Amazons colorful Echo Pop is on sale for just $17.99 ahead of Prime Day

Amazon’s colorful Echo Pop is on sale for just $17.99 ahead of Prime Day

Amazon’s Echo Pop speaker comes in a host of fun colors, including an attractive teal option. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Amazon Prime Day inches ever closer, with deals having already kicked off on Amazon devices and a host of other items courtesy of Amazon’s “Buy with Prime” program. Overall, there are a number of solid deals to find — from Hisense TVs to Anker chargers — but one of the most notable applies to Amazon’s newest smart speaker: the Echo Pop. Right now, Prime subscribers can pick up the smart speaker at Amazon for just $17.99 ($22 off) or with a Sengled smart bulb for just $1 more.

Unsurprisingly, the Pop sheds a few features found on pricier smart speakers to hit its bargain-level price point. It offers fewer sensors than the fifth-gen Echo Dot, for instance, and skips the physical Action button found on most other Echo models, which lets you prompt Alexa without saying a wake word. Nonetheless, the Pop is the cheapest Matter controller you can buy at the moment, rendering it as futureproof as it is colorful. What’s more, it features quick performance and plenty of Alexa-based smarts, making it a great option if you want to upgrade from an older Echo model or dip your toe into Amazon’s vast ecosystem of smart home devices.

Read our Echo Pop review.

The season for spring cleaning might be over, but there’s rarely been a better time than now to grab iRobot’s Roomba i3 Evo. Normally $349.99, the budget-friendly robot vacuum is on sale at Amazon right now for just $250, nearly matching its best price to date.

Several years after making its debut, the i3 Evo remains our favorite robovac for those working with a tighter budget. It lacks many of the premium bells and whistles associated with our top pick, the poop-dodging iRobot j7, yet it still offers the same suction power and a similar set of software features. It sports a physical spot-cleaning button for tackling quick jobs, along with smart mapping, letting you control which rooms you’d like it to clean. What it lacks is the j7’s bigger battery and AI obstacle avoidance — two features that are by no means a deal-breaker given the i3 Evo currently costs half the price without its optional auto-empty station.

A few more deals to kick-start your weekend

• In case you missed it in one of our aforementioned Prime Day guides, the latest Kindle Paperwhite Kids is on sale at Amazon for Prime members for $104.99 ($65 off). That’s easily the best price to date on the ad-free ebook reader, which is identical to the standard Paperwhite but comes with an extended two-year warranty, a year of Amazon Kids Plus, and one of three kid-friendly covers. Read our review.
• Right now, you can pick up a single 1,100-lumen Wyze Bulb Color for just $12.29 on Amazon. Wyze’s full-color, dimmable A19 bulbs typically go for around $16, making today’s discount a solid deal if you’re looking for a good budget smart bulb that works over Wi-Fi and supports scheduling, timers, and voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant.
• Not to be outdone, Walmart plans to host its own deal extravaganza next week to compete with Prime Day. We don’t know much about what will be on offer, but we do know Walmart Plus subscribers will get early access to deals beginning on July 10th. Thankfully, if you’re not already a Walmart Plus subscriber, new members can still sign up for an annual membership at Walmart for just $49 (half off). The premium membership functions a lot like Amazon Prime, giving you access to exclusive perks such as free shipping, limited-time deals, and streaming services like Paramount Plus.