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Get an Amazfit Bip smartwatch for $74.99

That's $5 less than last time for this Apple Watch lookalike. Plus: a $300 vacuum for $139.

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida
3 min read

CNET's Cheapskate scours the web for great deals on PCs, phones , gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page. Find more great buys on the CNET Deals page and follow the Cheapskate on Facebook and Twitter!


amazfit-bip-black

Looks like an Apple Watch and a Pebble got busy...

Amazfit

A little over a month ago I introduced you to the Amazfit Bip, a smartwatch that combines elements of both the Apple Watch and the Pebble -- but runs for up to a month on a single charge.

It was $80 then, a Cheapskate-exclusive sale direct from Amazfit. The regular price is $99.99. Today, and for a limited time, reseller Xiaomijia US (via Amazon) has the the Amazfit Bip in Onyx Black for $74.99. That's after applying promo code BIP19OFF at checkout. Make absolutely sure to choose Xiaomijia US as the seller when purchasing.

Shipping is free for Amazon Prime subscribers, so you won't have to wait a couple weeks for delivery like with the original deal. Also, although I coordinated this $74.99 price directly with the vendor, as of this morning, the in-cart, post-code price I'm seeing is actually $72.89. Your mileage may vary.

About the Bip: It looks a lot like an Apple Watch, albeit a bit thinner and lighter, with a screen that's much closer to the ol' Pebble. That screen is always on and very easy to read outdoors, but has an excellent raise-to-wake backlight for indoors.

Battery life varies depending on the options you enable, but I got a full three weeks before needing the charger. That's really nice, especially if you want to use the watch for sleep tracking.

From here I'm going to turn you over to my Bip follow-up post, in which I re-examined the watch after two weeks of constant wear. TL;DR: Pretty amazing, despite a few kinks. (The biggest one? Still no support for 12-hour digital watchfaces, at least from Amazfit. You can use analog ones, or, if you're an Android user, choose from lots of third-party 12-hour faces.)

Indeed, make sure you know the Bip's limitations before buying. You can't respond to notifications. You can't control music playback. You can't add third-party apps.

But you can do all the important stuff: tell time, receive notifications, monitor your heart, track your steps, map a run (via GPS) and so on. Needless to say, I continue to be a big fan of this product -- especially at $75.

If you bought one last time out, hit the comments and share your experience with it!

shark-rotator

This vacuum is so modern, it has LED headlights.

SharkNinja

Bonus deal: Robot vacs are all well and good for "maintenance" cleaning, but sometimes you need to pull out the big guns. Or in this case, the big sharks.

Today only, and while supplies last, Meh has the Shark Rotator Powered Lift-Away vacuum for $139, plus $5 for shipping. Price elsewhere: $300.

This powerful sucker-upper offers your basic upright-vacuum-style cleaning and a detachable canister so you can reach up high, down low and so on. It also comes with a hard-floor dust pad and a pet-minded "power brush."

User reviews: 4.5 stars from about 100 buyers. My take: At $139, this is a steal -- because it really is $300 just about everywhere else. (And it's new, not refurbished!) Even your 20-percent-off Bed Bath & Beyond coupon won't get you anywhere close to this price.

vansky-silicone-mat
Vansky

Bonus deal No. 2: How's your dashboard? Reasonably flat? Then maybe this is the phone mount you've been looking for...

For a limited time, and while supplies last, Vanskytek Direct has this silicone-mat phone mount for $10.36 when you apply promo code U7VXZBP5 at checkout.

The mat sticks to your dash. Movable rubber clips hold your phone in place. The only question is whether those clips can accommodate a phone that's in a thick case.

Also, although you can set your phone upright, in portrait orientation, it's really much more secure when placed sideways (i.e. landscape). Not everyone will dig that configuration.

Me, I remain a big fan of any mount that puts your phone up near eye level. If you haven't yet found a solution you like, maybe try this one!