The Best Smart Displays of 2025

Smart display devices are among the most versatile and useful smart gadgets out there. From controlling your smart home devices with Alexa and Google Assistant to making video calls, watching videos, and even using it as a digital photo frame, smart displays are an excellent way to futurize your home.

We tested some of the best smart displays on the market and tried out their features to help you find the very best option for your setup. As with a lot of smart devices, what is right for you may depend highly on which voice assistant you prefer. The Alexa-enabled Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) (available at Amazon for $149.99) is our top choice as the best smart display you can buy, while the Google Nest Hub Max (available at Walmart) is the best smart screen for Google Assistant. However, there are other great smart displays in our guide, each tailored to match your lifestyle and smart home needs.

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Other Smart Displays We Tested

What To Consider When Buying Smart Speakers

Who would use this?

When choosing the best smart display, consider how it will integrate into your daily life. Do you primarily want a hands-free way to video call with friends and family or to stream videos mindlessly during your workday? Do you want help tracking your sleep or controlling your smart home gadgets? Every smart display offers a little something different in terms of features and usability. Our guide can help you determine which smart display to buy for your home.

Key features

• Screen size: Are you planning on using your smart display just to show random information like the time and weather, or do you plan on actually using it to watch videos when you're cooking? This can help determine how big a screen you should get. Some have small screens that measure only about five inches, which is small by smartphone standards. Others have much larger screens that are closer to a tablet and are better for watching videos or movies. Lastly, some are as big as a computer monitor, designed to be mounted to the wall and used extensively for watching video content. Unfortunately, the display quality offered by most smart displays isn't incredible, and for the most part, the highest resolution you'll find is 1080p. That's fine for casual use, but don't expect it to look anything like your 4K TV.
• User interface: Smart displays evolved out of smart speakers, and as such, they're often designed to be used with your voice more than anything else. That said, a decent user interface can still be helpful. The vast majority of smart displays use Amazon's or Google's custom smart display software. However, some of Amazon's larger smart displays swap that out for a full Fire TV interface, which is the same as the one you'll find on its Fire TV streaming devices. Because there are so few options out there, you'll simply have to buy the smart display that fits within your smart home ecosystem.
• Sound and audio quality: If you plan to use your smart display to listen to music, then decent audio quality could come in handy for you. Unfortunately, most smart displays don't prioritize audio as much as smart speakers do, but some still deliver decent quality audio thanks to oversized bases that have larger speaker drivers built into them. A good example of that is the Amazon Echo Show 10, which has a large base with a dedicated woofer built into it, allowing it to deliver deeper bass response than other smart displays. Some allow you to connect external speakers to the base, but not all of them have this functionality.
• Touchscreen: Of course, the biggest reason you buy a smart display instead of a smart speaker is access to the actual screen. The vast majority of smart displays have a touchscreen built into them, which allows you to quickly control things like smart home devices and access settings. However, some don't have a touchscreen at all, being designed exclusively to show information like the time and anything related to your voice commands.
• Connectivity: The basics of smart display connectivity revolve around Wi-Fi, which is how they'll access information from the web and control your smart home devices. However, some have other connectivity features, like Bluetooth, but this is rare.
• Video calling: Most smart displays offer a video calling feature, but are largely limited to using the built-in voice video calling software. For example, on Echo Show devices, they use Alexa Calling, which allows for video calls to other Echo devices or the Alexa app, while Google Nest Hub devices support Google Meet. Some newer models support other apps, like Zoom, but this support is limited right now.
• Smart home hub: Smart displays are designed to integrate within a smart home, but some go beyond that and serve as a smart home hub. This means that they'll be the main gateway between smart home devices and the wider internet, connecting to smart home devices through standards like Matter, Thread, and Zigbee. If you don't already have a hub or plan on replacing your hub with your new smart display, it's worth thinking about what kinds of smart home connectivity you want or need.
• Privacy: Privacy might seem like a thing of the pas, but in your own home, you can do a few things to protect yourself, even from naturally invasive smart home devices. First, make sure to enable two-factor authentication for your smart display account, which sends a code to your mobile device to verify it’s you. That way, if someone tries to hack into your account, you will receive an alert and can quickly take care of the problem. Many devices also allow you to activate email or other push notifications in the settings to alert you if someone has logged on. Additionally, make sure to use a unique, strong password composed of multiple characters, numbers, and letters. Data breaches can happen, making it all the more important to use different passwords across multiple websites and apps. Smart assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant are built into smart displays, and you can protect your privacy by regularly deleting your voice recordings and disabling the device's mic and camera when it’s not in use. All Echo Show displays feature integrated privacy controls like a physical, sliding shutter for the camera and a mic mute button on the top of the device. Google Nest displays lack the physical slider, but you can easily access privacy controls for the camera and mic by swiping up from the bottom of the display's screen. One thing to note is that Echo displays come with Amazon Sidewalk automatically enabled. The goal of Amazon Sidewalk is to create one large, low-bandwidth wireless network that extends the range of certain devices (like Echo devices, Ring cameras, and Tile trackers) that only work when connected to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The more neighbors who opt in, the larger and stronger the Amazon Sidewalk network will be. The program only applies to Echo devices, and you can opt out at any time.

Care, maintenance, and warranty

Generally speaking, smart displays are designed to be left alone on a counter, as far away from water as possible. There's nothing you need to do to maintain a smart display, apart from simply taking care of it as best you can.

Usually, the warranties of smart displays last around a year or two, but they only really cover manufacturing defects, so don't expect to be able to repair or replace a smart display for free if you damage it.

FAQ: What To Know About Smart Displays

The features vary by hub and ecosystem, but smart displays are more than just a pretty video portal for your countertop. The devices can show you who is at the front door as soon as someone rings the bell. They can also listen for breaking glass and barking dogs (potentially alerting you to home security threats), as well as provide visual reminders (like that late afternoon Zoom meeting you keep forgetting about).

Smart displays from Amazon and Google sometimes also function as Matter hubs, so you can connect your Matter-enabled smart home devices to them.

Smart displays work with a variety of video and music streaming platforms. While the streaming lineup varies by ecosystem, popular services like Spotify, Apple Music, Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube are available.

Smart displays can also serve as digital keypads to disarm your home security system and to manually adjust the brightness and color of your smart bulbs and light strips. Some smart displays can also track your sleep, giving you detailed statistics about your nightly slumber habits.

Most smart displays come with adaptive audio controls, so your assistant can hear you from across the room or over loud noises.

Echo vs. Nest: What’s the difference?

Choosing the best smart display for you and your household often comes down to which smart assistant you rely on to control your smart home—Alexa or Google Assistant. If you already have an Amazon Echo or Google Nest smart speaker in your home, for instance, you’ll want to choose a device that best incorporates it (i.e. one from Amazon or Google).

Alexa is the world’s most popular voice assistant and can control thousands of smart home devices, similar to Google Assistant. As of April 2025, Apple does not have a Siri-enabled smart display for HomeKit.

Do any other brands make smart displays, or just Amazon and Google?

Technically, other companies do make smart displays. However, those made by Amazon and Google are by far the most popular. That's because they deeply integrate with their respective smart home ecosystems, offering first-party features that aren't widely available elsewhere.

Lenovo used to make some smart displays, which ran on Android Things, a Google-focused operating system that Google killed a few years ago. While you might still find Lenovo smart displays here and there, you should generally steer clear of them, as their support is lacking, and they don't come with the latest features.

Why You Should Trust Our Expertise

Because every smart display has its strengths and features, our testing could not be standardized across each device. Instead, we tested smart displays in an actual smart home for several weeks with popular smart home gadgets like smart plugs, smart locks, security cameras, and appliances. We also tested smart displays for privacy settings, streaming services, video calling experiences, and individual features.

What Other Reviewers Are Saying About the Best Smart Displays

Most professional reviewers, like us, consider the Amazon Echo Show 8 the best smart display out there, at least when it comes to smart displays for most people. To save you some time, we've researched for you.

• PCMag considers the Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) to be the best smart display, thanks to its solid audio and good smart home support.
• CNET gave two products the Best Smart Display Award, including both the Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) and the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen), arguing that the best depends on what ecosystem your smart home is in.
• Tom's Guide notes that the Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) is the best smart display, thanks to its sleek design and its ability to serve as a smart home hub.

What Owners Are Saying About Our Best Smart Display

Generally speaking, the Amazon Echo Show 8 gets good user reviews online, and users seem to find it to be helpful and high-quality. Here's a look at some of those reviews.

• Amazon: On Amazon, the Echo Show 8 has an average rating of 4.5 stars, which is quite good. One customer noted that the "Amazon Echo Show 8 is a perfect blend of size, functionality, and affordability. Its 8-inch HD screen is great for video calls, streaming, and smart home controls while being compact enough to fit easily on a nightstand or kitchen counter."
• Best Buy: The Amazon Echo Show 8 has an even better rating on Best Buy, with an average of 4.8 stars. One user was particularly impressed with the voice recognition, noting that it's "simply outstanding. Whether I’m in the kitchen cooking or relaxing in the living room, Alexa hears me clearly and responds almost instantly."

Overall, users find that the Echo Show 8 has a solid screen and helps control smart home devices, though its audio response isn't necessarily amazing.

Read More About Smart Displays and Screens on Reviewed

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• 10 things you didn't know you could do with Amazon's Echo Show 10