Why You Can Trust CNET Give Dad a Sonos One voice-controlled speaker for $199
With eBay cutting 20 percent off everything today, this is a particularly good deal. Plus: A great Dad gift that's only $6 and the best deal to date on Sphero's Star Wars droids.
The Sonos One gives Alexa the speaker she deserves.
Sonos has long been synonymous with premium whole-home speaker systems. I've always likened it to the Apple of audio products: High quality, high prices, rare deals.
Today, to help you find Father's Day gifts, Ebay is offering 20 percent off sitewide when you apply promo code PICKDADSGIFT at checkout. (Minimum purchase: $50. Maximum discount: $100. Certain exclusions apply.) And that means, among other things, you can score unusually good deals on Sonos products.
Like this one: Worldwide Stereo has the Sonos One voice-controlled speaker for $199 with free shipping when you apply the aforementioned code. If that seller runs out of inventory, you can just as easily buy it from another -- and you may be able to dodge sales tax as well.
Introduced late last year, the One is a one-of-a-kind speaker in that it not only comes with Amazon Alexa built right in, but will also add Google Assistant and Apple AirPlay 2 support later this year.
Beyond that, it shares a lot of DNA with Sonos' popular Play:1 model -- but in fact sounds even better, according to CNET's Sonos One review.
I highly recommend giving that a read, because I have no practical experience with the speaker myself. There you'll find that the One also supports Spotify's voice-control feature and earned a CNET Editors' Choice award.
The other key things to know are that you can pair two Ones (ha) for true stereo sound and/or link them up with a Sonos Playbar or Playbase to use as wireless rear speakers.
Even if you don't think this is the ideal gift for Dad, I highly recommend doing your shopping on eBay today, because 20-percent-off sitewide is a rare and awesome thing.
Note that Sonos also just announced a new sound bar with Alexa built-in, the $399 Sonos Beam. It goes on sale July 27.
Bonus deal: Need a quick and easy gift for Dad? Try this: the Thorfire LED Cap Light with promo code JIG2KHIW. It's normally $14.
For starters: Thorfire? Best name ever. This AAA-powered light clips to the brim of any baseball cap, then provides three lighting modes: high, low and strobe. The light can point anywhere from straight ahead to straight down thanks to a 90-degree hinge.
Something this cheap is probably, well, kind of cheap, and indeed a few reviewers cited reliability issues. But Thorfire backs the light with an 18-month warranty, which strikes me as pretty generous. Might be a nice little item to add to Dad's gift pile on June 17!
Bonus deal No. 2: Beep boop boop beep blorp! That's droid-speak for "The Disney Store has all three Sphero Star Wars app-enabled droids on sale, and with a free Force Band to boot." Each droid will run you $63.99 when you apply promo code PLAY20 at checkout. Shipping adds $7.95 to the order.
The deal includes BB-8 , BB-9E and R2-D2 . One small caveat: I got as far as checkout and didn't see any evidence that the Force Band (normally an $80 item all by itself) had been added to my cart. And I don't see it listed separately anywhere in the Disney Store. Not sure what to make of that, just giving you a heads-up. On the product page, it does say it's included.
These little droids are all kinds of adorable, and the icing on the cake is that they're programmable, so kids can actually learn to code while they're having fun. One of these days I'm going to break down and get myself an R2-D2.
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