Last year, I bought two Amazon Echo Dots – one for each of my teens – and this Black Friday I'll be buying two more, this time for my nephews' Christmas presents. Usually just shy of $50/£40 – and sometimes listed higher – Amazon's most popular smart speaker is on sale today for just $18.99/£18.99 – and the US bundle includes a smart bulb. A perfect price for the perfect stocking filler, I say.
For the uninitiated, the Amazon Echo Dot is a tiny smart speaker that can be used wirelessly to play music – my girls beam their smartphone playlists to their Dots, and while I'm all for good quality tech, it's around 7am on a school day I regret how loudly these tiny speakers can actually play their competing music.
However, the Echo Dot is not just a speaker, which is what makes it such a great buy for every age group – and why I'm also adding my 82 year old father to the Echo Dot gift list: you can use it to ask Alexa questions (about anything from the weather to who starred in your favorite Christmas movies), to do quizzes and even play games. It will even read children bedtime stories.
And, of course, these clever devices can be used to control all sorts of things in our homes – from lighting to your robot vacuum cleaner, and even the slow cooker, assuming yours are matched with a smart plug – it's not difficult to do – if not already equipped with smart capabilities.
The Echo Dot comes in four stylish colors – charcoal, grey, plum or sandstone, so you can choose one to suit your scheme – or your giftee's favorite shade. Keep scrolling to find out more about the deal.
More Echo devices...
Amazon sells a huge range of smart speakers from the Echo Dot to the Echo Show 5 – complete with a screen – and even Echo Auto which is for your car. The brand new Echo collection is being introduced after Prime Day but you can pre-order it now from their website. Otherwise, see all Amazon Echo devices below.
My first job was writing a DIY column for a magazine for the over 50s (which seemed a long way off back then). I then moved to a DIY magazine as deputy ed, then freelanced my way around the homes departments of most women's magazines on the market before working on Your Home and Family Circle magazines as homes editor. From there, I went to Ideal Home magazine as associate editor, then launched 4Homes magazine for Channel 4, then the Channel 4 4Homes website before going back to freelancing and running a social media business (you can see where I had kids from the freelancing gaps!). I was tempted back to the world of big business by the chance to work with the great team at Realhomes.com, where I was Global Editor-in-Chief for two and a half years, taking it from a small website to a global entity. I've now handed the reins of the website to our American managing editor, while I take on a new challenge as Editor-in-Chief of Homes & Gardens.
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