Home Office Setup & Equipment

It probably goes without saying at this point, but your conversations with AI chatbots aren't private—everything you type or upload to Gemini, ChatGPT, and other models might be read and used in a variety of ways. If you wouldn't send a document or repeat information to someone you don't know, you shouldn't include it in a chatbot prompt either. Researchers at Stanford reviewed the privacy policies of the six U.S. companies that developed the most popular AI chatbots, including Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT, and found that all of them use chat data by default for training purposes. Some retain said data indefinitely, and most merge it with other information collected fro…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you’re grossed out by the idea that you might be bitten by a tick this year (chances are good, to be honest), now is the time to get yourself a bottle of permethrin spray. Permethrin-treating your shoes and pants is one of the simplest ways to set up a barrier between hungry ticks and your delicious, blood-filled flesh. Repel Permethrin Clothing & Gear Insect Repellent, 6.5 fl oz $4.97 …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. In the past few years, I’ve gone from being a defiant minimalist runner, to becoming a humble fan of Garmin’s most entry-level running watch, to now falling in love with the company's top-of-the-line Forerunner. A quick cheat code to understanding the model numbers in Garmin’s Forerunner line: The first number tells you how fancy (and expensive) the watch is. This means that my upgrade from the Garmin Forerunner 165 to the Forerunner 970 is not a small step up the ladder. Honestly, it's more like skipping the ladder entirely and taking the elevator to the penthouse. The price gap alone—from $250 to $750—is enough to give …

Despite what the headline of this article might lead you to believe, I don't think AI voice generation is inherently bad. Certainly there are cases where it makes sense, like preserving people's voices when they lose the ability to speak themselves, or turning your notes into an AI "podcast" to keep studying on-the-go, or to make written content more accessible to people with low vision. And in contrast to clunkier older tools, modern AI makes it easy to generate a realistic voice you can use in a number of scenarios. But in my humble opinion, art isn't usually a proper use case for AI voices. If I choose to listen to an audiobook, I am almost assuredly looking for an ex…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. A flagship soundbar rarely comes cheap, but Woot is currently shaving a big chunk off Samsung’s 2025 model. The Samsung HW-Q990F, a premium 11.1.4-channel Dolby Atmos soundbar, is marked down to $887.99. That’s nearly half of Samsung's list price for brand-new units, and also the lowest price yet, according to price-trackers. This deal is live for the next three weeks (or until stock runs out). Shipping is free for Prime members (otherwise it's $6 for shipping), though restricted to the lower 48 states. …

Google Workspace is getting a slew of AI-related updates, including a brand new app called Google Pics, which can generate and edit images for you. Many of these updates will be available to those who use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, and other Google Workspace apps, the company announced during the Google I/O 2026 keynote. This includes conversational features that will allow you to control Gmail, Docs, and Keep; a new AI inbox that aims to help you stay on top of your email; and a personal AI agent called Gemini Spark that can integrate with Google Workspace apps to get things done for you. Here are all the major Google Workspace updates unveiled during Google I/O …

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. Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find. 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. Not only is my house pretty small, it’s also pretty old, so my…

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. Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find. 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. It's October, which means it's time for another Prime Day sale…

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 end tonight, Oct. 8, and until then, Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it’s over. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, and more. Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find. 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 …

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 October 7-8, and Lifehacker is sharing the best bargains, based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools. Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find. 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. Deals on smartwatches are only getting better and better during Amazon's Big Deal …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you've been waiting to get your hands on a Samsung Galaxy XR virtual reality headset, now's your moment: The device is available to order now on Samsung's or Google's website for $1,799 and orders are scheduled to arrive Nov. 4. To offset the price, the Galaxy XR comes with a free year of Google AI Pro, YouTube Premium, and Google Play Pass. Built in partnership with Google and Qualcomm, the Galaxy XR features dual, 4K micro-OLED screens delivering 27 million pixels total and 100-degree horizontal field of view, all powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip and packed into a lightweight (1.2 pounds) form factor. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Five years after its debut, Apple’s first M1 MacBook Air still holds up as one of the most important laptops the company ever made. Back in 2020, this was the machine that introduced Apple Silicon to the world, replacing Intel chips with a homegrown design that ran cooler, faster, and quieter. Currently, a refurbished 13.3-inch model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage is available for sale on StackSocial for $384.99. It carries a Grade-A rating, which means the condition should be close to mint, although there may be minor signs of handling, s…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Paint can be a cheap way to transform and improve your house, covering up the wear and tear of daily life or bringing a pop of color into your home. The paint you pick up at your local hardware store is pretty powerful stuff, but if you’ve ever struggled to make a DIY paint job look professional, or tried to solve a specific problem with paint, you should know about paint additives. Paint additives are just what they sound like: Stuff you add to your paint to increase its usefulness or to make it easier to work with. They’re essentially chemicals that interact with the paint or the surface it coats to achieve a specific ef…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices an…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices an…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices an…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. It's Cyber Monday, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before the sales are over. Some Cyber Monday deals are still live, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before the sales are over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Car…

There are a lot of apps on the market that claim to "clean up" your Mac—for a price. Some offer subscriptions, some cost a lot up front, but for the most part, they offer the same few features—wiping things like caches and logs, completely uninstalling apps, and monitoring system health. These apps all tend to be a little on the bloated side, with a lot of animations and graphics. The free, open source, Terminal-based Mole is the opposite of those applications. Running entirely from the command line, Mole couldn't possibly look less flashy, but it combines a number of different tools that can free up hard drive space on your Mac while also keeping things running smoothly.…

Internet videos have always been addicting, but short-form content is a whole other beast. Whatever platform you watch them on, these brief clips pull you in and don't let go, and, before you know it, you've mindlessly scrolled through hours of videos, most of which you'll never remember watching. YouTube Shorts are no exception. But unlike TikTok or Instagram, short-form content is not the main source of videos on the platform. YouTube, of course, hosts long-form videos first and foremost, and is the sole reason why many of us visit the site or app. Shorts are just an afterthought, but an afterthought that YouTube pushes hard. You might hop on to watch a specific video,…

Earlier this month Strava unveiled its new Instant Workouts feature, a subscriber-exclusive tool that seems like a natural way to leverage its acquisition of Runna. In a Reddit post, Strava said this feature builds upon Runna's already successful Instant Workouts feature. Instant Workouts uses your activity history to generate personalized workouts across four intents ("Maintain," "Build," "Explore," or "Recover"). The idea is that the more you upload, the more personalized your recommendations become. Another major selling point is the automatic route generation feature, which draws on Strava's massive database of billions of historical activities to suggest optimal pat…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I’ve never managed to get on board with any hydration trackers. I’ll log the foods I eat, the exercise I do, but drinks just happen. Did I have one glass of water or two with lunch? Hell if I know. Not to mention that your hydration depends on all the H2O you take in, not just the glasses of plain water. You can hydrate with soup, with Diet Coke, or with slices of watermelon. Most hydration apps forget this, but even if they don’t, that just makes logging even more complicated. That’s why I was intrigued by the P Water app for iPhone and Apple Watch. It tracks exactly what you’d expect from the name. I’ve been using it for…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. So many things can go wrong with your home at any given moment—and those problems won't exactly wait for you to be prepared to deal with them before they hit. Plus, they often happen when it’s difficult or impossible to get a professional to come help you—like during storms, or in the middle of the night. If you wake up to a burst pipe or a leaking roof and you can’t get a pro to come for a while, you don’t want to be powerless in your efforts to stave off further disaster. Having a basic set of tools is a great start, but you need to keep a few more items on hand if you truly want to be able to respond with a quick fix. H…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Garmin smartwatches have been gaining popularity in recent years for health-conscious and sports enthusiasts alike. Their Garmin Venu 3S, which was released in late 2023, is one of their premium watches that works great for beginners and more advanced athletes thanks to their user-friendly fitness tracking. You can get the 41mm Venu 3S for $349.99 (originally $449.99), the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools. Garmin Venu 3S …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Things seemed very quiet this week in the world of youth culture, so I asked my always-connected son what kids were talking about. "Dad, the Epstein files," he said. "That's all anyone is talking about." I like to keep things light here, but it's not possible at the moment; The Epstein files are the culture right now, no matter what age you are. Younger people are trying to figure out how to fit this massive thing into their idea of the world, just like you probably are. Smaller kids are contextualizing the files by visiting/making Roblox Epstein Islands and joking about it in school (then asking their folks what it reall…