Tom's Guide Awards 2024: Our favorite home appliances and smart home devices of the year

Your home is what you make it, so why not make it with the best appliances possible? Don't let anyone tell you different — the kitchen is the real hub of your house, as you prepare meals for your family and friends, gather to gossip, and meet for many of life's moments.

And many of those devices to help you cook and clean easier and faster have only gotten better. Espresso machines are smart enough so you can skip that trip to Starbucks; grills have AI built into them, so they can automatically adjust on the fly to make sure your food doesn't get ruined; and robot vacuums can now both mop and suck up debris, and are smart enough to avoid those socks on the floor.

After sifting though hundreds of products for our Tom’s Guide Awards this year, these are the winners for the homes and smart home categories.

Best air fryer

Best air fryer: Dreo Chefmaker

The best air fryer game has been dominated by the likes of Ninja and Instant Pot for a few years now, but the innovative Dreo ChefMaker may well have ushered in a new era of smart cookers. The brand’s first foray into the air fryer game, we were genuinely surprised by its accurate and innovative Chef Mode, which can take sometimes-scary meals like steak and fish and take all the complex timing and temperature concerns out of the picture. True to its name, we found that it can take any home cook and make them a chef.

Additional points go to this machine’s ease of use. For quite a complex bit of kit, its control panel isn’t too cluttered or complex, and should you choose to connect to its app, you’ll also enjoy personalized recipes and receive alerts when your meat hits its desired temperature. Confident chefs may not need all the extras, but if you want to level up your cooking game, you can’t do much better.

Best toaster oven

Best toaster oven: Our Place Wonder Oven

The sellout Our Place Wonder Oven is one of the hottest kitchen launches of the last year, and when we put it to the test, we understood its cult status. Despite its compact measurements, the Wonder Oven offered immense versatility when we used it to roast vegetables, toast bagels, and air fry fish.

One of the main selling points of this oven is its chic exterior, which will pair perfectly with your Always Pan, and it comes in a similar range of colors and Our Place’s classic matt finish. Like the Always Pan though, you’re advised not to put removable parts through the dishwasher. We also thought it could use more accurate controls, although this is a complaint you’ll find in a lot of the reviews in our best toaster oven guide. We’re excited to see which kitchen gadget Our Place re-invents next, and if the Wonder Oven is anything to go by, we’re confident it’ll deliver both style and substance.

Best grill

Best Grill: Brisk It Origin 580 AI

The Brisk It Origin 580 AI is a square-inch pellet grill uses smart temperature probes, generative AI, and a sleek app to guide you through each step of your cooks and adjusts its temperatures automatically. Its 22 pound hopper helps it reach temperatures of up to 500 degrees to bake, sear, and smoke some of the most flavorful dishes. Meanwhile you can monitor cook or smoker progress from anywhere thanks to its Wi-Fi connection.

The real meat of the experience comes from the BriskIt smartphone app which can control your grill, show you recipes that you can send to it, and provide access to Vera AI. This is most helpful for generating custom recipes. Just tell Vera the cut you have, what ingredients are around, and the time you’d like to spend cooking to create an AI guided-plan that you can send directly to your grill.

Best blender

Best blender: SMEG Professional Blender

The Smeg Professional High Performance Blender breaks with Smeg’s traditional retro designs, bringing all the smart features we’d expect to see in a premium modern blender. Its smart dial includes a countdown timer and on board its sleek brushed metal body are five pre-set blending modes, as well as a manual setting with nine speeds on offer. You can even make the most of a vacuum attachment which will keep your drinks fresh for longer, although batteries are, annoyingly, not included.

This blender is not short on power. If anything, we thought it could’ve been dialed down a bit more, because its high-speed blades did get quite hot when we made nut butter from scratch. Lightweight yet sturdy, and with a well-built design that feels a lot more premium than many of the models in our best blender guide, we’re excited to see more from Smeg’s Professional line.

Best food processor

Best food processor: Breville Paradice 16

It’s been some time since Breville launched a new food processor, but the ParaDice is worth the wait. It features the most comprehensive selection of cooking accessories we’ve seen in a food processor, with attachments for chopping french fries, kneading dough, and even dicing fruits and vegetables.

This does mean that the food processor takes up a lot of space, but eager home chefs will find that it replaces a lot of other kitchen gadgets, and we’re confident that it will quickly become one of your most-used kitchen appliances. One of the smartest features with the ParaDice is its in-built digital timer, which is ideal for following recipes when mixing. It’s an expensive option, but this is a good processor that can handle anything you throw at it.

Best juicer

Best juicer: Nama J3

The Nama J3 is one of the best juicers our Home Editor has tested for years. Cold press juicers are the preferred choice for health enthusiasts as they preserve the nutritional content of your juices, but they often prove to be tricky to assemble, and even trickier to clean. Nama has done what many juicer brands have failed to do in creating a user-friendly juicer that capably masticates even tricky ingredients like nuts and hard vegetables, with a high yield and a more compact design than the brand’s previous J2.

The J3 is a lot less high-maintenance than many juicers. We particularly loved the stackable chamber that allows you to add all of your juice ingredients in one go, close the lid, and let the Nama J3 get to work. One of the most impressive elements of this juicer was how well it made nut milk, which was creamy and smooth enough to go straight in our coffee. There are more affordable juicers on the market, and the chamber is a little small if you’re hoping to make juice for a crowd, but this is the most exciting juicer our editors have tried in the past year by a long way.

Best air purifier

Best air purifier: Shark NeverChange Air Purifier MAX

The petite but powerful Shark NeverChange is one of the smartest air purifiers we’ve tried. Its HEPA filter captures and detects microscopic pollutants and reports on your air quality in realtime using the smart monitor onboard the machine. This air purifier is also a quiet option, measuring just 38 dB when we tested it on Auto mode.

One of the major perks of this air purifier is its long-lasting filters, because the last thing you want to do after spending hundreds of dollars on an air purifier is to continually repurchase filters just to keep it running. The brand claims that its filter can last five years, and you can also add Shark’s Anti-Odor cartridge to improve not only the quality but the aroma of the air in your home. This recent launch is also significantly easier on the eyes than many of the products in our best air purifier guide.

Best espresso machine

Best espresso machine: De'Longhi La Specialista Maestro

The standout feature of the De'Longhi La Specialista Maestro is its cold brew and cold espresso settings, which are the perfect feature for iced coffee-lovers. This barista-ready machine has all the bells and whistles of a pimped-out espresso machine , but while it looks complex, it’s designed to make your life easier with automated milk steaming and smart grinding and dosing.

When testing we found that this machine is a bit too mega to fit under every kitchen cabinet, but a machine that looks this smart more than warrants its own dedicated coffee counter. We wish there was a cold milk foam setting, but if you’re a lover of chilled drinks, this is still the smartest machine for you.

Best coffee maker

Best coffee maker: Nespresso Latissima Vertuo

The Nespresos Latissima Vertuo is the most capable Nespresso machine we’ve tried. Combining Nespresso’s user-friendly Vertuo system with an attachable milk frothing unit, it’s one of the best coffee makers we’ve tried for people with small spaces who don’t want to compromise on coffee maker settings.

This machine can brew any size in Nespresso’s Vertuo lineup, from espresso to carafe, and you can also make latte macchiattos and cappuccinos using the milk mode. While this one-touch machine is simple, it’s the perfect low-effort pick for those who want a quality coffee, guaranteed.

Best vacuum cleaner

Best vacuum cleaner: Tineco FLoor One S5

If you have hardwood floors, and prefer the convenience of a 2-in-1, wet-dry vacuum, the Tineco Floor One S5 came tops in our best vacuum cleaners list. Not only does it have powerful suction to quickly sweep up dirt and crumbs, but it washes the floors at the same time.

Designed to clean different types of hardwood and tiles, it’s easy to assemble and use. We liked its iLoop smart sensor that adjusts the power and mode for the task. It also has voice guidance that tells you what mode you’re in, status of your dirt levels, battery and when it’s time to fill or empty the water tank. It also has Wi-Fi connectivity, should you wish to use the app. We also liked its self-cleaning mode that rinses out all the dirt inside and the roller brush so you don’t even have to touch the dirty water.

Perhaps what was even more impressive is that it doesn’t leave behind a sopping mess or wet streaks on the floors, like other wet and dry models we’ve tested. So if you want to make lightwork of chores (and ditch the mop and bucket), the Tineco Floor One S5 cleaner is a great pick!

Best robot vacuum cleaner

Best robot vacuum cleaner: Dyson VisNav

Lacking self-emptying or mopping features, the Dyson 360 Vis Nav doesn't do as much as many leading robot vacuum cleaners , but it executes its main function exceptionally well. The vibrant cobalt exterior and D-shaped design set it aside from the crowd, as does its exceptional suction, which Dyson claims is more powerful than any other robot vacuum on the market.

This vacuum packs a punch on hard floors, but it's particularly strong on rugs and carpets, where we saw a near-perfect performance on kitty litter, dog hair, and cereal. Astoundingly — and slightly concerningly — it continued to pick up ultra-fine dust from our rug during our six rounds of testing, despite the fact that we vacuumed the area prior to our tests. And if you're concerned about allergens and ultra-fine particles, be rest assured that this dust-buster comes with whole-machine HEPA filtration to keep nasties contained during cleaning.

Best standing desk

Best standing desk: Secretlab Magnus Pro

The Secretlab Magnus Pro may be a gaming desk at its heart but we’d argue it’s one of the best standing desks you can get today thanks to its premium build quality and excellent cable management features. This all-metal standing desk is easy to put together and we love how its control box, motors and wires are completely hidden from view. Likewise, the Magnus Pro’s integrated power system lets you lay its main power cable on the floor so that it doesn’t move up and down with the desk.

Since the Magnus Pro is made entirely from metal, Secretlab took advantage of this to offer a wide range of magnetic accessories for this desk. For starters, there’s the company’s MAGPAD Desk Mats which magnetically attaches to the top of the desk but can be swapped out with another to give the desk a brand new look. There are other optional magnetic accessories too but the Magnus Pro’s full-length and integrated cable management tray makes setting up a clean and tidy-looking desk a cinch.

Best office chair

Best office chair: Haworth Fern

The Haworth Fern is an ergonomic office chair with a unique design that really helps it stand out in the best way possible. For this chair, Haworth drew inspiration from a fern leaf — hence the name — and designed the Fern’s 3-part system for its backrest around it. This system of flexible fronds, a cradle to support them and a central stem that ties everything together gives the chair its iconic look while offering excellent lumbar support as your back moves throughout the day.

Besides its lumbar system, we were really impressed by how the Haworth Fern combines a mesh backrest with a fabric seat to give you the best of both worlds. Of the chair’s eight adjustment points, you’re also able to have the seat lean forward by 15 degrees when there’s something you need to focus on. Haworth offers several different variations of the Fern depending on which material and color you want plus, there’s also a version of this chair dedicated to gaming.

Best smart home device

Best smart home device: Echo Hub

The Echo Hub is Amazon's latest smart display and it's actually a panel with a layout that consists of incredibly useful widgets. This fully customizable space acts as a controller for all of your smart home devices. For example it can shift from an alarm panel for a Ring security system to a controller for your smart thermostat. You can organize gadgets by room or type. And when it’s not in use it can display photos and status information.

While its speakers aren’t the best and it lacks a camera, the onboard microphones easily pick up your voice commands. Plus it can do almost everything an Echo Show smart display can from playing shows and songs to serving as an intercom for all of your other smart speakers and displays. Rarely does a first-generation release get so much right, but with this performance for the price the Echo Hub is the most exciting Echo device in years.

Best home security camera

Best home security camera: Eufy S350

Buying multiple cameras to cover different rooms can get pricey. Eufy’s rotating pan and tilt S350 provides a full 360 degrees of coverage though. You can manually steer it around through its app or bank on its subject tracking to follow a subject as it moves through your space. The S350’s 4K image provides some of the sharpest details and colors of any camera we’ve tested but keep in mind it doesn’t work outside and it lacks color night vision.

What really eevates Eufy’s camera above the competition is its free premium features without a monthly subscription fee. You can store video locally, receive unlimited notifications without a cooldown period, and get smart AI alerts that identify events free of charge. That’s a huge deal when most manufacturers charge you just to store and view clips on the cloud without any form of local storage.