AMAZON Prime Day doesn’t start until next week, but the retailer has launched a wave of early-bird deals.
One of the best discounts is on the 5-Piece Ring Alarm Kit, which has been slashed from £249 to £99.99 for Prime members.
Ring Alarm 5-Piece Kit, £99.99 with Prime (was £249.99)
Amazon Prime Day is scheduled to kick off next Tuesday (16th July), and runs for 48 hours until midnight on Wednesday (17th July).
The sales event has been running on a yearly basis since 2015, so by now you probably know the drill.
If you’re signed up to Amazon Prime, you get exclusive access to price drops across tech, home, garden, household, beauty and fashion products.
But Amazon has a habit of releasing a wave of early discounts on its own tech, and at the end of last week we were treated to some early Prime-exclusive price drops on Ring security devices.
Last Friday, I reported on a fabulous deal on the Ring Video Doorbell and Chime bundle, which has been reduced from £189.98 to £79.99.
But over the weekend, this 5-piece alarm kit has proved the real hit with shoppers – I spotted it on Amazon’s devices movers and shakers list.
Sales have spiked by 158% and it’s the most-popular Amazon device on the website right now.
Small wonder, really, with that colossal 60% discount. Shoppers looking for a complete overhaul of their smart home security should definitely give this deal some closer inspection.
The Ring Alarm Kit is basically a modern-day, smart update of an old-fashioned burglar alarm system – the chief difference being it doesn’t need any professional installation.
The kit contains a base station (that’s the nerve centre of operations), a keypad, a motion sensor, a contact sensor (this will notify you if any doors or windows are open) and a range extender, which will be useful if you’ve got a big home.
Naturally, this can all be linked up with any other smart devices you might own, like the aforementioned Ring Video Doorbell, or cameras (a twin-pack has been reduced from £100 to £50).
Most shoppers who have left reviews on the Amazon website are in consensus about just how easy this all-in-one system is to get up and running.
‘The installation of this system was a breeze,’ writes one customer. ‘The sensors are all battery [powered], and you can stick them up or screw them in [to] properly fix them to the walls and doors.
‘We already had a Ring camera and had the app, so just adding the components for the alarm was easy.’
‘Setup was ridiculously simple,’ says another shopper. ‘The sensors are well-designed and can be simply stuck in place with the included adhesive strips.’
It’s also worth noting that there’s a Ring Protect plan you can spend an extra £8 per month on. (It offers additional benefits, the main one being you can record your video footage, not just watch in real-time.)
It’s a nice little extra, but it’s not essential to keep this 5-piece kit up and running: that £99.99 fee is all you need to spend.
In the next few days, I’m expecting to see a lot more Amazon device deals appear online at super-low prices.
Echo Dot smart speakers, Kindles for holiday reading, 4K Fire TVs – I can say with 99% certainty that we’ll see them at the best prices outside of Black Friday in November.
But for now, the best discounts are on home security, and not just from Ring either: there’s a cracking deal on a Blink camera and doorbell bundle, which has been slashed from £215 to £74.
Read our Blink vs Ring video doorbell explainer to see how the two brands compare to each other.
Ring Alarm 5-Piece Kit, £99.99 with Prime (was £249.99)
Bookmark our best Amazon Prime Day deals page and make sure you check in next Tuesday when the sale officially launches.
Prime Day is coming! Here's what to look out for...
Amazon's 48-hour sale is on the way, says Matt Breen, Senior Writer at The Sun.
You know the drill: the Amazon Prime Day sale is on the way, so if you’re signed up to Prime, you’ve got a lot of discounted products to pick up.
But the question is: are these exclusive deals actually any good? A simple answer is, well, some are – and some of the best are on Amazon’s very own devices.
The price drops that I’m most excited about are on Amazon’s range of Fire televisions, which only hit the market a year ago.
These falls across two categories, the 2-Series and 4-Series ranges (cheap as chips, 4K, no-frills) and the Omni range (pricier, because they’ve got flashy QLED screens). Sizes vary from 32 inches – perfect for bedrooms – all the way to a hefty 65 inches.
If there’s any time to pick up these smart tellies for less, it’s Prime Day.
It remains to be seen whether we see any price drop that matches the stunning Black Friday deal that saw the 55-inch 4-Series Fire TV reduced from £550 to £149. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Regardless, you can be sure that price drops in sheer percentage terms will be high. If you’re in the market for a new smart TV and you want to keep your spending under control, the Prime Day sale is a good time to strike.
Make sure you read our what size TV to buy explainer if you’re not sure which screen size is right for your space.
Oh, and if you’re going all out, take a look at Amazon’s new Fire TV Soundbar, which has been launched at a promo price of £99.99 (usually £119.99).
By Matt Breen
You’ll find more discounts on mobiles, tablets, TVs, earbuds and other tech deals listed on our shopping tech hub.