Get an Echo Dot alternative—and 3 months of Amazon Music—for $30 right now

Until recently, the most affordable home assistant worth buying was Amazon's Echo Dot smart speaker. But Anker, the makers of the best-selling Eufy RoboVac 11, recently released a comparable device called the Eufy Genie that comes with a much lower price tag. This little device typically sells for $35, a full $15 less than the Dot, but right now it's on sale for $29.70 (15% off).

At this price point, the Genie would be perfect to test the home assistant waters, or it'd make a great gift for someone moving into a dorm or a new home.

I took one for a test drive over the weekend and found it to be very easy to set up and connect with my Amazon account and the Alexa app. It functions just as well as the Dot (currently $5 off at $44.99) in terms of responsiveness. And while the sound quality is not as robust as the Dot's—which is not as good as the regular Echo's—it comes with an auxiliary cable so you can connect it to any speaker for a better listening experience.

What can you listen to? Well, aside from connecting to Spotify (and soon Pandora), the Genie can stream from Amazon Music Unlimited. This service costs $7.99/month for Prime members and $9.99/month for non-Prime users, but if you buy the Genie now, you'll get a code for three free months, a savings of up to $30.

Get the Eufy Genie smart speaker for $29.70 from Amazon (and enjoy three free months of Amazon Music).

Prices are accurate at the time this article was published, but may change over time.