If you’ve been contemplating dipping your toes into the Amazon side of the Smart Speaker/Smart Home range, then JB Hifi has a great deal on the Amazon Echo Plus, offering the speaker with a Philips Hue bulb for just $114.
The price is insanely good with the pairing normally priced at $229 (that’s $115 off). The Echo Plus offers the same 360° room-filling speaker setup as the smaller Echo, but includes a Zigbee smarthome hub. The inclusion of Zigbee support means that it can control an assortment of smart home devices, including Philips Hue light bulbs without an additional hub.
The Echo range of devices are of course powered by Amazon’s digital assistant: Alexa. Alexa is quite handy at smart home control, and also offers a range of Alexa Skills from third parties that can expand the functionality of Alexa.
It’s a decent offering, and only discounted due to Amazon releasing a new Echo Plus this month. The new and old Echo Plus offer similar functionality though a few tweaks to the audio including Dolby support make the newer model slightly better for audio.
If you’re interested you should head over to JB Hifi to check it out.
I wonder why traditional retailers like JB Hi-fi and Officeworks would sell an Amazon echo. It’s a trojan horse built for the purpose of being a sales conduit for Amazon. When users want to buy products by using voice, this robot will direct them straight to Amazon. Why would a bricks-and-mortar retailer sell such a thing?