Best Black Friday Smart Home Deals 2021: What to Expect

Black Friday smart home deals have played a noteworthy role in the annual post-Thanksgiving sales event. Black Friday deals and sales have been a thing in the U.S. since the early 1960s, but Amazon’s nationwide release of the Amazon Echo smart speaker with the Alexa voice-controlled digital assistant took the smart home category to top of the Black Friday shopping list for many American homes. Smart home Black Friday deals for Alexa-enabled devices and other smart home infrastructure tech assuredly played role in introducing the smart home convenience, security, and entertainment to millions of U.S. homes and apartments. Because relatively inexpensive smart home basic devices such as smart speakers, smart displays, and smart light, plugs, and switches support sales of a rapidly expanding universe of more costly smart devices including major smart appliances, smart security systems, and smart entertainment components, you can count on a wide selection of Black Friday smart home deals this year.

What smart home tech should you buy on Black Friday?

Many of the best Black Friday smart home deals are in what you can consider to be smart home infrastructure devices. These are the devices that you use to talk and listen the digital assistants’ responses. The two best-selling smart infrastructure categories are smart speakers and smart displays.

Smart speaker sales such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home and Google Nest deals deliver bargain prices for tech to listen for your requests and answer questions, stream music, tell stories and jokes, and help you keep current on news, sports, weather, and pretty much any thing you might otherwise find with a browser. Smart displays enable streaming video, two-way video conferencing, newscast video, and connect to your home security cameras to show live video and to playback recorded security video clips. As in recent past years, you’ll find the lowest price of the year on smart home Black Friday deals for smart speakers and smart displays.

Additional Black Friday smart home deals to watch for include infrastructure tech include smart plugs, smart switches, and smart lights. Bargains on smart lights can be tough to find most of the year, but Philips Hue deals have been at their lowest prices of the year during past Black Friday sales. Google Nest Thermostat deals are another category to watch.

You’ll be wise to look for smart home Black Friday deals on home security devices. You can expect deep discounts on smart home security camera deals, smart home video doorbell deals, and especially Ring Video doorbell deals. Other deeply discounted Black Friday smart home deals to look for are for the best smart locks and the best home security systems.

You’ll also find smart home Black Friday deals for voice-assistant-enabled smart appliances such as refrigerator deals, TV deals, and washer and dryer deals. In addition there will be fabulous savings on smart Instant Pot deals, air fryer deals, Ninja Foodi deals, Keurig deals, and coffee maker deals.

Best Black Friday smart home deals we saw last year

As mentioned above, the very best Black Friday smart home deals, at least as measured by discount percentages, usually are for smart speakers, smart display, smart plugs, and other smart home infrastructure tech. Last year, even with the COVID-19 pandemic-related inventory, supply chain, and shipping issues, smart home Black Friday deals were outstanding.

We were surprised and pleased last year to see that many smart home-compatible devices and appliances came bundled with a free Amazon Echo Dot smart speaker or a free Amazon Echo Show smart display. The smart tech bundling added significant value to devices that could work with them. We’ll probably see even more smart speaker and smart display bundling with more expensive smart home Black Friday deals this year, but let’s take a look at some of the most popular Black Friday smart home deals we saw last year.

It was interesting to watch the price cuts during Black Friday 2020 for the Amazon Echo Dot 3rd Gen and the Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen smart speakers. The Amazon Echo Dot 4th was introduced in September 2020 with a $50 list price. The launch price didn’t budge until Black Friday, when Amazon dropped the 4th Gen Dot to $28, a 44% discount. The previous version, the Amazon Echo Dot 3rd Gen was introduced in mid 2019, again with a $50 list price. During Black Friday 2020, Amazon priced the 3rd Gen Dot at $19, a walloping 62% discount. This year the 3rd Gen Dot list price has been reset to $40 while the 4th Gen Dot maintains its $50 price tag. So both versions were excellent smart home Black Friday deals last year, and that doesn’t even count for the millions of 4rd Gen Dots that were bundled in hordes of other smart home products and tech.

The Amazon Echo Show 5 has been the best-selling smart display since its release in May 2019. The Show 5’s list price held at $90 from its introduction until this May, with the launch of the Amazon Echo Show 5 2nd Gen 2021. With the newer release, the original Show 5 list price dropped to $80, where it remains. During Black Friday 2020, the Show 5 sold for its lowest price even, a 50% discount to $45. The Amazon Echo Show 5 2nd Gen 2021 started its product life with an $85 price tag. We don’t have 2020 prices for this newer product, but earlier this year Amazon sold it for as little as $55.

Amazon’s own brand Ring Video Doorbell 3 launched in March 2020. This popular mid-range Ring model dropped in price to $140 from its $200 list price during Black Friday 2020. In February 2021 Amazon lowered Ring’s Video Doorbell 3 list price to $180 prior to the launch of the next version, the Ring Video Doorbell 4, which has stayed at its $100 list price since its April 7, 2021 release.

The Google Nest Learning Thermostat was launched in September 2015 with a $250 list price. In the past six years the Nest Learning Thermostat has had several model refreshes and the price has stuck, despite strong competition from Ecobee and others. Pandemic-related home improvement product sales demand in 2020 kept the Nest Learning Thermostat price high, although it dipped to $200 in Black Friday smart home deals.

What Black Friday smart home deals we expect to see this year

This year’s Black Friday smart home deals will depend on inventory depths like never before. Because it’s effectively a given that the most popular smart home tech will be in high demand this year, smart home Black Friday deals prices will be lower than ever for products with deep inventories but will stay closer to list prices for leaner inventory quantities.

Remember that the manufacturers and retailers would probably like to give away Amazon Echo Dots and Google Nest Minis because those relatively inexpensive devices support sales of a wide range of more costly products. Last year we saw Echo Dots or Echo Show 5s included at no extra cost with a range of products. We expect to see even more giveaway bundles during Black Friday 2021. Whether the freebies will include other than Echo Dot 3rd Gen or Echo Show 5 2nd Gen 2019 release models may depend on remaining inventory of the older devices.

Our expectations for smart home Black Friday deals for 2021 for the popular products covered above in the what-we-saw-last-year section are as follows.

The Amazon Echo Dot 3rd Gen smart speaker could be priced as low as $14 this year. We also expect Amazon to offer the Echo Dot 4th Gen model as low as $21 or $22. Those predictions depend on Amazon’s inventory, of course, but if anyone has deep inventory this year, you can count on it being Amazon.

The Amazon Echo Show 5 price may dip to $30 to $35 for Black Friday, but we can’t see it going lower. The newer Show 5 Gen 2 2021 model may hit $40, but we think $45 is more likely. Without getting too crazy with too many models, gens, years, and prices, we also think the larger Echo Show smart display models will have healthy price cuts, especially the Show 8.

We expect to see the Ring Video Doorbell 3 hitting a new low $120 during Black Friday. Even $100 is possible, but we won’t hold our collective breaths. The demand is also too high to think we’ll see super low Ring Video Doorbell 4 prices, but $140 seems likely for that newer model during Black Friday.

The least predictable of this year’s smart home Black Friday deals is the Google Nest Learning Thermostat. We’ve seen no sign of significant early price cuts, probably a combination of supply chain issues but also because Google Nest doesn’t have to drop the price. The Nest Learning Thermostat is field-leader premium product for which buyers have shown they’re willing to pay the price. So, will we see $200 Nest Learning Thermostat Black Friday smart home deals? Yes, probably, but we doubt the price will be lower.

Should you buy smart home tech on Black Friday or Cyber Monday?

Do.Not.Wait. As soon as you see attractive Black Friday smart home deals, take action immediately. Buy it at the moment. You know you can always return products from Amazon within 30 days of purchase if you see a better price later, but we think this year the fast-actors will get all the best deals.

Most retailers including Amazon will hold the same prices from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. You may find some flukes, but if you see an excellent deal on Black Friday for products you know you want jump on the deals. There are plenty of already on-going lead-up sales and this year we don’t think you should even wait for Black Friday if you see a price you like. Inventories are too light to wait only to discover that stock is sold out or that you’ll need to wait weeks or even months for delivery — it has happened in the past with Black Friday smart home deals.

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