The irresistible Cyber Monday offer on smart glasses that captured my husband’s attention

Why I Couldn’t Resist the Amazon Echo Frames Cyber Monday Deal

As a smart home reviewer for The Verge, I am no stranger to Amazon Echo smart speakers. In fact, I have a dozen of them scattered around my home for testing purposes. So, when the Echo Frames smart glasses went on sale for $115 during Cyber Monday, down from their original price of $300, it was an offer that my husband simply couldn’t pass up.

He opted for the prescription-ready model over the blue-light-filtering option, which also came with a bonus Echo Spot, a $80 smart speaker/smart alarm clock, for free. This resulted in a total savings of $265 and added another smart speaker to my ever-growing collection, bringing the tally to about 13.

The Echo Spot, typically priced at $80, is my top recommendation for an Amazon Alexa smart speaker to use as a smart alarm clock. It offers convenient features like voice-controlled music playback and smart home device control, making it a perfect addition to your bedside table.

However, the real highlight of this deal was the Echo Frames smart glasses. My husband had been eyeing my pair ever since I snagged them for $115 during a previous sale. The hands-free calling and music listening without earbuds feature particularly appealed to him, and the discounted price sealed the deal.

As someone who wears glasses full-time, I had been contemplating smart glasses for a while. With advancements in technology, I felt that the time was right to make a smart pair my daily accessory. While I had been leaning towards the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, the Echo Frames’ significantly lower price point of $115, compared to the $365 second-gen Metas, made them a more appealing choice for my first venture into smart eyewear.

Another factor that swayed my decision was my reluctance to wear a camera on my face all day. I was more interested in the voice assistant and speaker/mic functionality of the Echo Frames. Being an avid user of Alexa in my smart home setup, having the same assistant on my face as on my kitchen counter made perfect sense.

The Echo Frames now also support Alexa Plus, Amazon’s enhanced voice assistant powered by LLM, making them suitable for both quick inquiries and smart home management. Additionally, their design closely resembles regular glasses, which was important to me as I intended to wear them daily.

After picking up my pair from the opticians, I have been thoroughly enjoying the convenience they offer. However, a minor inconvenience I faced was forgetting to charge them one night, highlighting the added task of incorporating another device into my nightly charging routine. For those considering purchasing a pair at this discounted price, opting for the gray rectangle model is advisable if you have a larger head, as it is the only wide-fit frame available.