Home Office Setup & Equipment

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Purchasing a full set of individual dumbbell pairs between five and 60 pounds can cost well over $1,500, not to mention how much space you'd have to dedicate to storing them. That's why I'm a huge fan of adjustable dumbbells like the REP QuickDraws or Nüobells, which I reviewed here and here, respectively. If you know you want to be able to up to 60 pounds at five-pound increments, effectively combining 30 weights into one compact set, then adjustables like the REP QuickDraws are how you can save significant money and space in your home gym equipment setup. But let's say your strength progresses beyond your adjustable du…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. For anyone looking for a straightforward, budget laptop for school, writing, or browsing, this open-box Microsoft Surface Laptop SE sale is worth a look. It’s priced at $189.99 right now on StackSocial, down from its original $378.99 listing. Even Amazon has it for about $20 more at the moment. Being an open-box item means you're not getting the out-of-the-plastic wrap experience—these units were likely returned, displayed, or pulled from shelves—so the box might be bruised or have a sticker or two, but the product itself is tested, verified, repack…

The internet is not a private place. Every time you connect to a website, ads and beacons—both visible and invisible—attempt to follow your every move. They'll even take the anonymized information they collect and build a profile that other trackers can use to identify you as you surf the web. It's pretty bleak. Luckily, modern browsers are fighting back. While there are certainly better options than others, most browsers have privacy protections built in. If you know what you're doing, you can max out these protections and install some third-party boosters to retain some (if not most) of your privacy across the internet. If you're curious how your browser stacks up to t…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. There are a lot of phones that promise top-tier performance for under a grand, but not many manage to deliver it quite like the Motorola Moto Edge+ (2023). Now available for just $399.99—down from its original $649.99—this unlocked model is sitting at its lowest price ever, according to price-trackers. That’s a steep drop for a phone that PCMag named an Editor’s Choice. It comes in Interstellar Black with 8GB RAM and a generous 512GB of storage. The design lives up to its name with curved edges that wrap around a nearly bezel-less 6.7-inch display w…

Between the sheer number and the increasing sophistication of phishing campaigns, seeing should not automatically be believing when browsing online. One particularly sneaky scam is a browser-in-the-browser (BitB) attack, in which threat actors create a fake browser window that looks like a trusted single sign-on (SSO) login page within a real browser session. Because we use SSO to access many of our online accounts, we may not think twice before entering usernames and passwords on these spoofed pages. Cybercriminals are counting on this to steal user credentials. How a browser-in-the-browser attack worksRather than redirecting users to a spoofed website, threat actors ru…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Considering we're awaiting word of a (likely) sixth season renewal, it's undeniable that Emily in Paris has been an unqualified success for Netflix, a reliable hit that rivals the success of buzzier genre shows like Stranger Things. Lily Collins stars as the faux pas-prone Emily Cooper, who moves to Paris and lands a temporary job at a glitzy French marketing firm kind of by accident. She doesn't speak the language and doesn't get the culture, but slowly manages to ingratiate herself to the locals while juggling work and romance in a new country. The series hails from Darren Star, creator of Sex and the City, so her buddin…

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. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’ve been eyeing a headset that toes the line between immersive tech and affordability, the Razer Kaira Pro for PlayStation is currently down to $89.99 on Woot (for six days or until it's sold out). That’s about $30 cheaper than Amazon’s current price and the lowest it’s ever been, according to price trackers. It ships with a 90-day Woot warranty, but do note: shipping isn’t available to Alaska, Hawaii, or P.O. boxes. Razer Kaira Pro for PlayStation …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Two years ago, screenless fitness tracker Whoop took on a problem that none of its competitors have managed to solve: answering the question “how hard was your weightlifting workout?” Its initial implementation was clunky and finicky. I don’t think I managed to log a single workout correctly. But now, with improvements over the years, it’s become a much more useful feature. The game changer for me? Being able to connect exercises to a workout after you do the workout. This way you can’t mess up the tracking during the workout, but you still get the thing you actually care about—a Strain score accurate enough to power the …

I really like my Pixel 9a, but there’s one glaring issue with my Pixel that stares at me every time I unlock my phone. And it’s the At a Glance widget on top the screen that Google just won’t let me remove. I like a clean lock screen, and eventually, I got so frustrated looking at this totally uncustomizable widget that shows the time and the weather that I gave up and switched to Niagara Launcher. And if you think that this is just my own pickiness, I can confidently say it’s not just me; Reddit is filled with people complaining about this. But seems like after 10 iterations of Pixels, Google is finally letting people get rid of this widget, clearing space for something,…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Six months ago, I reviewed the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. If you’ve been off-grid, these specs pack a camera, open-ear speakers, microphones, and voice-activated Meta AI inside a pair of Wayfarer-style frames, so they're basically science fiction glasses that look normal. I liked them so much, I had prescription lenses put in and made them part of my daily load out. But it's easy to love a tech product when it’s new and shiny; the real test is how the Ray-Ban Metas fair after they've gone from novelty to another damn thing I have to remember to charge. Bottom line: I still really like them after half a year of wearing the…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. As a marathon runner, I've always taken a minimalist (read: cheap) approach to my gear. But when it comes to properly investing in—and maybe even splurging on—running gear, nothing is more important than your shoes. According to Jessica Lyons-Quirk, director of footwear merchandising at Road Runner Sports, wearing proper footwear is crucial for staying injury-free: "The biggest thing about injuries and foot health is that you need to be in the right shoe for your foot—every foot is different." So as you're racking up miles and incorporating different types of runs into your training, is one pair of sneakers really getting…

Apple has been under fire for several years after it was discovered that Siri violated user privacy, and the company earlier this year agreed to a $95 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit, which includes compensation for affected users. Eligible individuals can now apply for their share of the total. The dispute centered on Siri-enabled devices, including iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, HomePod, iPod touch, and Apple TV, which may have activated and recorded and shared private conversations without user knowledge. If you qualify for the settlement class, you'll receive $20 for each device claimed—up to five devices per individual for a total of $100—thou…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Bose Smart Soundbar wasn't very well received by reviewers when it came out last fall, citing small improvements for a larger price tag. But now with a $100 discount, we can have a serious conversation about who it's good for. You can get the Bose Smart Soundbar for $399 (originally $499), the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools. Bose Smart Soundbar Channels: 3.0.2, Physical Connections: HDMI, optical, IR, subwoofer, USB. …

Filling out CAPTCHAs to prove you're a human is one of the regular annoyances of the internet—but maybe it doesn't need to be. A new feature in the latest version of One UI 7 for Samsung devices promises to solve CAPTCHAs (or Completely Automated Public Turing tests, to name them in full), but it's not yet clear how effective it will be. Why sites use CAPTCHAsCAPTCHAs pop up on numerous websites, often when you're trying to log in, and their purpose is to prove you're not a bot. The idea is that websites don't want to be overwhelmed with bot spam or come under attack from a swarm of bots, and CAPTCHAs are one way to prevent those problems. The challenge that you're met wi…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. There are no surprises with the Blink Video Doorbell camera. Blink is an established brand, and the doorbell camera has been around since 2022. What might be surprising is how cheap it has become: You can get the Blink Video Doorbell and Sync Module 2 for $34.99 (originally $69.99) after a 50% discount, the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools. Blink Video Doorbell and Sync Module 2 …

You have probably heard of skimming, a type of fraud in which criminals install physical devices capable of capturing your payment card details on ATMs, gas pumps, and point-of-sale terminals. If you enter your debit or credit card into one of these fake card readers, your data is stored for later download or transmitted wirelessly in real time to a device controlled by scammers, who will use the information to steal from your accounts. Unfortunately, online shoppers aren't immune from this scheme. Web skimming is a type of cyberattack that uses malicious code to steal card data during checkout, and researchers have identified an ongoing campaign targeting major payment …

It's the old days of Twitter all over again: Bluesky is launching an official verification process for awarding the blue check mark to "notable" user accounts, adding to the platform's existing option to self-verify using an owned domain. Since 2023, Bluesky has allowed individuals and organizations to "verify" their own accounts by setting their domain as their user name—NPR is @npr.org, for example, and NPR journalists are on the subdomain @name.npr.org—in a decentralized approach to signaling authenticity and building trust. Because connecting a domain required users to own or have access to that domain, this was one way of proving identity. However, Bluesky still sa…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. We're living in the best time in history for bringing karaoke to your home. I've had the pleasure of using the new Soundcore Rave 3S karaoke speaker, which turns any song into a karaoke track with the push of a button, and Ikarao's ultra-portable Shell S1 karaoke speaker to host many house parties. But if you're looking for a great deal on a more powerful speaker that is still compact and portable, consider the Break X2, also from Ikarao, currently $349.98 (originally $469.99), the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools. You can…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Knife blocks seem like a great idea at first. You assume there are a variety of useful knives in there, and you get a whole row of steak knives for one low price. You may not eat steak that often, and never with seven other people, but who can say “no” to so many matching knives? You, that’s who. That mass-produced knife set is unlikely to work with your unique food personality. Skip the block of cheap knives (many of which you won’t touch anyway). Instead, focus on fewer, better, personalized knives. A high-quality knife (or three) can be versatile enough to meet all of your needs without blowing your budget. Use this gui…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you’ve finally purchased your first air fryer, let me start by saying how happy I am for you. I've been cooking and crisping with mine for a few years now, and during this time I've put a lot of things in that basket. Not everything has worked out (it's not an appliance for steaming, friends), but many of my experiments have been so delicious and reliably repeatable that they're now staples in my household. Below are 12 of my favorites things to cook in the air fryer that either save me time, money, or both. (If you're still on the fence about whether to get an air fryer and you're reading this as research, allow me to…

You might be having a bad week, but AI is having a worse one. First there was the "racism glitch" that beset Grok, and now music platform SoundCloud is facing some serious criticism for a clause buried in its terms of service. The imbroglio began in February 2024, when SoundCloud quietly changed its TOS to include: In the absence of a separate agreement that states otherwise, You explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services. That quietly sat there in the TOS for more than a year, but this week, Ed Newton notice…

If you use Spotify to listen to audiobooks on your iPhone, you now have fewer hurdles to clear to purchase and download titles to your device. Apple has approved an update that allows Spotify users to view pricing and buy individual audiobooks as well as add "top-up" listening hours right from the iOS app. How in-app purchases are changing on iOSThis change is the outcome of a recent court ruling that requires Apple to allow app developers to provide links to external sites outside of the App Store to make purchases. Previously, users had to seek out where to sign up for subscriptions—in an external browser, for example—or potentially pay a premium price to cover the Ap…

Magic Leap is back. The tech company, now owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, today revealed a prototype for a pair of Android XR smart glasses made as a "reference design for the Android XR ecosystem," and announced it had extended its partnership with Google. The AR glasses have thicker-than-normal frames, but not ridiculously so, and seem to have a camera. But that’s about all we know: there's no word on availability or what the glasses actually do. While Magic Leap didn't reveal a ton of concrete details about its new shades, it did say they combine "Magic Leap’s waveguides and optics with Google’s Raxium microLED light engine" with the goal being an all-…

Mac users can put any widget on their desktop. Windows puts widgets into a dedicated area that's not really customizable and curates headlines from the absolute worst places on the web. What if you just want a few simple pieces of information to show up over your wallpaper? A free application called BeWidgets lets you do just that. This free application lets you set up widgets featuring the weather, date, time, stock prices, and app shortcuts. It also lets you customize them to look however you want. To get started, install the application; you can add a widget immediately. Give it a name, just so you can keep track of it, then choose what information you'd like the widg…