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Amazon just released the Echo Spot alarm clock, and it’s on sale ahead of Prime Day
Amazon
Amazon’s already expansive lineup of Alexa-enabled devices keeps growing. The latest addition: A smart alarm clock that might actually make mornings tolerable.
If you’re the type of person who needs a bit more nudging to wake up each day, you’re not alone. But the Amazon Echo Spot smart alarm clock can do its part to make rising and shining each day a bit simpler. This customizable clock offers rich, vibrant sound and a slew of other Alexa-centric features to make easing into the day not only tolerable, but fun.
The Echo Spot only just debuted, and it’s already on sale at Amazon ahead of Prime Day 2024. You can snag one in multiple colors for a 44% discount, making it just $45 versus its retail price of $80. Alternatively, you can get the Echo Spot with its charging stand bundled together for just $75, marked down from its normal price of $110.
If you want to see what all the fuss is about, you’ll want to add this smart alarm clock to your cart and bring it home before this sale comes to an end after Prime Day.
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.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says workers at seven Amazon facilities will begin a strike Thursday morning in an effort by the union to pressure the e-commerce giant for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized walkouts in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Dec. 15 deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it doesn’t expect any impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.
The Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and corporate offices.
Amazon is ranked No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest companies.
At a warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island, thousands of workers who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. At the other facilities, employees – including many delivery drivers – have unionized with them by demonstrating majority support but without holding government-administered elections.
The strikes happening Thursday are taking place at an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City, Atlanta and the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at the other facilities are “prepared to join” them, the union said.
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” he said.
The Seattle-based online retailer has been seeking to re-do the election that led to the union victory at the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.
Meanwhile, Amazon says the delivery drivers, which the Teamsters have organized for more than a year, aren’t its employees. Under its business model, the drivers work for third-party businesses, called Delivery Service Partners, who drop off millions of packages to customers everyday.
“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.“
The Teamsters have argued Amazon essentially controls everything the drivers do and should be classified as an employer.
Some U.S. labor regulators have sided with the union in filings made before the NLRB. In September, Amazon boosted pay for the drivers amid the growing pressure.
NEW YORK — The Teamsters union is launching a strike against Amazon at numerous locations across the country, including in Maspeth, Queens.
The Teamsters are calling it the largest strike against Amazon in United States history, and it’s set to begin at 6 a.m. Thursday. In addition to New York City, workers will be joining picket lines in Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco and Illinois.
In a video announcement released Wednesday night, workers voiced their frustrations.
“Us being strike ready means we’re fed up, and Amazon is clearly ignoring us and we want to be heard,” one worker says in the video.
“It’s really exciting. We’re taking steps for ourselves to win better conditions, better benefits, better wages,” another worker in the video says.
The union says it represents about 10,000 Amazon employees and that Amazon ignored a deadline to come to the table and negotiate. The $2 trillion company doesn’t pay employees enough to make ends meet, the union asserts.
At the height of the holiday season, many are wondering what this means for packages currently in transit.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said, “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed.”
Amazon says Teamsters are misleading the public
An Amazon spokesperson says the Teamsters are misleading the public and do not represent any Amazon employees, despite any claims.
“The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
An Amazon representative says the company doesn’t expect operations to be impacted.
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