The best Prime Day smart home deals we found

3 weeks ago 9

Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days kicked off today, and as always, it’s an excellent time to pick up good deals on great smart home gear. I scoured through deals on video doorbells, robot vacuums, smart lights, smart speakers, and more to gather up some of the best bargains that caught my eye. Check out a full list of all the deals in our main post, and read on for smart home deals. The sale runs through October 9th.

Smart speakers and smart displays

  • The Echo Hub is seeing a nice discount to $125, down from $180. This is Amazon’s first bona fide smart home controller, a flat panel designed to be mounted to the wall or popped on a desk. It’s great for quick access to smart home devices like lights, locks, cameras, and music and can double as an alarm panel for your Ring security system. Read my review.
  • The Echo Pop smart speaker is back down to $18 at Amazon and is a great way to add voice control with Amazon’s Alexa to every corner of your home. Read my Echo Pop review.

The fifth-gen Echo Dot touts a temperature sensor, better sound, and faster response time than the prior model. It can also act as an extender for your Eero Wi-Fi system. Read our review.

  • If you want a better sound boost for listening to music and podcasts, the excellent Echo Dot is down to $23. This is a great price for a fully featured smart speaker. Pairing two is a good way to add stereo, and it works well on either side of a bed for some room-filling tunes.

Video doorbells

  • The Ring Battery Doorbell Plus is down to $100. This is my top pick for a battery-powered doorbell, offering a crisp 1536 x 1536 video resolution along with a head-to-toe view of your porch. You’ll have to pay for a Ring subscription for alerts when there are people or packages at your door, but it’s very accurate with its notifications.

Ring’s first battery doorbell with a head-to-toe view has improved video quality and features people and package alerts. Plus, there’s a removable battery for easy charging.

  • For a subscription-free doorbell option, the Tapo D225 video doorbell is $20 off, down to $80 at Amazon. It offers free smart alerts for people, packages, and pets and the option of free 24/7 recording if you pop in a microSD card. Otherwise, it’s $2.79 a month for motion-activated recording, about half the price of the Ring subscription. Read my review of the Tapo D225.
  • The Aqara G4 Video Doorbell is one of only a few doorbell cameras that works with Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video option, an end-to-end encrypted video storage service. At $89.99 on Amazon (with the on-page coupon), it’s the cheapest video doorbell compatible with Apple, and the battery-powered doorbell can be wired, too. It also works with Alexa and Google Home. Read my review of the Aqara G4.

Robot vacuums

  • iRobot’s Roomba j7 Plus, my previous top pick for the best robot vacuum, is just $400 at Amazon. That’s 50 percent off for a self-emptying robot vac with superb cleaning power and the best obstacle recognition of any brand I’ve tested — meaning it won’t get tangled up in your shoelaces. Read my review of the j7.
  • My pick for the best budget robot vacuum, the Roomba i3 Plus, is down to $250 from $550 at Amazon. This includes the self-empty dock, and while the robot lacks the obstacle recognition and mapping of the j7, it’s a true workhorse and will keep your carpets and hardwood floors spotless. Read my i3 review.
  • The Eufy S1 Pro is $500 off, down to $999.99 at Amazon. This is a superb mopping robot vacuum that can also self-empty, refill, and clean its long roller mop. Its square-ish design allows it to get into corners more easily, and its wide and long mop tackles hardwood floors quickly and efficiently.

Roborock’s Q5 Pro on a hardwood floor.Roborock’s Q5 Pro on a hardwood floor.

The Q5 Pro has a big 770ml bin, 5,500Pa of suction power, and can be paired with an auto-empty dock, making it a great budget option when it’s on sale. It also mops with a removable mopping pad with a small built-in water tank. It has dual rubber brushes, lidar mapping, and keep-out zones, and the app is very good.

Smart lights

Philips Hue’s starter kit is a great option for those looking to get started with smart lighting; one comes with two color-changing A19 800-lumen bulbs and a Philips Hue Bridge.

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