Black Friday 2023: Smart Home Deals Actually Worth Your Money

Black Friday is the single best time of year to buy smart home gear. Amazon, Google, and every other manufacturer practically give their devices away as loss leaders to pull you into their ecosystems. Your job is to take advantage of the genuine deals and avoid the junk that\'s "discounted" from a fake MSRP it was never actually sold at. Here\'s my breakdown for 2023.

The No-Brainer Deals

Amazon Echo Devices

Amazon cuts Echo prices aggressively every Black Friday. These are practically guaranteed:

• Echo Dot 5th Gen — Expect $23 (down from $50). At this price, put one in every room. Sound quality on the 5th gen is genuinely decent for a bedside alarm clock / voice assistant.
• Echo Show 5 3rd Gen — Expect $40 (down from $90). Great kitchen companion for recipes, timers, and video calls.
• Echo Show 8 2nd Gen — Expect $65 (down from $130). Better speaker, bigger screen, good for a nightstand smart display.
• Echo Pop — Expect $18 (down from $40). Amazon\'s budget speaker, fine for voice commands in a closet or laundry room.

At these prices, Echo Dots are impulse buys. If you\'re in the Alexa ecosystem, stock up.

Ring Security

• Ring Video Doorbell (2nd Gen, wired) — Expect $60 (down from $100). If you don\'t already have a video doorbell, this is the year to get one.
• Ring Alarm 8-Piece Kit (2nd Gen) — Expect $150 (down from $250). Base station, keypad, contact sensors, motion detector, range extender. A solid DIY security starter kit.
• Blink Outdoor 3-Camera System — Expect $100 (down from $250). Battery-powered outdoor cameras. Not the best video quality, but dead simple and the batteries last 2 years.

Google Nest

• Nest Mini — Often free with purchase of another Nest device, or $18 standalone. Google practically pays you to take these.
• Nest Hub 2nd Gen — Expect $50 (down from $100). The sleep tracking via radar is actually useful, and it\'s a Thread border router for Matter devices.
• Nest Doorbell (battery) — Expect $90 (down from $130). A strong Ring doorbell alternative with superior person/package/animal detection.

Premium Deals Worth Watching

Lighting

• Nanoleaf Shapes — Historically 40–50% off. If you\'ve ever wanted those hexagonal light panels on your wall, Black Friday is when you buy them. Starter kits should drop to $100–$120.
• Philips Hue Starter Kits — Typically 30% off. The White & Color A19 4-bulb + Bridge starter kit should hit around $110–$120 (normally $160+). This is the best entry point into the Hue ecosystem.
• LIFX bulbs — Usually 25–30% off on Amazon. Good alternative to Hue if you don\'t want a hub.

Smart Plugs and Switches

• TP-Link Kasa and Tapo products — Always deeply discounted. Multi-packs of smart plugs drop to $3–4 per plug. The Kasa HS103 4-pack often hits $20. At that price, buy two packs and automate everything in sight.
• Meross smart plugs — Similar pricing to Kasa, with HomeKit support. A 4-pack for around $25 is typical.
• Lutron Caseta — Doesn\'t get massive discounts, but the starter kit sometimes drops $15–20. If you see the dimmer starter kit under $70, grab it.

Thermostats

• Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium — Expect $200 (down from $250). Sometimes bundled with an extra room sensor.
• Google Nest Learning Thermostat — The 3rd gen often hits $170 (down from $250).
• Amazon Smart Thermostat — Expect $40 (down from $80). It\'s basic, but at forty bucks you really can\'t complain.

What to Skip

Not every "deal" is worth your money. Here\'s what I\'d avoid:

• First-generation anything — If a product just launched in September and it\'s 20% off for Black Friday, it\'s likely still buggy. Let other people beta-test it. Wait for the second generation or at least a few firmware updates.
• Devices with mandatory expensive subscriptions at full price — A Ring camera at 50% off is a deal. A Ring camera at 10% off when you know you need a $100/year Ring Protect plan to make it useful? Less of a deal. Factor in the subscription cost over 2–3 years before you decide.
• Off-brand Zigbee devices without a hub — That $8 Zigbee sensor from a brand you\'ve never heard of? It probably requires a specific hub or app that\'ll be abandoned in 6 months. Stick with established brands (Aqara, SONOFF, Philips) for Zigbee.
• Products from companies facing financial trouble — Check if the company is stable. A bankrupt smart home company means bricked devices and dead apps. Do a quick search before buying.

Shopping Strategy

Don\'t wing it. Have a plan:

• Make your list now — Write down exactly what you need. Not want. Need. The biggest Black Friday waste is buying things you never end up using because they were "such a good deal."
• Set CamelCamelCamel alerts — This free tool tracks Amazon price history and alerts you when a product drops below your target price. You\'ll also see if that "50% off" is real or if the seller inflated the MSRP last month.
• Check Slickdeals — The community there catches deals fast, including ones that don\'t make it to the main retail pages. Set up deal alerts for specific products.
• Buy early — The best Black Friday deals often start a week before actual Black Friday now. Amazon\'s "Black Friday Week" deals start dropping in mid-November. The truly good deals sell out, so don\'t wait for Friday itself.
• Compare across retailers — Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and Amazon all price-match each other, but they don\'t always have the same stock. A deal that sells out on Amazon might still be available at Best Buy.

The Bottom Line

The best Black Friday deal is on a device you\'ll actually set up and use every day. A $23 Echo Dot that becomes your kitchen timer, weather briefing, and music speaker is a phenomenal purchase. A $200 smart lock that you put in a drawer because installation looked complicated is a $200 waste.

Know what problems you\'re trying to solve, buy the right tools to solve them, and set everything up the weekend after Thanksgiving while you\'re still off work. That last part is important — the number one reason smart home devices end up unused is that people buy them and never get around to the setup.

Happy deal hunting. Your wallet might not thank me, but your smart home will.