By Rachel Gore

As technology continues to evolve, so do the breadth of options we have for making our homes “smart.” While most people have heard of smart voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa that is only the beginning of what smart devices have to offer. In fact, there are a number of smart home devices that fulfill niche roles in fostering better health. Here are six types of smart devices that can help you have a healthier home:

Air purifiers and dehumidifiers
Air purifiers boost home health by banishing allergens, pet dander, odors, smoke and other pollutants that might be floating around your home. Smart air purifiers take it to the next level by coming with features like voice compatibility, air quality monitoring via a mobile app, toxin detection and more. Many are compatible with the increasingly popular voice assistant, Alexa.

Similarly, dehumidifiers can help keep everyone in your home healthy by reducing humidity and indoor pollutants. Like other smart devices, smart dehumidifiers can be enabled from anywhere with your phone and sync with popular voice assistants.

Food analyzers
The TellSpec hand-held scanner uses intelligent sensors to scan the food in front of you, analyze it and display information about the food on your smartphone. By simply waving the TellSpec over your meal, it can determine exactly what’s on your plate down to the ingredients, chemicals, allergens and calories. It even scans through glass, so you can assess the damage of a bakery item before you decide to ask for a slice of cake to go.

While it doesn’t come cheap, retailing at $1,999, it has the power to be a literal lifesaver for those with severe allergies. For those who can’t or don’t want to splurge that much on a nutrition device, affordable options like smart nutrition food scales that sync with fitness apps can make tracking calories and macros that much easier.

Meat thermometers
Undercooked meat is dangerous for your health, but not everyone is great at telling when their food is done cooking. Smart meat thermometers come with features like real-time temperature monitoring and the ability to automatically set the right temperature and cooking time depending on what you’re cooking. Some can monitor several different foods at the same time, ensuring you never serve undercooked meat again.

Meditation assistants
Meditation has been linked to a slew of well-being benefits, including improved concentration, reduced stress and increased self-awareness. That said, meditation doesn’t come naturally to
everyone. Luckily for beginners and experts alike, smart meditation headbands with EEG neurofeedback are the future of mindfulness. Using relaxing voice guidance, audio and music, these devices provide real-time EEG brainwave feedback to guide you into a blissful meditative state.

Personal health monitors
There is a slew of health monitoring smart devices available on the market, many of which send personalized health reports straight to your phone. From EKG monitors that enable you to track your heart health from anywhere to gluten detectors, blood pressure monitors and glucometers, people with all types of health conditions can rest assured knowing their health is being monitored in real-time.

Bodyweight scales
Smart scales enable you to track a lot more than just your weight. BMI, standing heart rate, body composition metrics like fat, muscle, bone and water mass, and more can be detected on body composition smart scales. Some Bluetooth compatible scales sync with popular fitness apps like Apple Health or MyFitnessPal, while others come with their own weight-monitoring apps that automatically generate graphs and measure trends over time. Most can be used by several people and automatically differentiate between users as they step on the scale.