T3 AWARDS 2019
BEST SOUNDBAR OR SOUNDBASE
Sonos Beam
Debunking the myth that a decent home-entertainment setup costs a fortune, the Sonos Beam crams a raft of impressive features into a compact, $500 gadget. Doubling up as a TV soundbar and a wireless multi-room speaker (it’ll work with all your other Sonos speakers dotted around the house, plus Apple AirPlay 2), its four full-range woofers, five Class D digital amplifiers and three passive radiators work together to provide immersive, room-filling sound. If you’re struggling to hear what your favourite movie characters are saying, a handy Speech Enhancement feature, designed by Oscar-winning engineers, will clarify the dialogue for you. There’s support for both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa voice assistants, too. The bar has been raised.
$505, sonos.com
BEST NOISE-CANCELLING HEADPHONES
Sony WH-1000XM3
Noise-cancelling headphones are great, but you can sometimes get so lost in your music that you lose touch of what’s going on around you. That’s unlikely to be the case with Sony’s wonderfully innovative new cans, though. Make no mistake, they’ll banish the outside world better than anything else we’ve ever heard. But intelligent features such as Adaptive Sound Control (which automatically adjusts your ambient sound settings depending on your surroundings) and Quick Attention (which enables you to turn down the volume simply by placing your hand over the housing) will help you to stay in the proverbial room. That they also make music sound fantastic, and are also supremely light and comfortable for long listening sessions, cements their place at the top.
$389, sony.com.au
BEST CONNECTED ENERGY PRODUCT
Nest Thermostat E
What makes Nest thermostats stand out are the intelligent learning algorithms built into their software, which are able to learn your heating habits and start saving you money almost immediately. The Thermostat E is the device that offers the best value in the range – it can be operated effortlessly from your phone, and oozes style, too. A worthy winner.
From $259, nest.com
BEST CONNECTED LIGHTING
LIFX
The smart lighting market is shared by the long established Philips Hue products, and newer-comer LIFX. Both offer outstanding products that are easy to set up and integrate into your home network. Not needing a dedicated hub puts LIFX in front by a nose, and we’re also fans of the LIFX Tile system for happy slabs of illumination in your home.
From $39, lifx.com
BEST SMART HOME TECH
Lenovo Smart Display
The perfect hub for a growing smart home, the Lenovo Smart Display combines the intelligence of Google Assistant with some fine Lenovo craftsmanship – and a choice of 8-inch or 10-inch display sizes. Whether you want to control your smart lights with a tap, pipe some music around the bedroom, make video calls to your friends, watch
