Top 15 'Function-Stacking' Smart Home Devices to implement for city dwellers reclaiming their square footage - Goh Ling Yong
Living in the city is an exhilarating experience. The energy, the opportunities, the sheer vibrancy of it all is second to none. But let's be honest, it often comes with a trade-off: space. The cozy studio, the one-bedroom apartment, the "efficiently designed" condo—these are the canvases upon which we build our urban lives. Every square foot is precious, a valuable piece of real estate that needs to earn its keep.
For years, the solution was clever furniture and ruthless decluttering. But today, we have a more powerful ally: technology. I'm not just talking about gadgets for the sake of gadgets. I'm talking about a strategic approach I call "function-stacking." This is the art of choosing devices that perform two, three, or even four distinct jobs, effectively multiplying their value and reclaiming your floor and counter space. It’s a core principle we often explore here on the Goh Ling Yong blog—using innovation to live a smarter, more streamlined life.
Instead of a lamp, a speaker, and an alarm clock, you have one device that does it all. Instead of a fan, a heater, and an air purifier, you have a single, elegant tower. This isn't about minimalism; it's about maximalism in a minimal footprint. It's about making your home work harder for you, so you can enjoy city living to its fullest. Ready to transform your apartment from cluttered to clever? Here are the top 15 function-stacking smart home devices perfect for any city dweller.
1. The Smart Display Hub (e.g., Google Nest Hub, Amazon Echo Show)
This is the quintessential starting point for any function-stacking smart home. It's so much more than a smart speaker. It’s your kitchen assistant, digital photo frame, video call station, smart home control panel, and bedside alarm clock, all wrapped in one compact screen.
Think about it: while cooking, you can ask for a recipe and watch a video tutorial hands-free. In the morning, it can wake you gently with a sunrise alarm, then show you your calendar, the weather, and the morning news. When idle, it cycles through your favorite photos, turning a piece of tech into a personal, dynamic picture frame instead of a black box.
Pro Tip: Place it in a central location like the kitchen counter or a living room entryway. Create a "Good Morning" routine that turns on your lights, starts the coffee maker (plugged into a smart plug), and gives you a traffic report, all from a single voice command.
2. The Speaker-Lamp Hybrid (e.g., IKEA x Sonos SYMFONISK)
Side tables are prime real estate in a small living room or bedroom. They’re often cluttered with a lamp, a speaker, and a place to charge your phone. The speaker-lamp hybrid elegantly solves this by merging two of those items into a single, beautiful object that delivers both ambient light and high-quality sound.
The collaboration between IKEA's design sense and Sonos's audio expertise is a game-changer. You get a stylish table lamp that fills the room with rich, immersive sound. It blends into your decor seamlessly, reducing visual and physical clutter. It’s the perfect example of technology that doesn't scream "I am a gadget," but instead enhances the feel of your home.
Pro Tip: Get a pair for your living room or on either side of your bed. You can link them in the Sonos app for true stereo sound, creating an immersive audio experience for music or movies that a single Bluetooth speaker could never match.
3. The All-in-One Air Treatment System (e.g., Dyson Pure Hot+Cool)
City air isn't always the freshest, and apartment temperatures can fluctuate wildly. This often leads to a collection of seasonal appliances: a fan for summer, a space heater for winter, and an air purifier for year-round peace of mind. These are bulky, unattractive, and a pain to store.
An all-in-one system like the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool combines all three functions into one sleek, bladeless tower. It intelligently monitors your air quality and purifies it of pollutants, allergens, and VOCs. In the summer, it's a powerful cooling fan, and in the winter, it's a fast, effective room heater. You reclaim an entire closet's worth of storage space by replacing three clunky devices with one.
Pro Tip: Let the "Auto" mode do the work. It will automatically adjust its fan speed and functions based on the real-time air quality in your room, ensuring your environment is always clean and comfortable without you having to touch a thing.
4. The Smart Fitness Mirror (e.g., MIRROR, Echelon Reflect)
Want a home gym but don't have a spare room? The smart fitness mirror is your answer. When turned off, it’s a full-length, beautifully designed mirror that looks perfectly at home in a living room, bedroom, or even a hallway. It adds depth and light to your space, just as a regular mirror would.
But with the tap of an app, it transforms into an interactive portal to thousands of on-demand fitness classes, from yoga and HIIT to boxing and personal training. You see yourself, your instructor, and your performance metrics all on the screen. It’s a complete gym that takes up zero floor space, stacking high-end decor with a powerful fitness tool.
Pro Tip: Install it in your main living area. This not only makes it a functional decorative piece but also removes the friction of "going to the gym." When your workout is just a few feet away, you're much more likely to stick with it.
5. The All-in-One Smart Oven (e.g., June Oven, Thermomix)
Countertop clutter is the enemy of the small-apartment kitchen. A toaster, a microwave, an air fryer, a dehydrator, a convection oven—they can quickly consume every available inch of prep space. The all-in-one smart oven is the ultimate kitchen consolidator.
These brilliant devices can act as a convection oven, air fryer, dehydrator, slow cooker, broiler, toaster, and warming drawer all in one. Many use internal cameras and AI to recognize the food you put inside and cook it perfectly automatically. You can clear nearly your entire counter while upgrading your cooking capabilities significantly.
Pro Tip: Use the companion app to your advantage. You can pre-heat the oven on your way home from work, get notifications on your phone when your food is ready, and access a library of recipes designed specifically for your appliance.
6. The TV That’s Also Art (e.g., Samsung The Frame)
In a small living room, a large television can be an overwhelming black hole when it's turned off. It dominates the wall and dictates the decor. The Samsung Frame TV brilliantly solves this problem by stacking entertainment with art.
When you're watching a movie, it's a brilliant 4K QLED television. But when you turn it "off," it enters Art Mode, displaying a stunning piece of art from a vast library of famous works or your own personal photos. With its customizable bezels, it looks exactly like a framed piece of art, blending seamlessly into your wall decor and elevating the entire room's aesthetic.
Pro Tip: Take the time to curate a playlist of art that matches your mood or the season. You can even upload your own high-resolution travel photos to turn your biggest screen into your most personal digital frame.
7. The Smart Monitor for Work and Play (e.g., Samsung M8 Smart Monitor)
For many city dwellers, the "home office" is also the dining table or a small desk in the corner of the living room. Having a separate computer monitor and a TV is often an impossible luxury. The smart monitor bridges this gap perfectly.
By day, it's a high-resolution monitor for your laptop, complete with a webcam for video calls. But after work, you can disconnect your computer and it functions as a standalone smart TV, with built-in streaming apps like Netflix, Disney+, and YouTube. It stacks a complete work setup with a full entertainment system, saving you the cost and space of a second screen.
Pro Tip: Pair it with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. This allows you to use its built-in web browser and apps without even needing to connect a computer, making it a true all-in-one workstation and media hub.
8. The Climate-Controlling Smart Bed (e.g., Eight Sleep Pod Cover)
Your bed takes up a huge amount of space, so why should it only do one thing? A smart bed or mattress cover transforms this passive piece of furniture into an active wellness and comfort system. It replaces your electric blanket, your noisy bedside fan, and even your alarm clock.
The Eight Sleep Pod Cover uses water to heat and cool each side of the bed to your precise preferred temperature, dramatically improving your sleep quality. It also includes advanced sleep tracking and a gentle thermal alarm that wakes you up silently by changing the temperature, which is a far more pleasant way to start the day. It stacks climate control, health tracking, and a smart alarm right into your mattress.
Pro Tip: Pay attention to the sleep data in the app. It can give you incredible insights into how your daily activities (like a late-night coffee or an evening workout) affect your rest, helping you optimize your health.
9. The Video Doorbell (e.g., Ring, Google Nest Doorbell)
Security is paramount in a city, and managing package deliveries in an apartment building can be a nightmare. A video doorbell stacks three critical functions: a doorbell, a high-definition security camera, and a two-way intercom.
You can see who’s at your door from anywhere in the world via your smartphone. You can speak to delivery drivers and ask them to leave a package in a safe spot, or screen visitors before you even get up from the couch. It replaces the need for a peephole and a separate security camera, all while adding a massive layer of convenience and peace of mind.
Pro Tip: Customize your motion zones. This allows you to get alerts for people approaching your specific doorway, not every person who walks down the shared apartment hallway.
10. The Smart Lock (e.g., Yale Assure Lock, August Wi-Fi Smart Lock)
Fumbling for keys is a thing of the past. A smart lock stacks physical security with digital convenience, completely changing how you interact with your front door. It replaces your physical key with your smartphone, a keypad code, or even your fingerprint.
The real function-stacking power comes from remote access management. You can grant temporary digital "keys" to a dog walker, a cleaner, or a visiting family member without ever having to copy a key. You can also check if you remembered to lock the door from your office and lock it remotely if you forgot.
Pro Tip: Enable the auto-unlock feature, which uses your phone's GPS to unlock your door automatically as you approach. It’s a magical feeling to walk up to your apartment with arms full of groceries and have the door unlock for you.
11. The Smart Coffee Table (e.g., Sobro Smart Coffee Table)
This is perhaps the most audacious and impressive example of function-stacking. It takes a simple piece of furniture and injects it with an incredible amount of utility. This isn't just a table; it's a complete living room command center.
The Sobro table includes a built-in refrigerator drawer for cold drinks, Bluetooth speakers for music, USB charging ports and a power outlet for all your devices, and customizable LED accent lighting. It's your coffee table, mini-fridge, sound system, and charging hub all in one, eliminating clutter and maximizing convenience. As Goh Ling Yong would say, this is truly designing your environment for the life you want to live.
Pro Tip: This is the ultimate device for hosting. Guests can connect to the speakers, charge their phones, and grab a beverage without ever leaving the conversation.
12. The Smart Scent Diffuser (e.g., Pura, Aera)
Ambiance is a combination of factors: light, sound, and scent. A smart scent diffuser stacks the roles of a traditional air freshener and a smart home device, giving you unprecedented control over how your home smells.
Using a smartphone app, you can schedule specific fragrances to run at different times of the day, control the intensity of the scent, and swap between two different cartridges. Many, like the Pura, also include a customizable LED nightlight, adding a layer of gentle, colorful light. It’s an effortless way to ensure your apartment always smells fresh and inviting.
Pro Tip: Create schedules that match your daily routine. A bright, citrusy scent in the morning to help you wake up, and a calming lavender or sandalwood scent in the evening to help you wind down.
13. Smart Blinds and Curtain Motors (e.g., Eve MotionBlinds, SwitchBot Curtain)
Windows are often an underutilized asset in a smart home. Motorized blinds and curtains stack window coverings with home automation, adding luxury, security, and even energy efficiency.
Imagine your blinds automatically opening in the morning to wake you with natural light and closing in the afternoon to keep your apartment cool in the summer sun. With a device like the SwitchBot Curtain, you can even motorize your existing curtains in minutes. This automates a daily chore and makes your home feel more responsive and intelligent.
Pro Tip: Integrate your smart blinds into a "Movie Night" scene that dims the lights, turns on the TV, and closes the blinds with a single command.
14. The Smart Power Strip (e.g., Kasa Smart Power Strip)
This is the unsung hero of the function-stacking world. It looks like a normal power strip, but it’s so much more. It stacks power delivery and surge protection with individual smart control and energy monitoring for multiple devices.
You can plug your "dumb" devices—a floor lamp, a fan, your computer monitor—into it and control each outlet independently from your phone or with your voice. You can set schedules (like turning off your entire workstation at 10 PM) and monitor energy consumption. It’s an affordable way to add smart capabilities to multiple items at once.
Pro Tip: Use it to manage the "vampire power" drawn by electronics in standby mode. Create a schedule to completely cut power to your entertainment center overnight, saving energy and money.
15. The Smart Ceiling Fan (e.g., Hunter SIMPLEconnect)
In many apartments, the only overhead fixture is a single, sad "boob light." A smart ceiling fan is a massive upgrade that stacks three functions into that one electrical box: air circulation, lighting, and smart control.
You get a powerful fan to keep you cool, a fully dimmable LED light fixture, and the ability to control it all from an app, a remote, or your voice assistant. It saves floor space by eliminating the need for a standing fan and adds a level of comfort and convenience that a simple light fixture can't match.
Pro Tip: Look for a model with "Winter Mode," which reverses the blade direction. This pushes warm air that has risen back down into the room, helping you feel warmer and potentially lowering your heating bill.
Your Space, Reimagined
Living in a smaller urban space doesn't mean you have to compromise on function or comfort. By embracing the "function-stacking" philosophy, you can make every object in your home work harder and smarter. These devices aren't just about saving physical space; they're about saving mental space, reducing clutter, and streamlining your daily routines so you have more time to enjoy the city you love.
Start by identifying the most cluttered or inefficient area in your home. Is it your kitchen counter? Your bedside table? Your entertainment setup? Chances are, there's a function-stacking device that can solve your exact problem.
Now I want to hear from you. Which of these devices would make the biggest difference in your home? Do you have a favorite function-stacking gadget that I missed? Leave a comment below and share your best space-saving smart home tips!
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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