You Can Get a Google Home Mini for Free Right Now (or an Amazon Echo Dot for Really Cheap!)

__*>Get the Amazon Echo Dot for $9 here.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: A smart speaker is the most essential part of any basic smart home starter kit. If you've been waiting to get yours, right now is probably the perfect time, regardless of which assistant you think you'll prefer. That's because both Amazon's Echo Dot and the Google Home Mini are available at a deep discount right now, and all you have to do to get said discount is stream music.

The Echo Dot goes on sale fairly frequently, especially during Amazon Prime Day and Cyber Week. Those discounts are usually pretty significant, cutting the price in half, from $50 to $25. But if you play your cards right today, you can get the 3rd generation Echo Dot for only $9. In order to access the deal, you have to have an Amazon Prime subscription but not be subscribed to Amazon Music Unlimited (the company's version of Spotify or Apple Music). If that's you, you're able to get one month of the service (usually $8) with an Echo Dot for a total of $9. As long as you remember to pause the automatic renewal, that means you've purchased the smart speaker at an 82 percent discount. Nice work!

The Google Home Mini is on sale a little bit less often, but you can often find it for $40. If you're a Spotify Premium subscriber though, you can currently get the smart speaker for free. All you have to do is go to your account, look at the premium page, and look for the Google Home page. (You could also just click this link.) You might be put on a waiting list, but I was informed that my Google Home Mini was ready for me approximately 92 seconds after clicking the link.

Of note: the Google Home Mini has been replaced by the company's new Nest Mini, which has an additional microphone and sounds a little bit better. But between the Google Home Mini and the Echo Dot, the audio quality is basically the same. Neither will make you feel like your favorite artist is right in front of you, but it's totally serviceable for casual listening as you're getting ready for work. I tend to prefer using the Google Assistant to Amazon's Alexa, I find devices are easier to set up on Google's platform, but both offer basically the same functionality at this point. Which deal you take advantage of will come down to whether you have Spotify and can just get a Home Mini for free. Either way, there's no going wrong here.

Originally Appeared on GQ