Home Office Setup & Equipment

We may earn a commission from links on this page. There's something extra satisfying about starting a new year with an upgrade that actually makes a difference in your daily routine. After years of relying on my traditional percussive massage guns, I've made the switch to the Rally Orbital Massager. And one by one, my friends have started following in my footsteps to make the same move. Hey, there's something validating about watching people you trust independently come to the same conclusion. Why I love the Rally Orbital MassagerDon't get me wrong—my Theragun still serves me well. It's been a reliable companion after workouts, helping ease tension and speed up recovery.…

There are a lot of ways I trick myself into meeting my goals, like coming up with various rewards and punishments for myself or outsourcing my progress tracking to apps. In general, I'm a deeply goal-oriented person and I am, for better or worse, obsessed with "winning"—which I always thought made me a perfect candidate for complicated productivity techniques like detailed to-do lists full of tasks in order of priority. While I do love a good technique, I decided to switch things up last year when I got worried that maybe I was spending so much time prioritizing and planning that I wasn't spending enough time doing. So I just focused on the doing—and it worked. Here's wha…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Clicks, the company behind those physical keyboard cases for your smartphone, has announced a new device, but it'll look pretty familiar to anyone who's used a Blackberry before. It's called the Clicks Communicator, and it's a pocketable little handset that's perfect for anyone who misses having physical buttons on their phone. It comes with a full, old-school style QWERTY keyboard and runs Android 16, and while you can pump it full of apps and use it standalone, Clicks says it expects many of its customers will prefer to use it as a minimalistic companion to a primary smartphone. In that way, this device is designed to be…

If you've ever looked into trading in your smartphone for a dumbphone, you might have stumbled across Punkt. The German-based company's MP01 and MP02 phone were purposely not "smart;" rather, they were minimalist slabs of plastic, sporting a tiny display and an array of large, physical buttons. The point of owning a Punkt device isn't to sit scrolling on your smartphone for hours on end; it's to use your phone when you need to—privately, at that. The MP03 looks like any other smartphone at firstThe company's latest phone, the MP03, flips the script a bit. While there's still a focus on privacy and minimalism, this newest device is virtually indistinguishable from other A…

While CES doesn't technically kick off until Tuesday, the conference gets a bit of a soft launch with CES Unveiled. This event hosts a ton of companies, all proudly showing off their latest products and concepts in one giant room. While there's plenty to write home about, five products in particular this year caught my eye: Tombot Credit: Lifehacker Tombot's robotic puppy, "Jennie," isn't supposed to be a pet-replacement. Instead, Jennie is specifically designed to help people with Alzheimer's. The bot is a healthcare device, a…

At CES 2026, I was able to play the Nintendo Switch 2 in AR. That's something I hadn't done before, and that's because until now, only one company had an AR dock that worked with Nintendo's latest console, which doesn't like to play nice with AR glasses plugged directly into it. Viture's solution is fine, if a bit bulky, but Lifehacker has long praised the AR glasses from competitor XREAL, and finally, you can use XREAL glasses with the Nintendo Switch 2. Previously, XREAL did have an accessory that allowed for gameplay on the original Nintendo Switch, but it's since been discontinued, and even if you buy it secondhand, it won't work with the Switch 2. Now, the XREAL NEO …

Before we toss the year 2025 onto the temporal dungheap where it belongs, let's take a look back at the year that has passed from the point of view of the people who have to live here even longer than we have to. Below is a month-by-month replay of the year, focusing on the memes, events, and ideas that shape and define Generations Z and Alpha. January: "TikTok refugees" move to RedNoteFor Gen Z, 2025 began with a panic that turned into a unique cross-cultural experiment. In January 2025, ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, announced that it was about to shut down the social media platform in the U.S. Ahead of the shut-down (which didn't end up happening) a wav…

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is often referred to as "the most powerful tech event in the world," bringing together tech companies from around the globe to unveil their latest innovations. The massive event is held across various locations, including the Las Vegas Convention Center, The Venetian, Mandalay Bay, and The Sphere, and is a staple event for both companies vying for recognition and media outlets that cover them. One day into "Unveiled," the media-only prelude to the trade show, I landed on what might be my mantra for my CES 2026 experience. "Cool, if true," Associate Tech Editor Michelle Ehrhardt had said about a new product booth, summarizing how I felt …

Need some help writing your emails? Through the wonders of AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), you can now get messages composed on your behalf in Gmail, in Apple Mail, in Outlook, and in many other email clients. Most of the time, the AI option pops up straight away, ready to give you however much assistance you need. The pitch is that you can offload the drudgery of dealing with email to AI, and move on to other tasks that may be more interesting and important. Anecdotally, I've spoken to quite a few people who now use AI chatbots in this way. But it's not something I'm ready to embrace, and I don't think I ever will. These are my reasons, which may or may not resonate…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Withings launched their $600 Body Scan 2 smart scale at CES Unveiled last night—but they're positioning it as a "longevity station" rather than a smart scale. The device has a handle in addition to the footplate, which allows for extra sensors, and the new features include things like hypertension notifications that we've previously seen from smartwatches. (Hypertension notifications only just came to the Apple Watch a few months ago.) I got to see the Body Scan 2 at a CES event but haven't had a chance to use it for myself. According to Withings, the Body Scan 2 can measure "60+ biomarkers" that it says are relevant to t…

I spent some time with Petkit on the show floor of CES on Monday, where I got to see the company's automatic wet food cat feeder, its newest smart litter box, as well as an AI-powered water dispenser. Of course, a water dispenser should ideally do one thing: dispense fresh water for your pet. The Eversweet Ultra water dispenser, however, adds a number of smart features to the mix, some of which actually seem particular useful for owners of multiple cats. The Eversweet's camera tracks your cats' drinking habits I first learned about this water dispenser last week when Petkit officially announced it, and some of the specs and features are the same on paper as they are in pe…

Many people think the world is going to end in 2026. Man people think the world is going to end every year—maybe because the Bible said so, or The Simpsons said so—but this 2026-doomsday prediction seems to have a scientific basis. In a 1960 issue of Science magazine, Austrian scientist and polymath Heinz von Foerster detailed what he called the “Doomsday Equation,” a model he used to calculate the last day of civilization on earth. According to von Foerster (and probably Homer Simpson), The End is coming on Friday, November 13, 2026. Who is Heinz von Foerster?Foerster was not a crank. A pioneer in computer science, artificial intelligence, physics, biophysics, and other…

There's very little privacy on the internet: Data brokers collect tons of information about you and your online activity and sell it to anyone interested in marketing to you. California residents have gained more control over their personal data than those in other states since the passage of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2018, and they now have a one-stop shop for requesting that their information be removed from hundreds of data brokers registered with the state (and any that do so in the future). California isn't the only state to enact stronger consumer privacy laws in recent years, but its Delete Requests and Opt-Out Platform (DROP) is the first of i…

Every year at CES, Intel and AMD announce their newest processors. This year, Intel debuted its first line of chips made with its 18a process, which stands for 18 angstroms, or under 2nm. To make that a little less nerdy, that means these chips can fit a lot of tech into a small area, which means big gains in performance. Colloquially called Panther Lake, the new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips are focused on laptops and mini-PCs. But that doesn't mean they don't put out impressive numbers. During its keynote, Intel promised "77% faster gaming performance," and for everyone actually using their PCs to do work, "60% better multithread performance." Impressively, it also sa…

When you come across an AI video on Instagram, or watch ChatGPT respond to your query, do you ever think about how that content was generated? Beyond the actual programs and prompts, generative AI takes an enormous amount of compute to support, especially as it skyrockets in popularity. As such, AI companies are looking for more power than ever, which means, of course, turning to those that make the hardware. AMD calls Helios "The world's best AI rack" During a Monday evening keynote, AMD's CEO Dr. Lisa Su showed off the hardware that will soon power everything from ChatGPT to the AI videos overwhelming your feeds. Su introduced "Helios" against a backdrop of dramatic mu…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you're anything like me, you spend 90% of your time using your laptop with it docked and plugged into a monitor (or two). And if you're at that point, you might be wondering why you even bother having a screen attached to your computer at all. If so, HP's got your back. Announced at this year's CES, the HP Eliteboard G1a looks like a normal keyboard on the outside, but on the inside, it's got a whole Windows PC. That's not exactly a new concept, but with the experimental days of Windows XP long behind us, it's mostly been reserved for less powerful, Linux-based single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi. That's great …

At last year's CES, Sony's press conference showed off products from all over its portfolio, including a first look at The Last of Us season 2. This year, it was all about the Afeela, an electric car Sony's making in collaboration with Honda that it's been teasing for years, but is now finally getting ready to release. Sony has big plans for Afeela. Previews have been less about hard specs like mileage or speed and more about the company's plans to change how we look at cars. Previously, that's included demo'ing integrations with other Sony services like Crunchyroll and themes for the car's interior based on Sony brands. Just last month, the company confirmed it would sup…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. “Smart” glasses have been big at CES this year, but the headset that has impressed me most is a device that helps people with central vision loss, including those who are considered “legally blind,” to see what they otherwise couldn’t. At a press event, I met a woman with macular degeneration, Liz Baker, who uses them daily—and I got to try them myself. What eSight Go is, and how it works Credit: Beth Skwarecki The device is called eSight Go. It’s a headset with little screens …

During last year's CES, Dell killed the brand behind the very first laptop I ever owned, ditching its beloved XPS branding alongside other classic names like Inspiron and Precision. In its place, the company said all of its future (non-gaming) computers would now be known simply as "Dell," either being Dell, Dell Pro, or Dell Pro Max devices. In addition to these, other monikers like Dell Plus and Dell Premium were also tossed into the mix—and with all those similar-sounding adjectives floating around, it was just a mess to know what you were actually buying. If you can tell me the difference between a Dell 14 Plus, a Dell 14 Premium, and a Dell 14 Pro Premium without loo…

Your phone is a one-stop shop for a lot of your personal information, from day-to-day activities logged in your calendar and email to financial data accessed via banking apps. If you let someone else use your device—whether you're showing a friend a collection of photos or allowing a stranger to make an emergency call—there's a lot you don't want them to be able to see. If you're an iPhone user, there are several features you can enable to prevent others from snooping around your device. Use Guided AccessIf you don't want someone using your device to see anything else on it, you can turn on Guided Access, which limits them to a single app (such as Phone or Photos). This…

Hisense is all about TVs at this year's CES—specifically, how those TVs display color. If the company's keynote is any indication, Hisense is extremely invested in leading the charge in color reproduction. Though its tagline this year is "Innovating a Brighter Life," the pitch is less on how bright their TVs are, and more on how true to life their colors are, especially when it comes to accurately displaying the filmmakers' original intent. Will consumers buy a TV because their favorite movie looks a bit more how the director intended it to be? I'm not sure. But that's largely the idea behind Hisense's new RGB MiniLED Evo. RGB MiniLED Evo …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. With the rise of streaming culture, a lot of gamers have started investing in computers that don't just play games well, but that look good while doing it. Asus's newest pre-built gaming desktop, the ROG G1000, is pretty by-the-book when it comes to high-end performance, but it's got one major selling point when it comes to those all-important gamer aesthetics: holograms. Built into this computer's front panel and one of its side panels, safely tucked into inaccessible glass windows, are rapidly rotating LED strips that, when in motion, create convincing full-color images that appear to have depth. The "frame rate" can be …

My concentration is shot. I know this because I've checked my phone four times while writing this opening paragraph. I'm addicted to my phone in a way that feels both embarrassing and completely normal, which is perhaps the most damning part. My phone feels essential for everything: my job requires Slack and email responsiveness, my hobbies live in apps and group chats, and even my downtime involves scrolling through feeds I don't actually enjoy. These days, we tend to think of upgrades (in life, in tech, wherever) as adding features, but sometimes the real upgrade is eliminating. So I did something a little radical this year: I bricked my iPhone. Well, sort of. And it's …

CES is the time of year for weird computers, and Asus is bringing back an old fan favorite to help fill its unusual form factor quota. Gamers who miss the days of dual screens, get excited: the ROG Zephyrus Duo is returning for 2026, and it's bigger than ever. Looking a bit like a gigantic Nintendo DS, the new ROG Zephyrus Duo stacks two full-sized 3K OLED screens on top of each other, with a standard laptop hinge in between. It's a lot like the company's existing Zenbook Duo, but that one's geared more for productivity users—the Zephyrus Duo is fully specced out for gamers, with a 120Hz refresh rate on both screens, the latest Intel Core Ultra chips, up to an RTX 5090 la…

I don't have a cat, but I do have a dog, and my dog can be a picky eater. After months of trial and error, the only way we could get him to consistently eat breakfast and dinner was with wet food. There is no scenario in which I or someone watching my dog can outsource the task of feeding him, but that's not the case for cat owners. I know that cats sometimes stay home alone for extended periods of time, where an automatic food dispenser becomes essential. I can only imagine, then, that cat owners who, like me, feed their pet wet food, now have a challenge: Someone has to be there to feed the cat. That's what intrigues me about Petkit's Yumshare Daily Feast, an automated …