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Get an Echo Pop speaker with a free TP-Link smart light bulb for only $23

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If you like the idea of turning on a light just by talking, here’s an affordable smart home starter bundle. For those already comfortable with the automated life, this deal will give you one more thing to control and one more receptacle for your demands. Amazon’s smallest smart speaker, the Echo Pop, bundled with a TP-Link Kasa smart bulb is now $23. The speaker goes for as much at $40 at full price, though the lowest we’ve seen it drop is $18 for Black Friday last year. The bulb has a $23 list price, but dropped to $15 a few times before. In all, the bundle marks a $40 discount off the full price and a $22 savings over the two items’ current sale prices. The Kasa bulb made the cut in our guide to smart bulbs.

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The Echo Pop goes for $40 on its own and the bulb sells for as much as $23 at full price, so this bundle represents a $40 discount off the list prices. 

$23 at Amazon

The larger Echo Dot speaker is also on sale, bundled with the same bulb. The set is down to $40, a 45 percent discount over buying the two items separately and at full price. Since they’re both on sale individually right now, getting the set saves you $22 over current sale prices. The Echo Dot is our top pick for a smart speaker under $50 because it puts out big sound for its size, has handy physical controls and grants access to Alexa’s helpfulness — a selling point if you prefer that assistant’s capabilities over another.

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Computers

My Favorite Things an Amazon Echo Show Can Do (2024)

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There are a ton of tricks that smart displays can do. But not all of them are created equal or are worth doing on this style of advice.

The basics are easy—just about anyone knows how handy it is to ask any smart speaker or smart display to tell you the weather or play music. And you should! It’s their best use case, especially since smart displays like the Echo Show can give you more weather details onscreen. But that’s not all these handy devices do, and for the price you should get the most out of any smart display you buy.

Amazon’s Echo Shows have their own special tricks and ways to activate them. Here are my three favorite uses for an Echo Show and how to fix my least favorite feature. Do you think you would prefer another system? Don’t forget to check out our guides to the Best Smart Speakers and How to Set Up Your Smart Home.

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Play With Widgets

Widgets are my favorite casual feature of Echo Shows. They’re little squares with shortcut content that you can customize, ranging from a sticky note or calendar to managing your smart home, quick access to certain music, and so much more.

Originally, they were only on the massive Echo Show 15, but they’re now available on the Echo Show 8 and 10 as well. On the Echo Show 15, the widgets are constantly onscreen thanks to the large real estate, and there’s a widget panel that can fit up to 10 widgets. For the Echo Shows 8 and 10, they appear in the slideshow that rotates onscreen. You can display up to four widgets on the Echo Show 8 and up to six on the Echo Show 10.

I love using mine to put a calendar view, my smart-home favorites, and the weather in an easy-to-see place. They’re great for customizing your smart-home control if you want your device to focus on that; the Echo Hub (8/10, WIRED Recommends) depends entirely on widgets as a smart-home-focused device.

Tabletlike device sitting on wooden surface in the corner of a room. The screen displays a schedule the weather and...

Photograph: Nena Farrell

Check on Your Kids and Cats

Echo Shows also have a camera at the top of the screen that can be used for both video calls and as an indoor security camera–well, sort of. There are two main features under this umbrella: Live Feed, which allows you to view live feeds happening from an Echo Show device, and Home Monitoring, which you can use with other smart-home devices and set up routines.

You can ask any Echo Show to give you the live feed of another Show device, as long as you know the name of the device (or you can just choose it from the device list if you don’t want to use voice commands). This is an easy way to quickly check in on say, pets and kids, without a full-blown security camera. The device will alert anyone in the room that someone is using the Echo Show to monitor the room, so it’s not as discreet as a true security camera.

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Entertainment

Pick up the 2023 Echo Show 8 with a free smart bulb for $100 in the Amazon Spring Sale

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Today marks the end of the Amazon Big Spring Sale and there are still a few tech deals still worth checking out, including this bundle of an Echo Show 8 paired with an Amazon Basics smart bulb. If you bought them at full price and separately, you’d pay $163, but now the set is down to $100. That amounts to a 38 percent discount. If you want the smart display on its own, it’s the same $100. That’s about $10 more than its record low price and a 33 percent savings.

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The Amazon Big Spring Sale is taking 38 percent off the latest Echo Show 8 smart display and throwing in a free Amazon smart bulb.

$100 at Amazon

If you’re just starting on the path towards smart home grandeur, you can think of the set as a starter kit, as the Echo Show gives you voice and routine control over your new bulb. We named the previous generation of the Echo Show 8 the best Amazon display in our guide. It strikes a good balance between not taking up too much space and offering a sizable enough viewing area with its 8-inch screen. We also liked how adept it is at handling video calls.

We were able to get a look at this latest version of the display at a demo during Amazon’s hardware event last fall. It has a new edge-to-edge glass front and a more refined design overall. But perhaps the most interesting update is the introduction of the adaptive content feature. Depending on where you are in the room, the display will show different content: large-font time and weather info when you’re far away, and more personalized calendar and news articles when you get closer.

The bulb lets you change its brightness and color just by talking to your smart display. You can also use the Alexa app to set up routines that will, for example, turn off the light when you say “goodnight” or turn it on an hour before sunset.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

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The Amazon Echo Buds are down to a record-low $35 for the Big Spring Sale

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The Amazon Big Spring Sale is in full swing, and one of our favorite affordable pairs of wireless earbuds is even cheaper because of it. The 2023 Echo Buds are down to $35 in this Amazon deal, which is their lowest price yet. These Echo Buds have a lot of improvements over the previous model, and we like them for their detailed and balanced sound profile, built-in Alexa support and five hours of battery life. It’s also worth noting that this deal is available to anyone. Unlike Prime Day, this sale event isn’t as heavy on Prime-exclusive discounts.

Amazon

Amazon’s Echo Buds are available today for a record-low price.

$35 at Amazon

The third-generation Echo Buds were redesigned to lose the silicone tips and adopt a more AirPods-like form factor. This leads to a more open design that makes it easier to listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks without blocking out your environment. Despite the buds themselves being longer than previous models, their USB-C charging case remains pleasingly compact.

The buds support multipoint connectivity, so you can seamlessly switch them between host devices. Setup takes place in the Alexa app, where you can view the battery life of each earbud and their charging case. You can also control their EQ, SideTone (how much of your voice you hear during calls) and VIP Filter settings in the app. It even has a Find My tool to help you locate them if you ever lose them.

None of that would matter if the Echo Buds sounded terrible, but we were impressed with what they offer for their price point. After testing them, Engadget’s Billy Steele wrote, “Softer and acoustic genres like bluegrass, folk and lighter country sound great, with the warm strums of Zach Bryan’s guitars and vocals on American Heartbreak cutting through the mix.” He found the Echo Buds’ tuning to be generally well-balanced across genres.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

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Pick up an Echo Dot for only $35 during the Amazon Big Spring Sale

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The Amazon Big Spring Sale is here, and though not exclusive to its products, some of its devices are touting great discounts. Take Amazon’s Echo Dot, which is 30 percent off, dropping to $35 from $50. The fifth-generation device is one of our picks for the best smart speakers of 2024, and the more affordable price makes it all the more tempting.

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The fifth-gen Echo Dot came out in 2022 but is still Amazon’s latest edition in the series. It has similar capabilities to other smart speakers but at a fraction of the cost. It’s a small but mighty device, with excellent sound and clarity for the price point. It utilizes Alexa for most actions but has physical buttons for adjusting the volume and muting the mic.

Amazon’s Echo Dot with a clock is also on sale, with a 17 percent discount dropping its price to $50 from $60. If you’re looking for a slightly more advanced option, then check out Amazon’s fourth-generation Echo. The device is down to $65 from its usual $100. It offers additional features like Dolby audio and a built-in camera shutter.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

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The Amazon Echo Buds are down to a record-low $35 right now

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Amazon’s Echo Buds are on sale for their lowest price yet. You can get the retailer’s AirPods alternatives today for a mere $35 (that’s $15 off). One of Engadget’s picks for the best budget wireless earbuds, the Echo Buds have a clear, detailed and balanced sound profile, built-in Alexa support and five hours of battery life. The discount comes a few days before Amazon’s Big Spring Sale is set to kick off on March 20.

Amazon

Amazon’s Echo Buds are available today for a record-low price.

$35 at Amazon

The third-generation Echo Buds were redesigned to lose the silicone tips and adopt a more AirPods-like form factor. This leads to a more open design that makes it easier to listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks without blocking out your environment. Despite the buds themselves being longer than previous models, their USB-C charging case remains pleasingly compact.

The buds support multipoint connectivity, so you can seamlessly switch them between host devices. Setup takes place in the Alexa app, where you can view the battery life of each earbud and their charging case. You can also control their EQ, SideTone (how much of your voice you hear during calls) and VIP Filter settings in the app. It even has a Find My tool to help you locate them if you ever lose them.

None of that would matter if the Echo Buds sounded terrible, but we were impressed with what they offer for their price point. After testing them, Engadget’s Billy Steele wrote, “Softer and acoustic genres like bluegrass, folk and lighter country sound great, with the warm strums of Zach Bryan’s guitars and vocals on American Heartbreak cutting through the mix.” He found the Echo Buds’ tuning to be generally well-balanced across genres.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

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