super convenient!

These dimmer switches can be hooked into Alexa, Nest, and Google to control your lights.

Locks are one item we haven't replaced yet. We still have the standard key. I have wanted something like this though because there are times when it would be convenient to let someone into the house while I'm out, or times when I don't have my key on hand.

This is one of the first smart home products that we bought. We have one outdoor security camera for our front porch in lieu of a doorbell camera (more on why in a bit). This allows me to monitor my children if they're playing out front, any vehicles that come up our driveway, and also the comings and goings of local wildlife.

We will probably add another camera or two at some point for other areas of our exterior. My favorite part is that I get alerts when motion is sensed.

Um this is a lawn mower that does ALL THE WORK for you!! How awesome is that? I have one of these mowers for our backyard and it's pretty neat. Read my review of the product here.

Honestly, I think it's pretty helpful and the lawn looks amazing. It works better than the robot vacuums inside.

This is a convenient device if you're worried about break ins. The device can be set when you're away- perfect for those times that you forgot to set the alarm before you left home.

And taking charge of your own security instead of paying for a monthly fee to a company can save you a lot of money long term.

I haven't tried the Nest doorbell, but we tried another brand and it blew the whole fuse.... or something. It required an electrician to come fix it (we're handy so this is saying something). Make sure to get the right doorbell for your electrical setup. Our home was a new build and STILL had trouble. I think if I went with another doorbell that I'd go with a battery powered version.

I'm just not sure if the doorbell outlets are meant to handle the power required to run a camera.

This is a GREAT product to have if you want to save money on electricity. We were on vacation when I realized I never turned down the heat. I popped open my app at the airport, turned it on eco mode, then left for our trip without worrying about heating an empty house.

It's also great for those nights where you're laying in bed super cold or super hot, and don't want to run downstairs. You can control the temperature from your phone.