Home Office Setup & Equipment

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Ultrahuman just launched its newest ring, the Ultrahuman Ring Pro. While it’s not yet available in the U.S., I’m excited for this to come to the market. The real game changer here isn’t what’s on the ring, but what Ultrahuman has managed to do with the charging case—that is, a lot more than just charging. Specs of the Ultrahuman Ring ProAccording to Ultrahuman, the new ring retails for $429 and has: 15-day battery life—that’s more than RingConn’s battery life and about double Oura’s Storage for 250 days of data Whole sizes 5 to 14 A faster processor that Ultrahuman says allows for more accurate data processing Break poin…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Apple's "affordable" MacBook is official. The company revealed the "MacBook Neo" in a non-livestreamed event on Wednesday, following a series of product announcements throughout the week. Despite the hoopla, there aren't a ton of surprises here: The rumors pointed to a low-cost MacBook running an iPhone chip that came in a variety of fun colors to choose from. That's basically exactly what we got: The Neo runs the A18 Pro—the same chip as the iPhone 16 Pro—and comes in Blush (pink), Indigo, Citrus (yellow/green), and Silver. Really, the biggest surprise of the day is the price: $599, or $499 if you buy through the educat…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Samsung HW-C450 soundbar is one of the best ultra-thin soundbars on the market, and at less than two inches thick, it packs some serious power with six drivers and built-in amplification. A compact, minimalist option for small rooms (or just for those who don’t want a bulky, unsightly audio accessory ruining their media-viewing room), this highly rated 2.1-channel soundbar with a wireless subwoofer just dropped 29% on Amazon, bringing its price to $139.97 (originally $197.99). Samsung HW-C4…

When you hit the share button on social media apps such as Instagram, Facebook, or Threads, these sites tack on a tracker to the link you're sharing. This tracker means that Instagram can tell who you've shared the link with, and it likely uses this information to further optimize its algorithm for ads. While the tech here is sneaky, it is easy to remove tracking information from these links. How do social media tracking links work?It's actually pretty easy to spot a link that has trackers. To check it out, copy the link to any Instagram post and paste it somewhere safe, like your notes app. A normal Instagram link looks like this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVrMKV…

Reddit is what you make of it. The "front page of the internet" is really a collection of different subreddits, each with its own communities, rules, and cultures. The main idea is to subscribe to the subreddits that match your interests, so that your internet's "front page" is tailored to you, not other users. Still, it can be fun to browse the posts from subreddits that are blowing up across Reddit, even when you don't personally subscribe to them. This is the purpose of r/popular and r/all: The former offers popular posts from a variety of subreddits, while the latter does the same, albeit with fewer filters. You might not want to browse r/all while you're at work, fo…

You might have heard about Signal, the encrypted chat app the U.S. government infamously used to discuss war plans last year. (Yikes.) But while the app is no alternative to a dedicated SCIF, it is a good option for the rest of us to communicate more securely. Signal uses end-to-end encryption (E2EE), which, very simply, means that messages are "scrambled" in transit, and can only be "unscrambled" by the sender and the recipient or recipients. If you're in a Signal chat, you'll be able to read incoming messages just like you would any other chat app—if you're an attacker, and intercept that message, all you'll find is a jumble of code. E2EE makes it difficult for anyone…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Last week, Chinese tech firm Bigme teased an intriguing new addition to its lineup of e-readers and digital notebooks: the "world's first" dual-screen smartphone, with both an e-ink and an LCD display on opposite sides of the device. I thought I had a pretty good idea of how that might work—but now, Bigme has revealed what the "Hibreak Dual" will actually look like, and it's definitely not what I was expecting. Seeing it actually made me laugh out loud. The e-ink side of the phone looks exactly like I anticipated, offering a 6.13-inch, 300 PPI black-and-white/150 PPI color e-ink display not unlike the one on the Boox Pal…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. At $109.99, the Apple AirPods (3rd Generation) are selling at a clear discount from their usual $159.97 price at retailers like Best Buy. Shipping is free with Prime, while non-members pay an extra $6, and the deal is set to end in three days or when stock runs out. These are not Apple’s top-tier earbuds, but they cover the basics most people expect, especially if you already use an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Apple AirPods (3rd Generation) …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. “Zone 2” is the term the fitness world has (mostly) agreed upon to describe the low-intensity cardio most of us should be doing regularly. When you’re in zone 2, you’re working hard enough that you start breathing more heavily, but easy enough that you could hold a conversation while doing it. You stop a zone 2 session because your workout time is up, not because you’re too exhausted to continue. Zone 2 is defined in terms of heart rate, so what heart rate should you expect to see on your watch when you’re in zone 2? That’s where people disagree. What is zone 2 training? As I’ve explained before, the name “zone 2” comes …

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. Among competitors like Twitch and even Instagram, YouTube might not be the go-to name in livestreaming, but its latest features are doing their best to change that. Announced at Google’s Made on YouTube event today, the site will soon let streamers go live with simultaneous horizontal and vertical streams, plus use AI to automatically “clip that.” Oh, and there’s some new corporate cross-promotion, too. Stream horizontally and vertically at the same time Currently in testing and set to get a wider rele…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. If you’re anything like me, you might have moving app icons on your iPhone Home Screen right now. It took me a few days to notice this, but now when I tilt my phone up, down, left, or right, my icons will actually shift in that direction, and the highlights the new Liquid Glass effect added around them will move as well. Technically, this isn’t a new feature. Apple calls it the “parallax effect,” and if you’ve ever played an old 16-bit sidescroller, you’ve probably seen it before. It’s when a background m…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. Right now, a new JBL Flip 7 portable speaker is available on Woot for $99.95—that's 33% off. According to price-trackers, the lowest price a brand-new version has been on Amazon is $139.99, making this a smart option for anyone looking for a compact, waterproof, drop-resistant speaker from a reliable household name. The speaker comes with Woot’s 90-day warranty program and ships …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. If you’re looking for a new all-in-one robot mop and vacuum to make your life easier, the Roborock S8 Max Ultra Robot Vacuum and Mop is currently 42% off, dropping from $1,300 to $750 in this deal ahead of Prime Day in October and marking its lowest price ever, according to price tracking tools. Roborock S8 Max Ultra Robot Vacuum and Mop …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. The fall shopping season is upon us, with major sales from multiple retailers, including Target's Circle Week. If you're here, you've likely had a hard time trying to get hold of someone with a conscience on the other line. It's not easy, but here is the best way I found to get a real customer service representative from Target on the phone. The best phone number for Target's customer service departmentIf you Google Target's customer service number, the first…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. It's an exciting time to be an iPhone user. There's iOS 26, of course, which brings a number of major changes to the platform. For the daring, there's the iOS 26.1 beta, which continues to build upon the foundation of Apple's latest OS. If that weren't enough, however, it seems Apple is also working on yet another iPhone update—this time intended mostly to fix problems with the last one. The update, iOS 26.0.1, could drop any time in the coming days. These types of updates aren't necessarily unusual: Apple …

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. On Monday, Meta announced six new features it rolled out to WhatsApp users. The thing is, these features might not be that new. The company somewhat confusingly says these features have been added to the app "over the past few months," despite some clearly rolling out only within the past few days. While it might be tough to say when each of these features officially dropped, the point is they're here now, and you can try them out today. Here are the six new features Meta highlighted, and what you can expec…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Amazon Big Deal Days is coming October 7-8, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. New to Prime Day? We have a primer on everything you need to know. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change. If you’re looking to build a cordless tool kit or add to one you already have, you’ve probably noticed how expensive tools can…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. The way you study something will likely vary depending on how familiar you are with the subject matter. If you’re fairly acquainted with the core concepts, you can force active recall by using flashcards to review, or enhance your grasp of a topic by teaching it to someone else, for instance. But what about when you’re first encountering a new piece of information and you have no real context for it? A lot of reading techniques ask you to come up with questions or hypotheses before you even start read…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Samsung announced the latest Galaxy S25 Series back in January, and later that same month, teased a fourth, thinner phone, the Galaxy S25 Edge. In May we learned more about the device Samsung is calling the "slimmest Galaxy S Series ever." The phone came out at the end of that month, and surprisingly, it's already 40% off, matching the lowest price it has ever reached according to price tracking tools. Yes, right now you can get the 512GB Galaxy S25 Edge for $729.99 (originally $1,219.99). It's a great price for a lightweight yet powerful phone. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deep work is a concept most popularly defined by Cal Newport, who wrote the aptly titled Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. As he tells it, deep work is a state where you find the ability to focus completely on a demanding task without letting distraction get in your way. If you can get the hang of it, you’ll get more done in less time and ultimately end up feeling more fulfilled. On his website, Newport observes that it’s rare to see someone feel energized and happy after sending emails, but there’s a sense of fulfillment that comes from sustained focus on more meaningful tasks. How do you achiev…

While I updated my iPhone to iOS 26 as soon as I could, I haven't yet pulled the trigger with macOS Tahoe. I love my M1 iMac, but I worry that Apple's first version of this new update isn't quite optimized for the five-year-old chip, and have been waiting to see if a future version of Tahoe performs a bit better. As it happens, that next version is well on its way—and does seem improved, at that. Apple has been beta testing macOS Tahoe 26.1 alongside iOS 26.1 since September, and it dropped the release candidates for both of the updates on Tuesday. The "RC," as the name implies, is what Apple thinks is the finished version of any given software release. Barring any major…

YouTube's going through a lot of changes right now, and according to the company, that's to help it better stand out on TVs. Today, YouTube announced that it's going to allow creators to upload bigger thumbnails, plus make browsing and shopping while watching on a TV a bit more convenient. But there's also a big change coming to content itself, and it's not just limited to TVs. Soon, YouTube is going to start using AI to automatically upscale any videos with resolutions lower than 1080p. While you can technically still upload videos that are 720p nowadays, with smartphone cameras getting better and better, that essentially reads to me as "old videos." It's a bit concern…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Promising to "level up your vision," rapper/entrepreneur Soulja Boy recently launched a pair of so-called "AI Smart Glasses." For $64.50, you can own a pair that offers "hands-free music control, live performance enhancements, and seamless social media connectivity." And if a stylish, inexpensive pair of AI smart glasses for $64.50 sounds too good to be true to you, it almost definitively is. I'm not knocking Soulja Boy's hustle, and "Crank That" is an all-time banger, but I am an expert on smart glasses, and I would not recommend that anyone buy these glasses. …

If you've been an iPhone user for a long time, you might remember "slide to unlock." When you wanted to use your iPhone, you had to physically move your finger along the screen to actually unlock the device. It was a clever way of ensuring than your iPhone didn't unlock in your pocket, or due to an accidental touch. With iOS 10, Apple killed slide to unlock in favor of pressing the Home button, then later swiping up on the bottom of the screen. Since then, for the better part of a decade, swiping right on the Lock Screen simply takes you to the "Today View," which contains your widgets. Change is good, and I don't necessarily think Apple should bring back slide to unloc…

How you allocate and use your time every day is as important to productivity as the work you actually do, which is why it's important to pre-plan your schedule down to the minute. You have to be smart and strategic about when you work, what you work on, and how long you do it—otherwise, some of your time may be wasted. Illich’s Law, or the Law of Diminishing Returns, says that after working for a while, your productivity decreases—then becomes negative. What does Illich’s Law mean? We often think of being productive as getting a lot done, but productivity can—and should—also focus on the quality of that work, too. Some good work is, in most cases, better than a lot of s…