You definitely should not buy an Echo Dot this Prime Day

Prime Day is basically Black Friday for Amazon’s own devices. For almost as long as the shopping event has taken place (it started in July 2015, if you forgot), it’s been one of the most reliable days of the year to snag Amazon gadgets like Kindles Echo speakers and Fire tablets at dirt-cheap prices. Amazon has regular sales all the time, but if you still shell out $139 annually for Prime, it’s in your best interest to wait until mid-July to grab gear that Amazon makes itself. That’s still accurate this year, too — for the most part.

But not for the Echo Dot. Yes, it’s on sale this year for $32. But that discounted price offends me personally — 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.

While a $9 difference may not seem like much, it’s 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’s 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’t reliably expect any of Amazon’s devices to be down to record-low prices during this event.

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 or Fire TV buyers will likely remain a mystery to us. But considering the uncertainty surrounding tariffs in the US and the steady flow of rising prices on tech as a direct result of that, one theory I have is that Amazon is testing its customers.

If Engadget's historical Prime Day data is anything to go on, the Echo Dot is an extremely popular purchase — 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.

That said, the best alternative to the Echo Dot this Prime Day is the Echo Spot for $45. Amazon revived that smart alarm clock last year and, while I don’t think it will boot the Echo Dot out of the speaker lineup any time soon, there’s an argument for such a replacement considering Amazon now also has the ultra-cheap Echo Pop. 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.

In addition, here are some Prime Day deals that are actually worth your time and money that all come in at $32 or less:

• This $23 handheld fan that has already saved me from melting this year in the New York City summer heat.

• The $18 Amazon Fire TV Stick HD that we recently named our favorite budget streaming device.

• A $16 Samsung Galaxy SmartTag 2, a favorite Bluetooth tracker of ours if you're a Samsung fan but also have a habit of losing things like your wallet or keys.

• A $20 AirTag, if you're also prone to losing things but identify as an iOS stan.

• This $14 Anker wireless charging stand that's super basic, gets the job done and lets you power up your phone in either portrait or landscape mode.

• This $19 Soundcore speaker that's a little larger than palm-sized and sounds pretty decent for its size.

• These $22 Kasa smart bulbs that are hard to beat if you're looking for no-brainer IoT devices to start your smart home ecosystem.

• This $13 Anker USB-C charging adapter because, if you're like me, you need to have one of these in basically every room so you can always charge your phone.

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