Amazon’s Choice Robot Vacuum Is On Sale Today For 30% Off

While Amazon Prime Day is still TBA this weird year, Prime members can take advantage of deals across beauty, fashion, home, tech, and more every day — you just need to know when and where to look. These discounted flash sales are called Lightning Deals — and as you can guess by the name, they do go fast. Here's everything to know about them.

Lightning Deals are very limited (as in, lasting for a couple of hours) deals on Amazon's top sellers. Unlike everything else on Amazon's site, Lightning Deal items follow a strict, one per customer rule, and last until the deal expires or until items become out of stock. (Also, since Lightning Deals are extremely time-sensitive, it's a good rule of thumb to checkout ASAP so you don't lose any items in your cart.)

While they're extra hyped up during holidays and other sale seasons, Lightning Deals are actually shoppable 365 days a year. If you head over to Amazon's Today's Deals page (basically, a treasure trove of discounts), you can find everything from the site's Deal of the Day (an assortment of highly-coveted products that are on sale for the entirety of the day), plus the fleeting Lightning Deals. You can also sign up for Amazon's daily deals email to get on-sale items delivered to your inbox.

Today's deal is the #1 top-rated affordable robo-vac on Amazon right now. 88% of buyers gave it 4 - 5 stars (minus one reviewer who likened it to an expensive cat toy — but that's really more of a testament to one clever kitty). It's a smart buy during a time we're being extra vigilant about the cleanliness of our environments. It's on sale until midnight, EST tonight.

Amazon actually allows you to watch Lightning Deals before they go live, which does all the work of reminding you when it's time to snap the product you want. Here's how it works: If you're browsing upcoming deals, you'll have the option to click "Watch This Deal." From there, any selected items will show up in your personalized Watched Deals section of the Today's Deals page. Amazon will automatically send a notification to your phone when the deal is about to start.

Deals last anywhere between two to six hours, but like we said — it's all based on inventory. However, if you missed out on a deal, not all hope is lost: Amazon gives you the option to sign up for waitlists for deals that are 100% claimed, yet still within the sale's active time window; this option becomes available when items are not purchased within 15 minutes of adding to cart, allowing the deal to become available to the next customer on the waitlist. (In other words, you snooze, you lose.)

There's no guarantee that a deal will reappear, but in many cases, a deal will reappear every so often. This allows you to shop a deal technically more than once, gaming the one-per-customer rule. So, if you didn't get a chance to snag that portable record player or yoga legging or stainless steel measuring cups set, don't fret — just keep watching this space.