As has become customary after the big sale, Amazon released some figures about Prime Day purchases. The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K claimed the title as the most popular item purchased during Prime Day. During the last Prime Day in October of 2020, that title went to the Amazon Echo Dot. As for Echo devices, it seems like their sales figures may have dropped quite a bit compared to previous Prime Days. Amazon also said that more Toshiba and Insignia Fire TV televisions we purchased this Prime Day than the last one, which was already more than the one before that.
This is the first year that the Fire TV Stick 4K has claimed the top Prime Day spot. The title has flipped back and forth between the 1080p Fire TV Stick and the Echo Dot in past Prime Days. It’s actually pretty surprising that the Fire TV Stick 4K took the top spot this year since there were two Firesticks, the Fire TV Stick Lite and the 3rd-gen Fire TV Stick, that were cheaper. In the past, it seemed like the least expensive Fire TV model was usually the best seller, but perhaps enough people have finally upgraded to 4K TVs that most people are no longer considering 1080p streaming devices as good enough.
It’s noteworthy that Amazon didn’t mention Echo sales at all in its self-congratulatory press release this year. As mentioned, the Echo Dot was the most popular item purchased during the prior Prime Day in 2020 and Amazon said the Echo Dot, along with the Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick 4K, were the top sellers during Prime Day in 2019. However, this year there was zero mention of any Echo product’s sales, even though both the Amazon Echo and the Echo Dot were at all-time low prices during this year’s Prime Day sale. This could be an indication that Amazon has reached a tipping point where enough people own Echos that, moving forward, fewer and fewer will be sold unless there is a compelling reason to upgrade.
As for Fire TV televisions, those are still on a rise in popularity. Amazon says more were sold this Prime Day than the last one in 2020. That’s significant because sales in 2020 were already higher than on Prime Day in 2019. The rabbit hole continues because Amazon said in 2019 that it sold over twice as many Fire TV televisions during that year’s Prime Day than during Prime Day in 2018.
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In addition to everybody already having Echos, the deals weren’t spectacular. They may have been all time lows for the newest generation of hardware but they weren’t all that much lower than the previous lows, and the second and third generation models have been offered at even lower prices.
The sidewalk issue woke people up to the potential security nightmare.
Amazon forgot that they had to fight hard to gain customer’s trust (hardware kill switch, delete recordings out of the cloud, etc) and they threw it all away because they thought the average person didn’t care.
The average user doesn’t know sidewalk from boardwalk. Most electronics are in the hands of non-geeks.
There was just a big news blitz about how Amazon is stealing your wifi for Sidewalk.
That and the former Ring controversy, it’s not too surprising that both Echos and Ring weren’t mentioned in their press release.
People are only ok with corporations stealing all their data and seizing control of their hardware if they don’t know about it.
I’ll be buying Echo Dot v2 until they are no longer supported. Making them bigger and more bulbous doesn’t make them more useful and I’ll never use them as a primary speaker for audio / music.
4K Stick sales numbers are a no brainer…better hardware spec = better performance = better end user experience
Still using my v2 Dot nearly 4 years later: an alarm clock that can occasionally play music and rattle off weather forecasts.
The V3 is a useful step up in sound quality while not being much bigger than the V2. I’m willing to accept that.
The V4, on the other hand, isn’t even really a Dot any more because of its spherical shape. It won’t fit into a lot of spaces where you could put a V2 or V3. I don’t consider it an improvement.
I only spent $88 this Prime. Or as you guys would say “lowest ever”.
I don’t want an echo in my house for privacy reasons and not trusting big tech, and also just because I would never use it. Would rather use my phone than my voice. Every time I get one of the free echos in a package deal, it immediately goes up on ebay. I have a FTV cube, but have it muted, though I know it is likely still listening. At least it no longer activates accidently.
I have Echos in nearly every room of the house now, including in the garage, so I’m pretty well covered. I love them, but I don’t love the new sphere Echos. I like mine to be nearly invisible so I’m sticking with the hockey puck ones as long as I can. (Though I will admit that I like the bigger hockey pucks a little better than the older ones, but I have a mixture of both in the house.)
Speaking of Echos Flopping…I made a post a couple days ago about the trouble I had ordering a new Echo on Prime Day. Well, Unbelievably, my troubles continue. My “New” Echo Dot w/Clock arrived last night. I just opened the box. It’s FRICKING USED (WTF!…continued for about the 4th time!). I can’t believe what I’m looking at: The bottom base is clearly dirty, there is a dirty fingerprint on the top volume button (I ordered Glacier White), the clear packaging around the Echo has white hairs stuck to it. I knew something was up when I opened the box and the Power adapter was not bundled up neatly. Good Grief what is happening to Amazon? Since Covid-19 hit their usually stellar customer service has gone down the drain. The Echo works, so I’m keeping it because I can’t spend anymore time dealing with this!
A little humor:
“Fire TV televisions”
NO NO NO -25, grade C, per your other post dropping “Edition”
TV televisions
a tautology is a statement which repeats an idea, using near-synonymous morphemes, words or phrases, effectively “saying the same thing twice”.
The new echoes look like softballs and take up more room. Don’t care for the design. Was hoping to pick up s gen 3 with a clock but none were available.