As anyone who watched any football over the weekend, and didn't blow by all the commercials knows, we all NEED a smart speaker like Amazon Echo or the newer Google Home. And lucky you: both products are among the tech items that retailers are offering at cut-rate prices this Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2016 holiday shopping season.
MORE: Amazon Cyber Monday tech deals -- Ready, set... | Cyber Monday 2016 tech deals sampler from Dell, Walmart
Focusing on Google & Microsoft products in this article, let's start with Google Home, which is debuted at the start of November and is now being discounted from $129 to $99 (that's about $40 cheaper than the Amazon Echo, which itself is being marked down by $40 this holiday season).
Jon Phillips Google Home, on the left
Google Home is a smart assistant that can tell you the weather, answer questions via Google Search and sync up with services like Spotify and Pandora.
While Google Home uses a flavor of Google's Chromecast software, not Android, there are plenty of Android device deals to be had on Cyber Monday.
Among them:
*Samsung 7-inch Galaxy Tab A tablet with 8GB of storage for $90 ($60 off) at Best Buy.
*Straight Talk Samsung Galaxy S6 prepaid smartphone from Walmart for $250 ($150 off)
*Target, which is offering 15% off lots of stuff (exceptions apply) on Monday online and in stores, is throwing in a $100 gift card and a Samsung Gear VR headset ($100 value) when you buy and activate a Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 edge smartphone on AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.
If Windows is more your style, there are plenty of post-Black Friday deals from which to choose. Among them:
*ASUS 13.3-inch ZenBook Notebook (Windows 10) in rose gold from B&H for $700 ($150 off)
*Microsoft Surface Pro 4 tablet with 128GB of storage and an Intel Core i5 processor for $800 ($200 off)
*Dell Latitude 15-inch 3000 Series laptop with Windows 10 Pro, 4GB of memory and 500GB of storage for $429 ($130 off)
(Black Friday & Cyber Monday watchers such as BFads and Best Black Friday have been a big help in keeping tabs on deals.)
