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 THERE ARE DOZENS of smart speakers on the market, and picking the best one keeps getting tougher. First, you need to decide which voice assistant you prefer. There are three worth using—Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri—and each has its ups and downs. Right now, we prefer Google- and Amazon-powered models, as they are the most widely user-friendly.

Second, you need to figure out which speaker has the features most important to you. Is music quality your top concern? Do you want a touchscreen, or is voice assistance alone enough? Does your speaker need to connect to your other smart home gadgets? That's where finding the best option gets trickier. Don't fear, you'll find what you're looking for here! We've tried dozens of smart speakers to know what's the best right now (and what's not).

     Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen)

Amazon's latest Echo speaker (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is a cute ball of sound that brings the same bold bass and wide soundstage as the previous model, but with more room-filling sound than ever before.

You can put it anywhere—kitchens, bathrooms, even smaller living rooms—and it easily fills the space with 360-degree sound. Compared to the new Google Nest Audio speaker, this is the one I'd pick for off-axis listening . Alexa also makes getting news and weather updates convenient, and it's dead simple to set kitchen timers and alarm clocks. I also like that I can turn off the microphones with a physical button, for when voice-assistant-wary friends and relatives are over.

Google Nest Audio

The Nest Audio (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is Google's direct Echo competitor, and it fares extremely well. It's got a compact, pillow-like shape and great sound that will easily fill small and medium-size rooms. I really like using two Nests as a stereo pair, because they combine to offer some of the best audio quality you can achieve in a smart speaker for $200.

Like all Google Assistant-powered devices, you can ask the Nest Audio to set timers, play music, or tell you the weather, and you can ask it anything you'd search on Google. The Google Home app makes it easy to pair up the speakers with any other Google-friendly smart devices you have too.

Amazon Eco show Nest (3rd Gen)

The Echo Show 10 is a great Alexa-powered alternative to the Nest Hub Max. It's more usable than third-party Alexa devices because it can call and network with Amazon's other Echo speakers. This version looks much nicer than the first few generations of Echo Shows you may have seen, with a full-size 10-inch screen that swivels nearly 360 degrees to follow you with its cameras while you're on a call or reading a recipe—like a cool robot assistant .

The screen lets you see what music is playing, pause the audio, skip to the next song, and view lyrics on some Amazon Music tracks. It can also play Amazon Prime videos and has a video version of Alexa’s daily flash-news briefing. Voice and video calls are supported, with Amazon recently adding Zoom support.

      Siri

Apple has two Siri-powered speakers. They aren't in our top picks, so are they any good?

• Apple's Home Pod  is for Apple junkies. It's discontinued, but you can still find it at some retailers. The Home Pod is not worth the full price, despite the fact that it sounds fantastic. It's only for people who live a complete Apple life, because it barely supports third-party music streaming services (and that's a new feature), plus it can't control as many devices as its competitors. Read our full review for more.

• Apple also has a smaller speaker called the HomePod Mini - It's cool looking, but it has the same issues as the larger Home Pod speaker, including that it's a bit overpriced compared to the competition. You can get a full-size Nest or Echo speaker for the same money, and you should.

        Google Nest Hub Max

Smart displays are great in the kitchen, but they often have speakers too weak to help you dance your way through meal prep. That's why we like the Google Nest Hub Max (8/10, WIRED Recommends), which boasts a pair of pretty impressive speakers below its 10-inch display. You won't get the same fidelity as you'll get from stand-alone smart speakers, but it's enough to have a small dance party while the lasagna bakes. Plus, you can use a stop hand gesture to pause music without having to touch the screen or use your voice.

The Nest Hub Max is our current favorite smart display for a number of other reasons, too. We like that it can use its camera to identify individual members of the house, only showing information pertaining to each, and the larger display makes it great for watching YouTube tutorials. Google also added support for group video calling through Duo, Zoom, and Google Meet, making this an even better pick if you regularly connect with friends or coworkers using those services.

Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen) 

                        with Clock

If you aren’t in it for the music, the Amazon Echo Dot With Clock (4th Gen) and Google's Nest Mini (7/10, WIRED Recommends) will give you most of the perks of owning a smart speaker, and you can use them to smarten up existing speakers on the cheap.

The sound is very similar between models, and they have nearly identical footprints, so you can easily make an argument that one is better than the other based on the ecosystem alone. We used to prefer the Nest Mini for this reason, but now that Amazon has added a simple clock to the front of the Echo Dot, we like the Alexa-powered option a little better.

The tiny display on the Echo Dot With Clock comes in handy. It can tell you when your timers are going to expire in the kitchen or when your alarm is set for the morning. Of course, it tells the time too. That makes it a better bedroom and kitchen companion. You can also ask it the weather, have it answer your random questions, and play white noise at bedtime to help you sleep. It also presents an easy way to get a smart assistant into the places in your home where you don't normally listen to music.