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This story is part of Amazon Prime DayCNET’s guide to everything you need to know and how to find the best deals.

Amazon’s annual Prime Day sale returns July 12-13, and some deals are already live in the run-up to the event. Not surprisingly, that includes a smattering of deals on Echo speakers and other Amazon devicesa few of which are already marked down to all-time lows.

If you’re an avid Alexa user interested in expanding the assistant’s footprint throughout your home, then you’ll obviously want to give those deals a look, but other smart home manufacturers are likely to be in the mix, too. from smart lights to robot vacuumsit’s a safe bet that you’ll be able to find Prime Day discounts across a variety of categories, and competing retailers like Walmart, Best Buy and Target figure to be in the mix with smart home sales of their own, too.

That said, as far as smart home gadgets are concerned, the absolute best discounts of the year typically come in November, when Black Friday unleashes a flood of deals at holiday shoppers. Your best bet is to save any major purchases for then — but Prime Day can still be a great time to expand your smart home setup with a new device or two, or to try out something completely different. Here’s what you should know as you shop.

Read more: Best Cheap Alexa Devices of 2022

Prime Day pickings are slimmer than Black Friday

Don’t get me wrong, we’re definitely going to see discounted smart home tech for Prime Day, and some of those deals might indeed be pretty tempting. You can already find good deals on smart plugs, smart displays, self-emptying robot vacuums and more, many of which bring the prices of those products down to the lowest levels we’ve seen all year.

Historically, however, the best sales of the year come closer to the holiday buying season — specifically, on Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday at the end of November. Simply put, there’s a much, much greater number of shoppers ready to spend; in turn, that means a much greater number of manufacturers pulling out all of the stops to compete for your dollar.

On top of that, your Prime Day pickings are going to lean heavily toward the Amazon side of things, with many of the best discounts reserved for echo speakers and other Alexa-compatible devices. It isn’t all Alexa, though. Echo stuff aside, a good number of those third-party devices will work in Google Assistant smart homes and in some cases Apple HomeKit smart homes, too. Meanwhile, other retailers like Best Buy and Target working to counter-program Amazon with summertime sales of their own might provide some additional variety among brands and devices. Still, for the most part, Prime Day’s smart home deals are always going to skew toward Alexa. Maybe that’s exactly what you’re looking for — but maybe it isn’t.

In the end,