When the original Amazon Echo dropped six years ago, it cost $ 180. Google’s Smart Home speakers, released a few years later, clock in at $ 130. But these days, you can run your entire home with smart gadgets for less than both. In fact, setting up a home with a voice assistant – full of attached cameras, lights, doorbells and various sensors – is more affordable than ever.
It’s incredibly easy to snap up cheap Alexa devices to power your home. Not only can you get an Alexa voicemail for $ 20, but you can also get all the things Alexa checks for super-cheap prices. In fact, you can create an Amazon Alexa-powered smart home for less than the original Amazon Echo cost. What we are saying is that there are a lot of cheap Alexa devices. Here are the best.
Read more: 6 coolest smart home devices you did not know existed
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The best, cheapest smart speaker that Amazon offers is the always solid Echo Dot. Their latest generation Echo speaker has impressive sound quality when you want to play music (Spotify Premium, Amazon Music, Sonos and more), along with voice control and all the smarts of the higher end speakers. Place Echo devices in different rooms of your home for more room audio. Not only is the Amazon Echo Dot a reasonable $ 50, but you can also often get it for sale for $ 25. Read our review of Echo Dot (3rd Gen).
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The $ 90 Echo Show 5 is a voice assistant that brings all the visual smarts of other Amazon smart displays to a compact screen that fits in your nightstand. You can find it on sale quite often for $ 50, and it gives you a screen to view the feeds of smart cams – not to mention controlling smart devices with the touch of a finger, instead of using voice commands. Read our review of Echo Show 5.
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Amazon offers a number of other devices that add Amazon Alexa to cars, homes and other spaces, and one of the best of these is the Echo Flex, a $ 25 plug-in that brings Alexa integration to any location with a outlet. Setting up is easy via the Amazon Alexa app. Once you do that, the smart speaker brings all the smarts from the Alexa voice assistant, plus a modular design that lets you use motion sensing and night light attachments. Read our review of Amazon Echo Flex.
Tyler Lizenby / CNET
The Wyze Cam is one of the best super-cheap devices out there, with a small $ 20 price tag and an impressive set of features. With the second version of the camera, you can control your live feed on Amazon’s smart displays – all you need is the app and a Wi-Fi network. Read our Wyze Cam review.
Chris Monroe / CNET
Another surprisingly affordable smart home gadget from Wyze is the $ 8 Bulb, which you can check with Amazon Alexa. It connects directly to a Wi-Fi network, so no smart home hub is needed. These smart bulbs give you a lot of the smarts of a Philips Hue or Lifx lamp (thought the features are a bit more sparse than Philips Hue), and they work beautifully with Amazon’s smart home ecosystem. Read our review of Wyze Bulb.
