7 smart home gifts that even renters will love

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Having a smart home is cool, but it’s a trickier proposition for renters. Unless you’ve got the best landlord ever, if you don’t own your place you may not have the flexibility to mess with ceiling lights or power outlets, or even hang frames on the wall.

Fortunately, there are a host of smart home devices that don’t require any major in-home changes but still add some extra functionality to anyone’s humble abode. Here are some of our picks. Buy them for your friend who rents — or yourself. 

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Sure, there are simpler Google smart speakers — like the Home and the Home Mini — but the Home Hub does a lot more for a small premium. 

The screen makes it great as a digital photo frame, but it’s also pretty handy for controlling other smart devices around the home. 

As a fun bonus, the Home Hub can be also used to watch YouTube videos or control music. It does everything over Wi-Fi, so all that’s needed is a power outlet.

Price: $149 on the Google Store

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If Alexa is more your kind of voice assistant, or you don’t want to spend quite as much as the price of the Home Hub, chances are you can find yourself an excellent deal on Amazon’s still great Echo Spot. 

The Echo Spot comes with a camera for video calls and offers thousands of Alexa skills. It’s lightweight and stylish, and a Wi-Fi connection and a power outlet are pretty much all that’s needed to get it going.

Price: $129.99 on Amazon

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For better quality sound with smart speaker features, the Sonos One is a good start. The One’s sound blows equivalently priced rivals out of the water, and it can wirelessly hook up to other Sonos devices for multi-room sound.

The Sonos One sits nicely on a bookshelf or a stand, and it’s compact enough to move around the house — or when you’re ready to move apartments again.

If something bigger is in order, the $399 Google Home Max is also worth a look for its thumping bass and additional connectivity options (line-in and bluetooth). 

Price: $199 on Amazon

OK, this is where things get tricky. There are a litany of options when it comes to smart light bulbs on the market.

There are two main systems: A smart lighting system without a hub, like LIFX’s Color or TP-Link’s Smart Bulb, which connects directly to Wi-Fi. Or a system with a hub, like Philips Hue.

Whatever the choice, these light bulbs will be compatible with a home’s existing fixtures. For more detail on the pros and cons between the two systems, check out our guide on smart light bulbs here.

Price: $69 for Philips Hue starter kit with two light bulbs

Make a dumb device clever with the addition of a smart plug. It’s handy for things like fans, which you can then turn off and on remotely with your smartphone or voice assistant. You can also set a timer via the plug, in case your loved one likes to fall asleep to a breeze.

TP-Link’s mini smart plug will work with a home’s power outlet, and it connects over Wi-Fi, so there’s no socket to have to mess with. 

Price: $15.82 for TP-Link’s mini smart plug

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Televisions these days seem incomplete without a Chromecast. The latest model still retains the simple feature of beaming content from a phone or computer to a TV, but with some minor upgrades (like 60 frames per second streaming). 

It plugs into any TV’s HDMI port. Getting it working is a no-brainer.

Price: $35 from the Google Store

Easy to install and a cool, conversation-starting home improvement, the Nest Hello is a video doorbell which lets one see who’s at the door and also continuously records video at the front of one’s home. It’s definitely pricier than other video doorbells on the market, however.

Installing Nest Hello involves some basic wiring and changing of a doorbell, so make sure the person you’re getting this for has a cool landlord. 

Price: $229 at the Google Store