Prime Day hasn't started, and the earbud discounts already have.
Amazon's October Prime Big Deal Days runs October 6-7, but retailers are cutting earbud prices weeks early. The Apple AirPods 4 are $99 at Walmart, down $30.99, though that base model skips active noise cancellation. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) are $249.99 at Amazon, a $49.01 cut, and the Shokz OpenDots One have dropped to $139.95, saving $60 and matching the lowest price Amazon has listed for them. Anker's Soundcore Sleep A30 Special is $199.99 with a free sleep mask thrown in.
The early timing is the real story here. Retailers now treat the run-up to Prime Day like a soft-launch window, similar to how Black Friday sales creep earlier every November. For shoppers, that means the safest move isn't waiting for October 6 - it's checking prices now, since some of these, like the Shokz pair, are already at historic lows and may not drop further on the actual sale days.
Worth remembering: a discount that shows up two weeks before the sale it's supposedly tied to is really just a discount. Prime Day is doing less of the pricing work than the calendar suggests.