The Best Smart Home Gear to Level Up Your Entertainment System

Make it easier to watch your favorite movies and shows, stream music to your whole home, or play video games with less eye strain.

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Credit: René Ramos/Lifehacker/Jorg Greuel/Stone, sutthichai somthong/iStock via Getty Images

In Lifehacker’s series, “A Guide to Automating Your Entire Home,” we’re highlighting all the ways you can power your home with autonomous technology, room by room. Whether you want to build a smart security system, turn a “dumb” device smart, or simply control your lights from your phone, this guide will help walk you through it.

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While tech companies might increasingly seem to think I want media created by AI for no specific purpose other than to fill time, all I really need is tech that automates the tedious parts of entertainment. Collecting and organizing the movies I actually want to watch, streaming music throughout the house, or creating the ambiance I need to immerse myself in a show. For actually useful home entertainment tech, here's where smart home gear can be helpful for watching TV and movies, listening to music, or playing games.

Whatever your media of choice, the time you spend watching shows, listening to music, or playing games is a deeply human affair. And that means not every piece of tech that tries to automate your habits is necessarily going to be an improvement. Here, I'm less interested in how to shovel as many YouTube videos into your queue as possible, and more in how you can use tech to find and manage the media you want in the way you want it.

With that in mind, here are some of the smart home gadgets that I've found genuinely useful for my home entertainment needs.

Streaming boxes and sticks

At this point, it's hard to find a television that doesn't have some kind of smart system on it, eager to serve up apps for your favorite streaming services. However, some of these platforms are more helpful than others. Even if your TV already has its own operating system, you can get a streaming stick or standalone box with a better platform.

Google TV: This one is a personal favorite of mine. The Google TV Streamer box adds a Google-powered interface that can search for shows and movies across all of your streaming services. You can even add items to your watch list from search results on your phone, which is easily one of the most convenient ways to keep up with that show your friend told you about that you can't remember the name of. Now, just tap to add it to your watch list and it will show up on your TV at home.

Roku: If you're looking for something more platform-agnostic, Roku's streaming sticks and boxes offer the widest suite of streaming services in one box. Since it's not owned by any company that also offers a video streaming platform (like, say, Amazon) you can find almost every streaming service. It lacks some of the more comprehensive search options you'll find on Google TV, but Roku more than makes up for that with its excellent physical remotes and a range of devices at every price point.

Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV: Both Amazon and Apple offer their own streaming boxes that perform reasonably well, but they share a common downside: They both tend to overly privilege their own content stores. If you're heavily invested in either the Apple or Amazon ecosystem, then these might be the best options for you to buy, rent, and discover movies and shows. However, if you're a little more platform-agnostic, the other two options on this list might be a better fit.

On a tangential note, one last excellent tool for organizing your watchlists is Letterboxd. This app isn't a streaming service or platform, but it's one of the best ways to discover new shows, rate and review the ones you've seen, and connect with people who share your tastes.

Build ambience with smart lights

For a while, I thought the idea of putting lights behind my TV—much less syncing those lights to what's on my screen—seemed like a needless extra. After trying it out, though, it's a game-changer. Ambient lighting behind your TV can reduce eye strain, particularly when you're watching in a dark room, making it extra immersive. 

In recent years, it's gotten easier than ever to sync colorful backlighting to echo the edges of what appears on your screen. It's great when watching movies, and even better when playing games, where your eyes are constantly trying to refocus as you move through virtual game worlds. Here are a couple of the most accessible systems for setting up lighting like this:

Philips Hue Sync: The Philips Hue system has a feature called Hue Sync that lets you connect your smart lights to what's on your screen. The app can pair with Windows/Mac computers, some models of LG or Samsung TV, or you can use the separate Hue Play box to connect any HDMI source to your lights.

Govee: If you want to save a bit of cash, Govee has a more accessible light syncing system. It offers similar features to the Hue Play Box for $260, including the sync box as well as a light strip.

Even if you don't want to go to the extra effort (and expense) to sync your lighting to your display, any ambient lighting can make your viewing experience a bit better. You can even use smart home automations to automatically turn on your ambient lighting when you turn off the overhead living room lights.

Upgrade your music with smart assistant-powered speakers

For everyday use, smart speakers are fine. They can recite recipes, set timers, or play podcasts and you probably won't notice the difference much. But for listening to music, it can help to have something a bit higher quality in your home.

One of my favorites is the Sonos Era 300. This speaker can field wireless streaming from a wide variety of music apps, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon, or you can pair your phone via Bluetooth. It also has a 3.5mm line-in for your more analog music devices.

In the past I've also used similar products from Bose, and it's worth exploring your needs when picking an audio system. Sonos in particular is known for its robust system for enabling multi-room audio. If you want to set up speakers in your living room, kitchen, office, or bedrooms, and easily play music across all of them, or move music from one room to another, Sonos is a great choice.

Bose speakers offer some similar features, though its multi-room capabilities aren't quite as strong as Sonos. However, Bose soundbars are great at creating room-filling audio, particularly for movies and shows. If you're more interested in television, and only need to use your speakers solely for listening to music occasionally, the Bose ecosystem might be your better option.

Bring your record collection into the 21st century

The phrase "smart record player" might make analog purists wince, but hear me out. The Victrola Onyx is one of my favorite smart home devices, specifically because it threads the needle of bringing old-school analog collections into the modern smart home environment. 

This model uses a typical RCA output, so if you have an existing analog speaker system, you can connect to it and get that full warm, crunchy audio quality you're used to from your existing record collection. However, it's also equipped with Sonos streaming, so you can keep listening to your albums in another room. It gives you the option of streaming your audio, without forcing you to lose the tactile quality of vinyl.