The best Apple HomeKit devices to buy in 2026

The long-awaited HomePod Mini bridges the odd gap between smart speakers, costing $99 like the Nest Audio and Amazon Echo, but in a package as small as the cheaper Nest Mini and Echo Dot.

This small, affordable Apple speaker sounds great. Siri is on the HomeKit control panel with standard voice assistance. The HomePod Mini can act as an output for your Apple TV, and you can pair two HomePod Minis in stereo. Features like Intercom and Handoff make life with the Mini a little more fun.

In short, if you like Apple, you’ll love this smart speaker. If you already live with an iPhone, Apple TV or the original HomePod, the Mini makes sense as your next small smart speaker.

You have a number of interesting options if you’re in the market for a smart thermostat, including several thermostats that support Siri control with Apple’s HomeKit. Of these, we particularly like the Ecobee thermostats. At $250, the Ecobee4 thermostat is pretty new, but it really only adds to the Amazon Alexa built-in speaker experience. That’s not a huge draw if you’re centering your smart home on Apple HomeKit and centering it on Siri for voice control.

That’s why I think it’s a smarter move to stick with one of the previous generation Ecobee, less expensive thermostats. They all work well with Apple HomeKit and support Ecobee thermal sensors, too. The Ecobee3 thermostat is listed as sold out on the Ecobee website, but the Ecobee3 Lite thermostat is still available. That’s a fair amount of HomeKit-compatible climate control.

Yale is a legacy brand that’s been making locks for over 180 years, and they’ve applied that experience to the Yale Asure Lock 2. If you’re looking for anything other than this touchscreen, a smart lock packed with a fingerprint sensor is a great choice for your Apple HomeKit setup.

It comes packed with smart features like Auto-unlock, unlimited passes to share with family and friends, app control and more. While not a budget option, the Yale packs all the smart and secure features with three different edges to match any decor.

As a trusted locksmith, Yale is a direct partner of Airbnb. This means that managing access is simple and easy to use if you are an Airbnb owner or guest in a property with this smart key.

Eufy’s Indoor Cam 2K is one of the first products to work with HomeKit Secure Video. Secure Video is Apple’s suite of security camera features in the Home app. At around $50, the Eufy Indoor Cam 2K is affordable and comes with several useful features such as optional local storage and motion detection zones.

The Eufy Indoor Cam 2K is a strong competitor to other low-priced indoor models like the Wyze Cam Indoor and Blink Mini. Its 2K video recording especially sets it apart from those competing models.

Smart switches are another great option if you want to automate the lights in your home — especially in places where a single switch controls several lights at once. You have several options that work with HomeKit, but our favorite so far is the Lutron Caseta In-Wall Dimmer Switch.

Why Lutron? First, Lutron has been in the dimmer switch business for decades, and it’s a smart home tech, too. Its switches have a good set of features and they work with everything, they support three-way setups and they look suitably different without a guard. Along with a wide range of switches, the Caseta platform also offers special switches for things like ceiling fans and Sonos speakers. It all communicates with the Lutron Bridge using Lutron’s proprietary Clear Connect wireless standard, which is one of the fastest and most reliable standards we’ve tested at CNET Smart Home.

That’s a long-winded way to say that these are really smart switches.

It doesn’t make sense, maybe, but Philips Hue is the best if you skip the colors and focus on the Hue White bulbs, which emit a smart, dim yellow light of 2,700 K. That’s because the best thing about the Hue bulbs is not the colors at all, but rather, the power of the Hue White bulbs that emit a very powerful light, with useful Apple features, which perfectly complement all the features of Apple Home.

To take advantage, you’ll need to get the Philips Hue starter kit that comes with the essential Hue Bridge — and the two-bulb Hue White starter kit, which is an affordable option. And yes, you can add color-changing bulbs to your HomeKit setup later.

Towards the end of 2020, Nanoleaf presents the latest set of new wall panels: Nanoleaf Shapes – Hexagons. These six-sided LED light panels are sold in a seven-panel starter kit for $150, though they’re currently on sale for $135 for the holidays.

With bright colors, easy mounting, great design, and the same impressive array of features and integrations as its predecessors — including a great music syncing rhythm mode, touch sensitivity, and voice control via Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant — the latest Hexagons are the best Nanoleaf has to offer.

If you are putting together a high-tech game room, bedroom or decorating a children’s room, then Nanoleaf color changing wall panels will be perfect for you. But other than that, bright lights are probably too futuristic for many homes.

At $40, the Eve Energy smart plug isn’t very affordable, but it offers seamless integration with Apple’s HomeKit with useful insights into the energy usage of connected devices.

While Eve was once a HomeKit-only smart device brand, the company opened the doors to other platforms such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa compatibility with Matter. It fits inside the frame of most wall outlets and has a visible button built in LED indicator light.

Eve’s app is clean and easy to use. Setting up timers and smart plug schedules is a challenge. This clever space-saving plug design and strong HomeKit compatibility make it easy to recommend to users in the Apple ecosystem.