Prime Day Puts Smart Home Upgrades Under $40 as Blink, Hue and Tapo Lead Deals

Q: Is a premium $950 robot vacuum really worth over double the price of its discounted rival?

Usually, no—unless you specifically need top-tier mopping, obstacle avoidance, and near-hands-free maintenance. The $949 Narwal Flow 2 does justify its premium in some homes. Independent testing cited in the background found it unusually strong at obstacle avoidance, with perfect results in one lab test, and especially effective on tile and hard floors thanks to its roller mop, 60°C hot-water washing, hot-air drying, and a self-cleaning dock. It is also designed for low-clearance furniture and long maintenance intervals, with automatic dust collection for up to 120 days. For busy households with pets, children, and lots of hard flooring, those upgrades can translate into real daily convenience. But the cheaper rival in this sale, the Yeedi S14 Plus at $399, is not a bare-bones machine. It also offers self-emptying, mopping, hot-water mop washing, hot-air drying, edge cleaning, and strong 18,000Pa suction. At this price, it covers most of the features many buyers actually use. The trade-off is performance at the margins. The Narwal appears better for advanced mopping, smarter navigation, and avoiding clutter with less babysitting. It is the stronger choice if you want the most automated experience and are willing to pay for it. The Yeedi is the better value if you mainly want reliable daily cleaning and a self-maintaining dock without spending close to $1,000. So the premium is worth it for demanding homes; for most shoppers, the discounted Yeedi is the more rational buy.

3 articles · Updated · The Verge · Jun 25

$40 or less buys much of this Prime Day smart-home roundup, with discounted video doorbells, security cameras, smart plugs, switches and repair tools aimed at low-cost home upgrades.
Blink features heavily in the latest picks, including a 2K battery video doorbell, a 1080p Outdoor 4 camera with person detection, and a compact 2K weather-resistant camera.
Philips Hue, TP-Link, Eve, Meross and GE also appear with Smart Button controls, Matter-ready plugs and outlets, garage-door add-ons, bulbs and a power strip compatible with major platforms.
The list extends beyond connected devices to sub-$40 tools such as a 45W Anker USB-C charger, Hoto's rechargeable screwdriver, Slice's ceramic box cutter and Kaisi's 136-piece electronics repair kit.
The broader Prime Day push follows an earlier wave of smart-home deal coverage that highlighted essentials such as LIFX bulbs and TP-Link Tapo plugs for shoppers expanding existing setups.