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Our favorite Alexa deals from Amazon’s early Prime Day sale
Amazon
If you’re tired of fishing for remotes or getting up off of your couch to switch off a light, you’re in luck. Amazon’s Alexa smart tech lets you use your voice to control everything from lights to thermostats to next week’s grocery list. And right now, during the Amazon early Prime Day Sale, you’ll find impressive discounts on a wide range of Amazon smart-home gear — from Amazon Fire smart TVs to the latest Amazon home hubs and smart speakers that support the Alexa digital assistant.
Discover the best Alexa-compatible smart device deals
Our in-house consumer technology experts have curated this roundup of the best Alexa-compatible smart home products on sale ahead of Amazon Prime Day, which takes place on Tuesday, July 16 and Wednesday, July 17. Most of those deals require a Prime membership, so be sure to sign up if you haven’t yet.
Amazon Echo Spot smart alarm clock: $45 ($35 off)
Amazon
Add the new Echo Spot to your smart home ecosystem and bring Alexa to your nightstand. Customize this smart gadget with your favorite clock face, colors, alarm sounds and more. It has a smart display that shows the time, weather, song titles and other information at a glance, so you have everything you need right in front of you in the morning.
A smart speaker at heart, it’s loud and effective as an alarm clock, but you can use it to enjoy music and podcasts with crisp clarity and surprisingly loud volume. Control it with touch or via Alexa, which can also be set up to follow routines that wake you up with music and soft light in a more gentle way than traditional alarms.
You can use the Echo Spot as a smart home hub by way of Alexa as well, with voice controls that mean you don’t have to stumble out of bed in the morning to find a switch or touch a panel somewhere else to turn on the lights or get your day going.
Right now, you can save $35 on the Echo Spot, making it just $45 for Prime Day. Grab yours quickly before it goes up to $80 once more. You can also the Echo Spot with its charging stand bundled together for just $75, marked down from its normal price of $110.
Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen): $25 (50% off)
Amazon
When it comes to easy-to-operate smart speakers, it doesn’t get much simpler than this. Plug it in, connect it with your Wi-Fi and then the Alexa digital assistant will be on hand to answer your questions, stream music or help you control your Alexa-compatible gear using voice commands.
And since the Echo Dot links with the Amazon shopping service, it knows what you’ve ordered in the past. So, with a voice command like, “Hey Alexa, re-order paper towels,” it will look up your past order for paper towels and duplicate it.
If you subscribe to Amazon Prime Music, Audible, Apple Music or Spotify, you can command the Echo Dot to play whatever you want, whenever you want to hear it.
For higher-quality music and audio playback, you’ll want the Amazon Echo (4th Gen) smart speaker instead. Right now, it’s on sale for 50% off, which brings the price down to $25. Both the Echo Dot and Amazon Echo come in your choice of several colors.
Amazon Echo Show 5: $50 (Save $40)
Amazon
Looking for a large and in charge display you can place in your living room or kitchen? This is one of Amazon’s newest products and an updated version of the current Echo Show 5. It comes with an updated speaker system and mic array for clearer sound quality and added bass.
You get a large, 5.5-inch screen with a 2-megapixel camera that’s great for video calling as well as the choice of black, blue, or white. All three are currently discounted, so you can choose the one that works the best in your home.
Right now, the Echo Show 5 is just $50, which is $40 off its normal price.
Amazon Echo Pop: $18 ($22 off)
Amazon
The Echo Pop is a fun-sized addition to Amazon’s Echo speaker family, and it packs a serious punch. It may look like someone took a regular Echo and sliced it right down the middle, but don’t let its size fool you – it’s loaded with plenty of features.
The Echo Pop is your go-to companion for all things music, smart home control, and more. It can play your favorite songs, adjust your smart lights or run the Alexa skills you need most.
This speaker comes in a bunch of fun colors like lavender, teal, white and charcoal. It’s a cute little speaker that’s definitely worth less than $20, as it’s $22 off its normal price of $40.
Amazon Fire 40″ TV 2-Series: $170 (32% off)
Amazon
Amazon has created its own lineup of affordable Fire TVs. These all support Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant via the TV’s included voice remote.
This 2023 model Amazon Fire 40-inch 2-Series TV is great for smaller viewing spaces, especially if you’re shopping for a budget-friendly smart TV that supports all of the video streaming services you already subscribe to, including Amazon Prime Video. The TV supports HDR10 and HLG, along with Dolby Digital audio.
When watching your favorite shows, you’ll benefit from the TV’s 60Hz refresh rate. It’s not 120Hz, but its more than adequate for most programming. The TV also has two HDMI 1.4, one HDMI Arc, one USB 2.0 and one ethernet port built into the back of the unit.
Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max: $35 (42% off)
Amazon
If you have an older TV that’s does not contain smart technology, or your existing smart TV doesn’t use Amazon’s FireTV OS (and you want it to), simply plug this Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max into the HDMI port of your TV. Presto — you now have a smart TV.
This includes support for the FireTV OS and access to Alexa via the remote control.
In addition to giving you quick access to all of the video streaming services you subscribe to, when you’re not actually watching TV, the Amazon Fire TV Stick can display a selection of famous artworks as its screensaver.
Amazon Fire TV Cube: $100 (29% off)
Amazon
If you think you know everything this box can do, you may be wrong.
It can serve as a smart speaker in your home and give you ongoing access to the Alexa digital assistant. The speaker itself plays on-demand streaming audio (including music) from a handful of streaming services.
And when you also plug the TV Cube into your TV via its HDMI port, you get access to the same features and functions as an Amazon Fire TV streaming stick to your TV. So you get instant access to the FireTV OS on your TV, plus access to Alexa.
Now priced at just $100 (which is 29% off its usual price), the TV Cube is an easy way to bring Alexa digital assistant TV functionality into your home through a smart speaker and your TV — all with just one gadget.
Amazon Fire TV soundbar: $90 (25% off)
Amazon
Let’s face it: A lot of TVs look great, but when it comes to sound? Meh.
One very affordable way to improve this is to connect an Amazon Fire TV. Sure, it works with Amazon Fire TVs, but you can plug it into virtually any TV to enhance its sound quality.
For $90, you should keep your expectations in check. You’re not going to bathe in robust surround sound with rich bass via a single, low-cost soundbar. But this soundbar does generate decently powered two-channel stereo audio with support for DTS:X and Dolby Audio. This is a 24-inch long soundbar that comes with a voice-activated remote control (so yes, it supports Alexa).
The soundbar gets plugged into a power outlet and the HDMI port of your TV (using the supplied cables). Within the soundbar, you’ll benefit from two, 20-watt speakers. This gives it the power to full an average-size room with stereo sound.
Thinking about becoming a Prime member? We’ve got all your Prime Day 2024 answers covered — plus early Amazon deals you can snag right now on home, fitness gear, tech and more.
It was hard to miss the massive American flag towering over the Butler Farm Show ground on July 13 as it waved over the rally site where former President Donald Trump was set to speak, just days before a crucial running mate selection and the Republican National Convention.
On July 13, the two of us, who had been tag-teaming coverage of Trump’s third run for president for over a year, went to what we thought would be a typical Trump rally in an open field in a Pittsburgh suburb, a crucial electoral area in a crucial battleground state. It ended with a gunman trying to take Trump’s life, and the death of a fireman, Corey Comparatore.
We stood front and center in the press area at 6 p.m. and Trump took the stage (an hour late, as can be the case) and knew right away that something wasn’t right when what sounded like firecrackers went off to our left. That’s where shooter Thomas Crooks had climbed up onto an unprotected building just outside of the security perimeter and fired multiple shots.
A hydraulic lift that held up a massive stack of speakers was struck, sending smoke shooting out and the speakers slowly fell towards the ground, and as we took cover (ground twice), all we could think was to pull out our phones and get to work. Olivia recorded the sounds of panicked journalists and attendees alike huddled along the press riser and bicycle racks separating us, the shrieks of scared children, and, realized only upon listening many times since, the sound of those around Corey Comperatore yelling for assistance.
Jake spoke with emergency room Dr. James Sweetland, who ran to help Comperatore, and said that he heard the gunshots and went to assist, finding Comperatore “jammed between the benches” before attempting to save his life.
We both stood in shock as the crowd turned on us in the moments after Trump’s motorcade sped out of Butler, with one man yelling “This is your fault!”
What was to be a typical Trump rally wasn’t so typical anymore.
Eighty-four days later Trump returned, and so did the two of us, taking the same route from downtown Pittsburgh, parking in the same location, and enduring a similar heat with no shade in the press pen alongside fellow reporters who, just like us and the former president, chose to return and confront our trauma.
The stage was set up in the same location, with that same American flag looming over Trump and the crowd behind him on that day.
But for everything that was the same that day, there were striking differences. The building where the gunman had climbed up, crawled across, and ultimately fired fatal shots, was completely obstructed from the view of the crowd by tractor trailers. Several teams of snipers were stationed throughout the rally site. It was perhaps the largest crowd we have seen thus far at a Trump rally.
And we are not the same people. Witnessing the events of July 13 took away our feeling of safety while doing our jobs, and the effects of that continue to impact us. There was a moment of shock at one point, when the speaker on stage paused as the crowd shouted “medic” for a woman who fainted. We were frozen in fear hearing the same words that were shouted in the seconds after Trump’s assassination attempt, as people were shouting for a medic to take care of Comperatore.
But like July 13, we had to go to work. Like those in the crowd of tens of thousands that chose to return, there was a sense of unfinished business on this fairground. We had continued on to Milwaukeee and the Republican National Convention to cover Trump’s first public appearance since Butler, but we knew that we had to come back here, no matter how painful it was to land back in Pittsburgh, head north on Route 79 and pull off at the Butler Farm Show, and finish the job: for the two of us, for CBS News, for the country.
Unlike other speakers on the stage Saturday who championed Trump’s words of “fight, fight, fight,” Sweetland went out of his way to mention he is a former Democrat and pleaded with the crowd to reach out and find five Democrats with whom they could find commonality.
“Democrats are like teenagers,” Sweetland said. “You think they aren’t listening, but they are.”
Eight-four days later, the entire race has changed, and so have we.
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