Today only deal: Harman Kardon Invoke smart speaker with Cortana at $49.99 ($150 off)

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Today only deal: Harman Kardon Invoke smart speaker with Cortana at $49.99 ($150 off)
Samsung-owned Harman Kardon wasn’t ranked among the world’s top five smart speaker vendors for the year’s second quarter, also missing the latest list of best-selling models. But unlike its parent company, which has yet to release a Google Home and Echo challenger, the audio equipment specialist tried hard to crack the market early.

Harman Kardon didn’t put all its smart speaker eggs in one basket either, supporting Cortana, Alexa, and Google Assistant in (fairly) equal measure. The brand’s rookie Echo-slaying effort is about to turn one, pretty much failing to connect with a mainstream audience right off the bat, which is why its list price was quickly cut in half.

What was originally a limited-time deal turned into a permanent thing, at least from Microsoft’s US e-store, but if you felt $99.95 was still too much to charge for the Harman Kardon Invoke, the Cortana-controlled intelligent speaker is now up for grabs for a crazy low $49.99.

This is a Best Buy “deal of the day”, mind you, so you only have 24 hours to pull the trigger, with the “silver pearl” model already listed as sold out on the retailer’s website. That leaves you with the “Graphite” version, which isn’t particularly good-looking, but it’s definitely better than many $50 alternatives, at least from a sound quality standpoint.

The “standard” Amazon Echo and Google Home are both significantly pricier than that, with the diminutive, entry-level Echo Dot and Google Home Mini typically available at $49 apiece.

The Harman Kardon Invoke delivers 360-degree sound from 3 powerful woofers, 3 tweeters, and 2 passive radiators, supporting the hands-free making and receiving of Skype calls, as well as many other Cortana voice commands. Granted, Microsoft’s virtual assistant may not be as smart and versatile as its top rivals anymore, but at $49.99, it should be able to get the job done competently enough.

source: Best Buy

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