{"id":250729,"date":"2025-07-09T12:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T12:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/250729\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T12:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T12:24:11","slug":"you-absolutely-should-not-buy-an-echo-dot-on-prime-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/250729\/","title":{"rendered":"You absolutely should not buy an Echo Dot on Prime Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aside from Black Friday, Prime Day<\/a> is the time to buy Amazon devices. Since the shopping event began in July 2015 (yes, it’s been that long already), Prime Day has been one of the most reliable days of the year to get a Kindle, Fire TV Stick or Echo speaker on sale for dirt-cheap prices. Sure, you can find them for less throughout the year, but if you pay the $139 annual premium for Prime, it\u2019s in your best interest to wait until mid-July to grab Amazon-made gear. That\u2019s still accurate this year, too \u2014 for the most part.<\/p>\n

But not for the Echo Dot. Yes, it\u2019s on sale this year for $32<\/a>. But that discounted price offends me personally \u2014 and it should offend you, too. The humble little orb of a smart speaker got the short end of the stick for Prime Day 2025. For reference, the latest edition of the Echo Dot was $23 last July Prime Day, and $23 again during the Black Friday period in 2024.<\/p>\n

While a $9 difference may not seem like much, it\u2019s a slap in the face for Prime subscribers who have come to expect the exclusive deals available to them during this arbitrary shopping event to be just as much of a perk of their membership as access to Prime Video, free two-day delivery and the like. It\u2019s worse that Amazon devices are the usual suspects when it comes to Hella Good Deals on Prime Day. If the Prime Day deal on the Echo Dot sucks, that means we can\u2019t reliably expect any of Amazon\u2019s devices to be down to record-low prices during this event.<\/p>\n

This, of course, matters not one bit to Amazon. Why the company decided to punish would-be Echo Dot purchasers this time around and not Kindle<\/a> or Fire TV<\/a> buyers will likely remain a mystery to us. But considering the uncertainty surrounding tariffs in the US and the steady<\/a> flow<\/a> of rising prices<\/a> on tech as a direct result of that, one theory I have is that Amazon is testing its customers.<\/p>\n

If Engadget’s historical Prime Day data is anything to go on, the Echo Dot is an extremely popular purchase \u2014 and Amazon likely knows that. If enough customers OK this objectively bad deal by purchasing the Echo Dot at $32 a pop, that signals to Amazon that it can continue to offer bad discounts on its devices without repercussions. I hesitate to say the days of a $23 Echo Dot are totally behind us, but they could be depending on how things go this summer.<\/p>\n

That said, the best alternative to the Echo Dot this Prime Day is the Echo Spot for $45<\/a>. Amazon revived<\/a> that smart alarm clock last year and, while I don\u2019t think it will boot the Echo Dot out of the speaker lineup any time soon, there\u2019s an argument for such a replacement considering Amazon now also has the ultra-cheap Echo Pop<\/a>. Regardless, if you were hoping to buy an Echo Dot on discount during Prime Day, I recommend skipping it and opting for the Spot or the Pop instead.<\/p>\n

In addition, here are some Prime Day deals that are actually worth your time and money that all come in at $32 or less:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aside from Black Friday, Prime Day is the time to buy Amazon devices. Since the shopping event began…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[12676,55651,32919,12,86583,246,55652,53,55649,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-250729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-commerce","9":"tag-engadgetdeals","10":"tag-gear","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-prime-day","13":"tag-shopping","14":"tag-streamshopping","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-thebuyersguide","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114823264267548762","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}