Choosing a smart telescope is harder than choosing an ordinary one, and not because the instruments are complicated. It is because the category is the least transparent on this shelf: two of the three brands in this index publish no price a reader can quote.
What to compare instead of price
Aperture and focal length, which brands do publish. Vaonis states 50mm at 250mm for the Vespera. Sensor size and pixel scale, which decide the field and the detail. Whether the instrument works offline or needs a server. And whether the software has a track record, because a smart telescope is a computer that will need updates for years.
Aperture still matters, just differently
These are small instruments and they compensate by stacking exposures, which works on extended faint objects and not on the moon and planets, where resolution rather than light is the limit. So a smart telescope will show you a nebula that a 130mm dobsonian shows as grey, and the dobsonian will show more detail on Jupiter.
What you are actually buying
Automation. The instrument finds the target, tracks it, stacks the frames and hands you a picture, with no star charts, no collimation and no learning curve. For someone whose obstacle is the difficulty of the hobby rather than the cost, that is worth real money, and it is why the category grew.
The honest caveat
This site prices what brands print, and in this category most of them print nothing readable. So there is no median, no ranking column and no pretence of one, and the useful comparison here is specification against specification with the prices read at each brand's own shop.
Questions people ask about telescope
What is the best smart telescope?
This index cannot rank the category on price, because only one of the three brands here publishes a readable figure. Compare aperture, sensor and software support instead.
Are smart telescopes worth it?
If the obstacle to your observing is finding and seeing faint things rather than money, yes. If you want to look through an eyepiece, no.
Do smart telescopes work in cities?
Better than visual instruments do, because stacking and processing fight light pollution in a way the eye cannot. It is one of the category's strongest arguments.