Your message has been sent. There was an error emailing this page. You don't need to live in a smart home to benefit from a Wi-Fi-connected smart speaker. Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana, and other digital assistants can help you in dozens of ways, and you don't have to lift a finger to summon them--just speak their names. If you already know you want a smart speaker, scroll down for our top recommendations.

Google currently doesn't have a horse in this race. Several third-party manufacturers announced Google Assistant-powered smart displays at CES, but none are available right now. That leaves the Amazon Echo Show as the default winner. The Echo Show's best feature is its ability to make video calls to people on your contact list (it can also function as a video intercom within your home). But having a digital assistant that can also show you things has plenty of other useful applications, too: displaying album art (and lyrics, with Amazon's service) when you play music; shopping and to-do lists that you edit on the screen; illustrations that accompany your weather forecast; slideshows from your personal photo library; still photos from Wikipedia entries; and a whole lot more.