Get an Echo Dot for $1 When Signing Up for Amazon Music Unlimited With Early Prime Deal

Get an Echo Dot for $1 When Signing Up for Amazon Music Unlimited With Early Prime Deal

Smart speakers can be a big help to have around the house. They offer a convenient way to perform tasks such as checking the weather, setting timers and alarms to keep you on schedule and streaming music, all completely hands-free. If you always have music playing throughout your house, Amazon has an offer you'll want to see. 

The company's Prime Day sales bonanza won't kick off until July 12, but plenty of early Prime Day deals are already available. Right now, any new subscriber who signs up for a one month individual plan of Amazon Music Unlimited can get a third-gen Amazon Echo Dot smart speaker for just $1, saving you $29 compared to buying the speaker on its own. To get the discount, you must be a new Echo device customer, and buy both the speaker and subscription on a single order.

The third-gen Echo Dot, which was originally released in 2018, is no longer Amazon's most advanced smart speaker, but still offers many of the same features and functions as the newer fourth-gen Dot. You can use it to control other Alexa-enabled smart devices like lights or locks, set custom alarms and routines and stream music from tons of different services, including Amazon Music Unlimited.

Amazon Music Unlimited, which starts at $10 a month for the individual plan (or $9 if you're a Prime member), is one of our favorite music streaming services for 2022. You get access to over 90 million, many of which you can stream in high-res lossless quality, as well as millions of podcast episodes. You don't have to sit through any ads, and you can also download songs and albums so you can take them with you anywhere you go. 

Don't need an Echo Dot? Amazon is also offering new subscribers four free months of Amazon Music Unlimited for a limited time.

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Amazon Echo's spooky sounds and stories can get you ready for Halloween. Here's how

Amazon Echo's spooky sounds and stories can get you ready for Halloween. Here's how

Spooky season is here. That means it's time to pick out costumes, candy and cue up your favorite Halloween movies. But Alexa has a few ways to help you get in the Halloween spirit, too. Your Amazon Echo device can play spooky sounds throughout the house, control smart lights and tell scary stories once you add a few Alexa skills. The voice assistant can even help you find a last-minute costume just in time for your spooktacular soiree (more below). 

You can add Halloween skills from the Amazon site or a voice command to give your home a creepy vibe (most of them are free). And if you want to really go all out, Google and Ring have a few Halloween tricks and treats to give all of your smart home devices a spooktacular feeling. 

We'll show you how to set up some of our favorite Halloween skills so you can use them this weekend (and year-round if you're obsessed with Halloween, like me). Here are our favorite ways an Amazon Echo ($37 at Amazon) can make your home spooky on All Hallows' Eve. And if you're having trouble with your Echo-enabled device, here are a few common problems and easy solutions. 

Scare neighbors with your Echo speaker 

If you've got multiple Echo speakers, it can be fun to place one outside, out of sight, to spook others. For example, you can broadcast creepy sounds or play Halloween music. You can also use the Drop In feature on the speaker to let trick-or-treaters know from a safe distance that you enjoy their costume or how much candy to take. Note that it may be best to set out small bags of candy to avoid dozens of hands touching each piece. You should also make sure your Echo is out of the rain to prevent any water damage. 

Play spooky sounds

It's not Halloween without creepy sounds, and there are many Alexa skills that provide them. You can also say, "Alexa, let's get spooky" to prompt Alexa to give you ideas.

• Spooky Halloween Sounds will play a continuous loop of unsettling noises until you tell Alexa to stop. Just say, "Alexa, start Spooky Halloween Sounds" to get started.
• Spooky Sounds plays 50 minutes of original spooky sounds (in a continuous loop), complete with an audio Easter egg hidden within. Say, "Alexa, open Spooky Sounds" to begin.

• Spooky Scream will play a random scream after a set time of your choosing. Say, "Alexa, ask Spooky Scream to start in 5 minutes." Turn up the volume and wait for your unknowing victim to fall into your trap.

You can also request audio like the Spooky Sounds for Halloween EP on Spotify. Alexa has other creepy sounds available, including Haunted House and Scary Halloween Sounds to turn your Alexa device into a Halloween sound machine. 

Spooky sounds are sure to scare the neighborhood kids.

Chris Monroe/CNET

Play Halloween-themed games

If you're looking for an eerie game to play, there are quite a few Alexa skills to choose from. But if you'd rather have Alexa pick for you, just say, "Alexa, let's get spooky."

• The Magic Door is a popular interactive adventure game. If you take the Dark Forest Path, it will lead you to the Witch's mansion in search of the Wise Wizard.
• Ghost Detector is exactly what it sounds like. You must detect and capture ghosts to earn Ghost Bux, which you can use to buy "improvements, gadgets and missions" for further gameplay.
• Haunted Adventure is just one of several spooky adventure games.
• Halloween Feel the Pressure is a spin-off of Feel the Pressure with a Halloween twist. You must answer questions based on a letter of the alphabet. You need 10 correct answers in a row to "save your soul."

Ask Alexa to tell a scary story 

Want to hear something chilling, yet kid-friendly? Simply say, "Alexa, tell me a spooky story" and you'll hear a short story voiced by an actor. They're pretty cheesy, so they're best for younger ears.

If you want to hear something a bit scarier, you can try the Scare Me skill. Just say, "Alexa, ask Scare Me to tell me a scary story." It'll read you a short, two-sentence scary story. Kids can also use the Scooby Doo! Mystery Inc. Theater for scary stories. Just say, "Alexa, I'm ready for a mystery from Scooby-Doo" or "Alexa, tell Scooby-Doo I want to solve a mystery" from any Echo-enabled device. The skill is free but requires a parent's permission in the Alexa app. 

Still not scary enough? Try creating your own scary story using the Alexa Halloween Blueprint. You can even use names of the people in your home as the characters in the story.

Alexa can tell you scary stories. 

Alina Bradford/CNET

Play Halloween music

One of Alexa's best tricks on Halloween is playing party music. You can easily make a playlist with all your Halloween favorites on Amazon Music or Spotify -- like this Halloween Party Soundtrack -- and ask Alexa to play it. Or you can use the Halloween Music skill. 

Greet visitors with spooky sounds

Use your Alexa-compatible video doorbell, like Ring, to talk to trick-or-treaters who are waiting at your door. With the Ring doorbell, you can have it say "Boo" to anyone who comes to the door. You can also change the chime to a spookier tone. Your Ring doorbell has a few other spooky features and hardware accessories. 

You can also use the Trick the Witch skill for your Alexa device to entertain your guests with a witch voice. Just say, "Alexa, start Trick the Witch" to get started. Lamona, the witch, is an interactive game that trick or treaters can take part in while practicing social distancing. Or you can enable Halloween Facts to share facts about Oct. 31 with your visitors. 

When you hear the doorbell, or think you hear it, tell Alexa to "Answer the front door" or "Show [camera name]" to see who's there.

A video doorbell will show you who's at the door.

Chris Monroe/CNET

Create a smart haunted house

You can turn your home into a haunted house using your Echo devices. You'll need to replace your regular bulbs with smart bulbs and change the colors to orange, purple and red. However, it's much more fun to set up a routine that you can trigger by saying, "Alexa, make it spooky," rather than a boring "Alexa, change the lights to red."

For example, you could create a routine that turns the lights orange and plays Halloween music. If you've got a smart plug, you can even plug a Halloween decoration into it and set it to come on with the routine. 

Spookify your house with smart bulbs.

Josh Miller/CNET

Get help with a last-minute costume 

If you're one of those people who wait until the last minute to find a costume (guilty), Alexa can help you come up with some ideas. Using the Halloween Costume Ideas skill, Alexa will list some ideas until you find one that you like.

Just say, "Alexa, open Halloween Costume Ideas." Then answer the yes-or-no questions until you come across the perfect costume idea.

Lighten up with Halloween jokes

If you're spooked out by the end of the night, have Alexa lighten the mood by telling jokes. Just say, "Alexa, tell me a Halloween joke." The joke it gave me was, "Why shouldn't you date a spirit? So you don't get ghosted." The jokes may not be fall-over funny, but at least they can distract you from the scary stories you listened to earlier in the night.

When Halloween's over, dive into the 10 weirdest things your Amazon Echo can do, the four best uses for an Amazon Echo in your living room and four places to avoid putting your Amazon Echo in your home.

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Which smart home gadget should you buy first?

Which smart home gadget should you buy first?

Smart home tech is nothing new -- hobbyists have been geeking out over home automation for decades now -- but in recent years, it's marched closer to the mainstream than ever before. In recent years, high-profile connected home gadgets like the Amazon Echo, the Nest Learning Thermostat and the Ring Video Doorbell have all become breakout hits by offering attractive designs and tangible benefits, many of them at prices that aren't unreasonably high.

The result? A mainstream smart home market with an awful lot of momentum. In 2018, a GfK study found that over half of US households now include at least one smart home gadget. Over a third of them include two or more.

Of course, that leaves about half of us who still haven't bought in. Many might be put off at the thought of connecting everything under their roof and sharing data picked up by sensors, security cameras and microphones with Silicon Valley -- but with a wide variety of smart devices available in your local hardware store, others simply might not know where to start. To that end, here's a look at how to answer a not-so-simple question: Which smart home product should you buy first?

Disclosure: CNET may get a share of revenue from purchases made through the links on this page.  

Plan for a purpose-driven smart home

Ask yourself: What do you want from your smart home? As a guy who listens to pitches for the latest smart home technology day in and day out, I can assure you that you've got lots of options. Do you want to keep an eye on things with a do-it-yourself security system and camera feeds you can check from your phone? Do you want simple conveniences like voice controls for your lights and thermostats? Do you want artificial intelligence and cloud-connected appliances to help freshen things up in the kitchen?

To figure out what you want, think about the things you do at home on a daily basis and look for improvements that you'd find meaningful. Do you tend to wander from room to room before bed turning off lights that the kids left on? Smart bulbs that you can turn off with a single voice command or tap on your phone might make sense. Do you shop online a lot, and worry about thieves stealing packages off your porch while you're at work? A video doorbell with a feed you can view remotely might be a good fit.

For my money, I think smart lighting is a sensible starting point for almost everyone. After all, we use the lights in our home more than just about anything else -- adding in things like motion-activated lights for the exterior of your home or automatic wake-up fades that sync with your morning alarms make a lot of sense, because you'll enjoy them day in and day out. For more on why it's a great time to try smart lights, click here.

Value versatility

If nothing specific jumps out at you and you just have a general curiosity about what the smart home might have to offer, then look for flexible, multifunctional devices that you can use in lots of different ways. A small smart speaker like the Amazon Echo Dot or Google Home Mini is a great way to see what artificially intelligent in-home helpers like Alexa and Google Assistant are capable of, and neither one will cost you more than $50. The WeMo Mini smart switch from Belkin is even cheaper, and it'll let you automate anything you plug into it -- lamps, desk fans, crock pots, space heaters, you name it.

The WeMo Mini Smart Switch from Belkin is a versatile little gadget that automates anything you plug into it. Available for just $30, it's a good, low-risk step into the smart home.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

As always, when in doubt, start small. Once you find a product that you like, you can start to build around it by adding in other, compatible gadgets capable of making it even smarter and contributing some unique appeal of their own. Our smart home compatibility tracker can be a really helpful tool to that end.

Ponder your platform options

If you're buying a new computer, you'll need to decide which operating system you'd like to use -- Mac, Windows, Chromebook, etc. Smart home tech is similar in that a majority of the most popular gadgets are designed to work within a wider ecosystem of devices -- the most common being voice control platforms like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and the Siri controls that come with Apple HomeKit. Control hubs from names like Wink and Samsung SmartThings offer dedicated platforms capable of helping different devices get along, too. You could also keep things working together by sticking to gadgets that work with IFTTT, a free, online automation platform.

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each of those options can go a long way toward helping you build out a smart home setup that makes sense for you, particularly if you're planning on using multiple types of gadgets. The smart home is just better when things work together.

That said, most devices offer their own dedicated apps and controls, and can be used independent of any broader platforms right out of the box. That means that you don't necessarily need to make any commitments right away. On top of that, a growing number of products support multiple platforms. Starting with smart devices like those can help you keep your options open if you're undecided for now.

I'll add that each platform has its own security certification process designed to keep insecure, vulnerable hardware out of the mix -- that means that a product that works with multiple platforms has essentially gotten multiple passing grades from names like Apple, Amazon, Google and Samsung, all of which have a lot at stake when it comes to keeping their respective platforms secure. 

Here are a few quick suggestions that fit the bill:

Available with two bulbs or four, Philips Hue's white-light smart bulb starter kit is relatively affordable, and it's easy to use and build upon -- plus, it works with just about everything you could imagine.

Ry Crist/CNET

Smart lights

Along with automating whatever you plug into the side of it, the iDevices Switch will monitor your energy use and double as a multicolor nightlight, and it works with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Smart plugs

Available for $100 and packed with helpful features, the Honeywell Lyric T5 is one of our favorite smart thermostat value picks, and it works with a wide variety of platforms.

Chris Monroe/CNET

Smart thermostats

The Kwikset Obsidian is a keyless smart lock that supports a number of platforms, including Amazon Key for in-home package delivery.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Smart locks

I'd also add that if you have any interest in voice controls, then starting off with either an Amazon Echo Dot or a Google Home Mini is one of the smart home's biggest no-brainers. Even if you ignore the smart home integrations that let Alexa or the Google Assistant control things like lights and thermostats, each device is arguably worth the $50 asking price for the voice-activated music, podcasts, news headlines and cooking timers alone.

Do your homework

The best way to pick the right gadgets for your home is to understand what all of the different options have to offer and narrow things down accordingly. With such a huge variety of alternatives battling it out in a complex arena of competing platforms and standards, doing so can get confusing in a hurry.

But hey, that's where we come in! Our product reviews, best-of lists, buying guides, how-to content, explainer posts and featured dispatches from the CNET Smart Home are all aimed at helping you understand what a more connected living space has to offer (and where it falls short). If you're looking for ideas as to how you might put a smarter home to work, we'll help you brainstorm. If you're stuck trying decide between two seemingly identical gadgets, we can help with that, too. If you want to dive deeper into privacy and security concerns before buying in, we've got you covered.

Bottom line: There's never been a better time to try your hand at home automation. Explore your options, and you'll find plenty of ways to start your smart home off right.

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