

Head here for help picking an Amazon smart speaker model. If you have an affinity for one of those brands in particular, picking a speaker is easy. Read more: Best Sonos speakers from $100 and up

If that sounds appealing to you, it might be time to give in to the growing hype of this burgeoning category of devices and buy a smart speaker. Pretty much all of your smart device options include multiroom audio and let you turn on the lights, play music, ask a question, set reminders and more with a simple voice command. If you don't need much oomph from your music and you're good with a little lower audio quality, you can save money and get the same smarts in a smaller smart speaker. When shopping for the best smart speaker for your needs, the key differences you'll encounter largely come down to price, size and audio quality. Amazon gets the credit for the popularization of smart speakers with the original Echo device and the Alexa speaker voice assistant, but now there's a market of competitors, each with their own pros and cons.

HomePod Mini: Which Apple speaker is best? HomePod Mini review: Apple fans will love this $99 Siri smart speaker.
