GoKawiil
Tech News
Amazon has launched its fall Prime Day sale, featuring discounts on Alexa-enabled devices. However, recent price increases across Amazon’s product lines mean that not all deals are equally advantageous, and some may not represent genuine savings. An expert with extensive experience in Amazon devices has analyzed which offers are truly worthwhile for consumers.
Several Amazon Echo Alexa Plus speakers have been observed emitting continuous 'lalala' sounds for minutes, often during user conversations. The issue has been widely reported on Reddit, with videos showing the strange behavior, and Amazon confirmed it is caused by a bug affecting a small subset of devices, with a fix underway.
Amazon has announced significant discounts on a range of products for Prime Day 2026, including budget Bluetooth speakers, Android earbuds, workout headphones, and upgraded smart displays. The deals feature notable price drops on popular items like the JBL Go 5, Google Pixel Buds Pro 2, Beats Powerbeats Pro 2, and the Echo Show 11, among others. Many of these discounts are the lowest prices seen since their respective launches.
Amazon has started discounting several Alexa-powered Echo speakers and Fire TV sticks ahead of its fall Prime Big Deal Days sale scheduled for October 6-7. WIRED's testing notes that Amazon raised prices on these device categories by about $20 at the end of August, so current sale prices—some advertised as $40 off—represent smaller real savings than they appear. Most Kindles remain full price except the three Kindle Kids models, while Paperwhite, Scribe, and Eero routers are not yet discounted.
A Reddit user named PartiallyFrozen bought a first-generation Amazon Echo Spot for $4 and converted it into a custom dashboard by rooting the device, installing LineageOS, and building an Android-based interface. The AI coding tool Claude Code guided the entire process, and the finished device now displays market data, PC usage stats, speech-to-text output, and task updates by communicating with a small AI agent running on the user's computer.
Amazon's second-generation Echo Auto, a dongle bringing Alexa to cars without built-in smart infotainment, is now listed as 'Currently unavailable' on its product page with no restock date given. Reddit users first noticed the device had also disappeared from direct search results on Amazon.
Amazon has discounted its latest Echo Spot smart alarm clock to $54.99, down from its $109.99 list price. The device, which lacks a camera unlike the original Echo Spot, features a small customizable display, Night Mode, Alexa voice control, alarms, timers, and dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
Amazon confirmed its Prime Big Deal Days sale will run for two days starting at 3:01am ET on October 6, spanning more than 35 product categories including electronics, kitchenware, fashion and beauty. Brands like Shark, Anker, Sony and Lego are expected to participate, alongside discounts on Amazon's own Kindle and Echo devices, plus a dedicated Halloween deals section.
Amazon now offers five distinct personality styles for Alexa—Brief, Chill, Sweet, Sassy and Original—that change the tone of responses without altering Alexa's functionality. Users can switch styles by voice command or through the Alexa app's device settings menu, with the Sassy option requiring an age confirmation due to its cheekier, more colorful responses. Each Echo device must be configured separately, since the personality setting is not shared across a household's devices.
A review roundup names four top Alexa-enabled smart speakers for 2026: the Echo Dot Max, Echo Dot (5th Gen), Echo Show 11 and Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen). The Echo Studio (2nd Gen) and Echo Spot (2nd Gen) also earn honorable mentions for their audio quality and compact design respectively, with the Studio singled out for its powerful, clear sound from three 1.5-inch drivers and a 3.75-inch woofer.
Amazon has increased prices by $20 to $100 across several of its hardware lines, including Kindle e-readers, Echo speakers, Eero routers and Fire TV devices, with the steepest hikes hitting its cheaper, best-selling models. An Amazon spokesperson told CNET the increases stem from rising memory and storage component costs, though Amazon would not comment directly to WIRED. Notably, the pricier Kindle Scribe lineup was left untouched despite using similar components.
Amazon has discounted its 15.6-inch 2nd-generation Echo Show 15 smart display by $80, bringing the price down from $349.99 to $269.99, a 23% reduction. The deal matches the best pricing seen since Amazon's June Prime Day event.