If you’re looking for some of the best smart home products in South Africa to add to your home then we have you covered. While there’s a misconception that smart home products are hard to find in South Africa and overly priced, that isn’t the fact. I have spent the last few months obsessed with finding new devices to add to my life and these will come in handy no matter what you’re looking for.

We also cover where to start when looking for South African smart home products. What hub you’re using, how to find products for it and the most basic of items that slowly ease you into the world of the smart home. Here are some of my suggestions.

Best Smart Home Products Available in South Africa

Lights, Sensors and More

Xiaomi Mi Essential Smart LED Bulb

• Available from: Technomobi by clicking here
• Price: R249

These LED bulbs allow you the option of choosing the perfect colour and brightness for any mood. The bulb barely generates heat, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally touching them if they’re exposed. Because each bulb has built-in Wi-Fi, it can be easily controlled from any smart device. The Xiaomi Home companion app also allows you to set up custom automation and schedules to control the lights on your behalf.

The bulbs also come with voice control features meaning your Apple HomePod, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa can help you control your lighting using your voice. Each bulb also lasts for years, so you won’t have to worry about constantly having to change out your bulbs.

Xiaomi Yeelight Lightstip Plus

• Available from: GeeWiz by clicking here
• Price: R883

If you’ve ever wanted a way to change up the entire look and feel of a space, then ligh tstrips are for you. Place them behind the TV to make all your movie nights feel boogie, under the bed to create some floor illumination when you walk around the room at night or use them under the counters in your kitchen for an ethereal glow.

The Xiaomi Yeelight Lightstip Plus is flexible enough to easily mould to any object allowing you to create ambient light in the exact direction you want. It also comes with a controller if you want to control the lights with a press of a button. However, the real magic lies in its Mi Home App integration. Program the lights to switch on or off at specific times, change the brightness and the colour and set up voice commands that allow you to control them using just your voice.

Another added perk is the “extension” system. Let’s say you need 5 meters of lighting, but by default, the Xiaomi Yeelight Lightstip Plus only comes in 2-meter rolls. Well, you can purchase the extension lights (which are considerably cheaper than the initial lights), allowing you to extend the lights up to 10 meters.

Xiaomi Mi Bedside Lamp 2

• Available from: Technomobi by clicking here
• Price: R899

Because of its design, the Xiaomi Mi Bedside Lamp 2 never gets hot, so you don’t have to worry about touching it or sleeping with it on. Its brightness can go from 400 lumens down to 2, making it the perfect device to always have on. Using the Mi Home App, you can set up automations and schedules for the lamp, change its colour, and set up voice commands that let you change all the settings via Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple Homekit.

Mi Door and Window Sensor 2

• Available from: Mobile In Africa by clicking here
• Price: R199

When you’ve kitted your house with all the smart lighting, your heart requires it’s time to move on to sensors. Sensors allow you to create more complex automations within your smart home. For example, suppose you attach these Mi Door and Window Sensors to your front door. In that case, you can set up an automation that will switch on all your smart lights when you arrive home and then switch all of them off when you leave.

Let’s say you attach them to your windows well you can then check if your windows are closed at night using your phone or set an automation that automatic turns on your fan when they are. The possibilities of incorporating sensors are genuinely endless.

The Mi Door and Window Sensor 2 boasts tool-free installation. Use the attached double-sided tape, and you’re good to go. This also makes it perfect to use in rental units. Just a note, this sensor does require the use of the Mi Smart Home Hub (R450) to work.

Mi Motion Sensor

• Available from: Mobile In Africa by clicking here
• Price: R269

Sensors might not seem like the most exciting smart home tech, but as I said above, sensors allow you to get the most out of your smart devices. The Mi Motion Sensor is no different. The sensor is tiny, allowing for discrete placement that won’t draw attention or mess with your aesthetic.

Once the sensor is up, you can use it to sense the motion of both humans and pets and then configure automation based on that. For example, place one of these in your hallway, and your lights can automatically turn on and off when you pass by. Or set one up that picks up when you go into the bathroom in the morning and automatically triggers your kettle to start boiling. Sensors are the most boringly exciting smart device you can get. Just a note, this sensor does require the use of the Mi Smart Home Hub (R450) to work.

Mi Wireless Switch

• Available from: Mobile In Africa by clicking here
• Price: R199

While being able to control your devices through any smart device or using your voice is great, sometimes you still want a button for the sake of convenience. This is where the Mi Wireless Switch comes into play.

Place this little switch anywhere you want around your house, either just by placing it on a table or securing it to a wall with double-sided tape. The switch then allows you to control your smart home devices. For example, single-click the switch to turn on/off all the lights in your living room. Double-click to switch on/off your fan and long-press to switch on/off all your smart devices.

You might not think that you would get much use out of a switch like this, but imagine programming one and placing it on your coffee table. It could essentially dim your lights for movie night, boil your kettle for hot chocolate and check that all your windows and doors are shut—all without you having to stand up or say a single word. Just a note, this sensor does require the use of the Mi Smart Home Hub (R450) to work.

Speakers and Hubs

Choosing the hub you want to control your home is honestly just down to choice. Previously there were considerable barriers to which hub could control which devices, but as of 2022 and the introduction of “matter”, most devices work with any hub you decide to buy. Bonus: you don’t want to use your hub to control your smart home; they are all pretty good smart speakers, and in the case of the HomePod, they can be paired together to create surround sound setups.

Apple HomePod Mini

• Available from: GeeWiz by clicking here
• Price: R2995

Google Home Mini

• Available from: GeeWiz by clicking here
• Price: R972

Echo Dot 4th Gen

• Available from: GeeWiz by clicking here
• Price: R1395

Smart Appliances

Now there is another aspect to Smart Home Tech, and that’s “life improvement with zero effort”. Over the last while, I’ve realized just how much I appreciate clean and safe environments that require no input from me, and that’s where these following devices come into play:

Mi Robot Vacuum-Mop 2 Pro

• Available from: Mobile In Africa by clicking here
• Price: R7299

I own a previous generation of this vacuum and let me tell you something, if my house was on fire, this would be the one smart home device that I grab. I have my vacuum set to run every morning at 5 am before I wake up, and waking up to the worlds cleanest floor is honestly the best.

As with the other smart home devices, you can control the vacuum using voice commands you set up and control it with any smart device. If you are only going to buy one smart device, let it be a robot vacuum. Trust me.

Mi Smart Kettle Pro

• Available from: Mobile In Africa by clicking here
• Price: R899

Welcome to the Mi Smart Kettle Pro. It’s a kettle like any other, but this one shows you the water temperature via a built-in digital screen. What makes it truly special is the app control. Using the Mi Home App, I can set up automations that make sure every morning at 7 am when I enter the kitchen, my water is already boiled, and any water I don’t use? the kettle will keep warm for me for up to 12 hours. This is genuinely a device from the future, and it’s one I can’t wait to get my hands on.

Xiaomi Mi Smart Standing Fan 2

• Available from: GeeWiz by clicking here
• Price: R1882

Now you might be like past me and think to yourself: a fan is a fan. Well, I was wrong, and you are wrong – a smart fan is the only fan worth fanning. The Xiaomi Mi Smart Standing Fan 2 is, as the name suggests, a standing fan, but it can be used on a desk or table as well as the picture shows. It’s got everything a fan should have, speed setting, oscillation, it’s not very loud, but it’s got the best thing of them all: smart control.

Using the Mi Home App on any smart device allows you to change every setting on the fan, including rotating it. You can even set it up to use voice commands through the home hub of your choice as well as using it in combination with sensors to create some pretty fun and intuitive automations.

Mi Air Purifier 3H

• Available from: Mobile In Africa by clicking here
• Price: R2799

My partner and I both suffer from pretty debilitating allergies and sinuses, but we also really love pets. This means pet hair, dander, grass, pollen, and almost every allergen you can think of lives in our house. The Mi Air Purifier 3H is essential in my home.

Without boring you with the details, the Mi Air Purifier sucks my allergen-ridden air into it, filters it and then pumps out up to 6330 litres of purified air per minute. The Mi Air Purifier 3H also comes with a built-in temperature and humidity sensor, allowing you to bounce other smart devices off it. For example: you can set your Xiaomi Mi Smart Standing Fan 2 to start up automatically when the air purifier shows a temperature of 19 degrees.

This device is a godsend between the high-precision sensor, which allows it to detect even the slightest air pollution and the filter, which catches particles as small as 0.3 microns. The added perk is that it’s smart. I can control it using my voice, using any smart device or by setting up automations and just leaving it to do its thing.

Mi Smart Antibacterial Humidifier

• Available from: Mobile In Africa by clicking here
• Price: R1099

The Mi Smart Antibacterial Humidifier diffuses mist into the air that helps add moisture to the room. It can continually mist for 15 hours before you need to fill the tank, and it has a UV-C light built into it that kills the germs in the water before misting it.

The humidifier also has its own built-in humidity sensor, so using the Mi Home App, you could very easily set up automations that only run the humidifier when a certain threshold is hit. The humidifier also allows for voice control through your favourite home hub. Again, I’m not 100% sure why I want one, just that I do.

So that is my list of some of the best Smart Home products in South Africa. While this is by no means a definitive list, nor is it a review of the products, it is a good starting point for those eager to wade into the waters but don’t know if they can swim. Out of everything, the main takeaway from this post should be that Smart Home Tech is not something reserved for the YouTubers overseas, nor is it reserved for the filthy rich.

As time goes on, I can’t wait to build up my own smart home and take you all long for the ride. Have you got any smart tech in your house? Let us know in the comments below, and let’s all geek out about Smart Home Tech together.