Best Prime Big Deal Days Sales on Smart Home Products

The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium offers advanced features such as a radar-based occupancy sensor, an indoor air quality sensor, built-in voice control with either Amazon Alexa or Apple Siri (which requires an Apple HomePod to work), and music streaming to its speaker via Spotify or Bluetooth (yes, really). In our lab tests, it also receives strong scores for its manual controls and automation of heating and cooling.

Want a less expensive Ecobee? The slightly less advanced Ecobee Smart Thermostat Enhanced is on sale, too, priced at $160.

The GE Cync Indoor Smart Plug makes setup simple with an app that introduces you to the features while walking you through the process. It makes it easy to create schedules for turning the plug on and off, too. The plug also performs well in our privacy and security tests.

The Meross Outdoor Smart Plug MSS620BHK receives great scores across our user experience tests. It is also the only outdoor plug in our evaluation that works with all four major smart home systems. As a drawback, it lacks energy monitoring. Each outlet can be controlled independently from the Meross app. It’s on sale for about 43 percent off its list price when using the on-page coupon.

Want indoor Meross plugs? The Meross Smart Wifi Plug Mini 4-Pack is also on sale for $28 at Amazon when using a $4 off on-page coupon.

Among the best outdoor smart plugs you can buy, the TP-Link Kasa EP40 is fairly easy to set up and even easier to use, based on our expert evaluations, offering voice/app control via Amazon Alexa, Google Home/Assistant, and Samsung SmartThings. The plug’s two outlets can be controlled independently.

The TP-Link Kasa Smart KL125 smart bulb offers the best deal of the 10 smart lightbulbs we evaluated. It retails for $15 per bulb and has a great array of colors and dimming performance that come close to the pricier Philips Hue. The bulb also works with Amazon Alexa, Google Home/Assistant, and Samsung SmartThings for voice and/or app control. With this sale, you can buy one bulb for $7, or two bulbs for just under $12 when using the on-page coupon.

To make your holiday light display really pop this year, consider the Twinkly Strings. We tried out these lights a few years ago and found them to be a fun way to put on an elaborate light show. The lights connect to WiFi, so you can customize them from your smartphone, but they also work with Amazon Alexa, Apple Home/Siri, and Google Home/Assistant. The Twinkly Music adapter isn’t on sale, but you can currently get a 200 LED set for 21 percent off, or a 400 LED set for 38 percent off.

The Aqara Camera E1 is a strong performer, especially for video quality and response time of alerts. It can store footage on a microSD card (up to 512 gigabytes; sold separately) and offers plenty of features, including  person detection, motorized pan-and-tilt so you can remotely change the camera’s view, and a privacy mode that will point the camera at a wall or ceiling.

The Blink Mini is a small indoor security camera that offers decent video quality and speedy motion alerts. You can store footage locally without a subscription if you purchase a Blink Sync Module 2, $35, and plug in a USB flash drive. Cloud video storage requires a Blink Subscription Plan. At 40 percent off, this deal gets you a versatile security camera for less than $20.

The Floodlight Cam E340 is one of Eufy’s dual-camera models, meaning it has a 3K wide-angle camera and a 2K telephoto camera that work together to give you up to 8x zoom. It’s also one of the few motorized pan-and-tilt floodlight cameras available today, allowing you to easily check the camera’s surroundings. It receives top scores for video quality and response time in our tests. Its laundry list of features includes local video storage with up to a 128-gigabyte microSD card (sold separately), motion tracking to follow subjects as they move around your home, and 24/7 video recording (not just recording when motion is detected).

On sale for 50 percent off, the well-rated Ring Indoor Cam 2nd gen features a manual camera shutter for privacy, two-way audio, activity zones, color night vision, a built-in siren, and voice/app control via Amazon Alexa. It also comes in a few fun colors: pink and starlight (a dull gold). Cloud video storage and features such as person detection require a subscription.

The TP-Link Tapo MagCam C425 is a compact, battery-powered security camera that performs well in our tests. It offers local storage with up to a 512-gigabyte microSD card (sold separately) and features person detection, pet detection, vehicle detection, monitoring zones, and more. Best of all, you don’t need a subscription to use any of these features. TP-Link also sells a $40 solar panel that can be connected to the camera to keep its battery charged. This TP-Link security camera is back down to its July Prime Day price, making it 50 percent off when using the $10 off on-page coupon.

In addition to two cameras (one aimed out at visitors, the other down at packages), the Eufy Video Doorbell E340 packs a ton of features, including color night vision (thanks to built-in spotlights), person detection, package detection, and 8 gigabytes of memory to store video locally. Eufy also offers cloud video storage subscriptions. The model can be powered with the rechargeable battery pack or low-voltage doorbell wiring.

The Google Nest Video Doorbell (Battery) offers impressive data security, speedy response times, and decent video quality in our lab tests. It’s also one of few video doorbells to give you monitoring zones, object recognition (of people, packages, animals, and vehicles), and 3 free hours of cloud video storage without a monthly subscription. Cloud video storage and additional features (such as facial recognition) require a Google Nest Aware subscription. This doorbell is about 28 percent off its list price in the ivy (a muted green) color.

Want the wired version? The Google Nest Video Doorbell (Wired 2nd Gen) is also on sale for about $150 at Amazon and Best Buy.

The Ring Battery Doorbell Plus is one of the company’s newer doorbells. In our tests, its video quality doesn’t earn top scores, but it does provide strong data security, speedy alerts, and quick-loading live video feeds. Its features include color night vision, a rechargeable and swappable battery pack, activity zones, and voice/app control via Amazon Alexa. Cloud video storage and additional features (such as person alerts) require a Ring Protect subscription. This Ring doorbell is on sale for 33 percent off its list price.

Want a slimmer Ring doorbell? The Ring Wired Doorbell Pro (formerly named the Video Doorbell Pro 2) is also on sale for $150.

One of the best (and least expensive!) doorbell cameras you can buy, the TP-Link Tapo D130 offers a bunch of features—even without a subscription. They include 24/7 recording with local video storage on a microSD card (up to 512 gigabytes, sold separately), AI object recognition (for people, vehicles, packages, and pets), activity zones, and color night vision. The model needs low-voltage doorbell wiring for power. Cloud video storage is available via subscription. This doorbell isn’t heavily discounted, but it’s such a great product that any discount is worth taking.

The Ring Alarm (2nd Gen) is one of the best DIY home security systems in our ratings, performing well in our tests for ease of setup, ease of use, data security, security essentials, and more. The system requires a $5 per month subscription to function, but it works with Amazon Alexa (for voice control) and Ring video doorbells and security cameras. Amazon is discounting a handful of Ring Alarm bundles for Prime Day by 40 percent.

Interested in a smart lock but don’t like hubs and dongles? The August WiFi Smart Lock connects directly to WiFi, no hub needed. It’s also a retrofit model, meaning it replaces only the interior side of your deadbolt so you can keep your existing keys. It performs quite well in our tests, including those for ease of remote access and convenience. Features include auto-locking and unlocking, access logs, electronic keys, and a door sensor.

As the name suggests, the Yale Assure Lock 2 is the successor to the Yale Assure Lock SL. This keyless model performs well in our tests, holding up against kick-ins and attacks from a cordless drill. It’s very easy to set up, connect to WiFi, and control remotely when you’re not home. With the included Yale WiFi Smart Module (an $80 value), it also supports Amazon Alexa, Apple Home/Siri, Google Home/Assistant, and Samsung SmartThings.

The D-Link DCH-S1621KT Wi-Fi Water Leak Sensor and Alarm Starter Kit gives you a slick app experience and speedy alerts, plus two types of leak detectors for the price of one. The plug-in detector comes with a roughly 5-foot extension cable and uses a roughly 20-inch cord to detect water. It also acts as a hub for a separate, white puck-shaped detector. That means you can place the two units in different rooms and cover multiple trouble spots in your home. Additional puck-shaped detectors cost $25. You can connect up to 16 of them to one hub.

The Rachio 3 8ZULW-C is a solid sprinkler controller that’s easy to connect to WiFi and highly responsive to local forecasts. It lost a few points in our tests because the wiring instructions are unclear, and it lacks a backup battery and weatherproof casing. (A weatherproof enclosure is sold separately for $30.) It works with up to eight sprinkler zones; four-zone and 16-zone versions are also available.

The Airthings View Plus 2960 indoor air quality monitor is a top performer in our tests. It’s very quick to set up, and you can easily view real-time readings through a smartphone app or a built-in display. The app also logs historical data from the monitor’s sensors. Unlike many other monitors, the Airthings claims to detect radon, a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas that can seep from the ground into a home. (CR didn’t test this function.)

If you hate that sinking feeling when you drive away and then wonder if you remembered to shut your garage door, you might want to consider giving it an upgrade with a Chamberlain MyQ Smart Garage Control. This affordable little gadget, discounted by 46 percent for Prime Day, connects to your garage door motor and allows you to remotely open and close your door, see its open/close status, and schedule it to automatically close if it’s left open. While this device doesn’t really work with smart home systems (such as Amazon Alexa or Apple Home), it does work with the Amazon Key and Walmart+ InHome in-garage delivery services, which allow Amazon and Walmart drivers to leave packages in your garage to keep them safe from porch pirates.

The Meross MSG100 is the best smart garage door opener controller from our at-home evaluation. It’s relatively easy to set up and install and works flawlessly with all of the major smart home systems (Amazon Alexa, Apple Home/Siri, Google Home/Assistant, and Samsung SmartThings). And now it’s back at the same low price from Amazon’s Prime Day sale in July.