Home Office Setup & Equipment

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Garmin announced today it has partnered with fertility/birth control app Natural Cycles to share temperature data from the Garmin app to Natural Cycles. To use this feature, you’ll need a supported Garmin watch. Currently, these include the Fenix 8, Forerunner 570 and 970, Venu 3 and 3S, Venu 4, and Venu X1. (The full list of compatible devices is here.) Garmin Venu 4, 41mm $559.99 at Amazon …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Apple Maps may not be everyone's top choice for navigation—even those committed to the Apple ecosystem—but the app has come a long way since it's initial rocky rollout, and has plenty of features that make it worth using. Beyond the basics, you'll also want to consider some of its lesser-known settings to get the most out of Apple Maps on both mobile and desktop. Enable "Visited Places" to save locations (even if you didn't use Maps to get there) "Visited Places" is a new feature with iOS 26 that passively tracks your location and stores places you go—even if you don't use Maps to get there. If you want to keep tabs on…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Anker Solix C1000 Gen 2 Portable Power Station with a 400W solar panel is down to $829.98 (from $1,116.99) on Amazon—its lowest price, according to price trackers. Anker has been building out its Solix line as a more serious push into home backup, and the C1000 Gen 2 sits in that space where it is still portable but capable enough to handle essential appliances. It weighs just under 30 pounds, so it isn't something you’ll carry all day, but it is manageable to move from room to room or load into a car. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I just got my review unit of the Fitbit Air, and while I can't give you a full review yet, I've now had the device in my hand and have tried out the new Google Health app that will soon replace the Fitbit app. I've already found a lot to like about it, which kind of surprised me. My hopes were high, but my expectations were not. Here's what I'm seeing so far. The Fitbit Air is small and light Credit: Beth Skwarecki From photos, I could tell the Fitbit Air looked small and light,…

If you're like me, you're probably juggling multiple audio apps throughout the day. I listen to audiobooks on Audible, switch over to music on Spotify, check out podcasts on Pocketcasts, and there's always something on YouTube in the background. Usually, switching between audio sources means opening the app, finding the playback function (or the media itself), and pressing play, every time you want to listen to something new. With Android 17 (currently in beta), Google is giving us a more advanced version that lets you easily switch between playback sources right from the Notifications panel. The new Now Playing media switcher is rolling out to Android 17 QPR Beta 3 user…

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 think fitness trackers are just about step counting and heart rate, get with the times. This week, performance wearable Whoop announced it will integrate clinical laboratory testing directly into its ecosystem, partnering with Quest Diagnostics to launch Whoop Advanced Labs this fall. This adds to a growing trend of more and more wearables aiming to be comprehensive, one-stop health platforms. How Whoop will track bloodworkWhoop members will be able to purchase Quest's clinical laboratory testing, sc…

Smart home devices can streamline a lot of your day-to-day tasks: With an internet connection and some simple automations, you may never have to carry house keys, turn off the lights, or touch your thermostat. But all of this convenience comes at a potential cost, as smart tech is vulnerable to attack by cyber actors, leaving your personal data and your privacy at risk. Here's what you need to know to secure your smart home. Is your smart home secure? The short answer: not by default. Smart homes have vulnerabilities at multiple levels, from the devices themselves to your home network to the physical endpoints, like your phone, that have access to and control over you…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you’re planning your next DIY project or looking into new tools for your set, it can be overwhelming to weigh all the options available for cordless tools. As batteries become smaller and lighter, a wider range of cordless power tools is available. Here are a few of my favorite cordless tools based on design, durability, usefulness, and battery life. The best all-around cordless tool M18 FUEL 18V Lithium-Ion Cordless Brushless Oscillating Multi-Tool …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When Mark Zuckerberg described Meta's Horizon Worlds back in 2019, he seemed to think the virtual community hub would be a place for cool, tech-forward young adults to socialize and network. Six years later, it’s essentially a virtual daycare center; everywhere in virtual space is filled with kids. I don’t mean 16-year-olds or tweens, either—I’m talking young kids, so prevalent they’ve earned the nickname “squeakers” for their high-pitched voices and twitchy energy. So what’s a grown-ass adult who likes virtual reality but wants to avoid children to do? Here are some tips and strategies for finding VR places to game an…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. With Black Friday looming on the horizon and Walmart and Best Buy jumping on the early holiday sale bandwagon, it can be a little overwhelming to commit to where to spend your money. However, something that has stayed consistent over the many sales has been Amazon device prices during the early sales. One of those Amazon devices with a record-low price is the 43-inch Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED, currently $339.99 (originally $439.99), the lowest price it has been according to price-checking tools. …

Even in 2025, Google.com still knows how to have fun. If you tend to rely on your browser's address bar for Google Search, you might miss the company's latest "Doodle." But today, Oct. 30, if you head to the Google homepage, you'll find a Halloween-themed surprise: a fully playable PAC-MAN game, outfitted with spooky mazes and characters. The Halloween part makes sense, seeing as the holiday is tomorrow. But why PAC-MAN? As it happens, this year marks the game's 45th anniversary. For this Doodle, Google says it partnered with PAC-MAN's parent company, Bandi Namco Entertainment, to feature a celebratory PAC-MAN game on the homepage. If you're familiar with PAC-MAN, you…

Holiday shopping season is ripe for scammers, as consumers rush to find and take advantage of some of the best discounts of the year, and potentially overlook red flags that signal fraud. Security researchers are warning of an uptick in scams capitalizing on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday hype. Fraudsters know that they can prey on shoppers' sense of urgency and excitement for limited-time, exclusive deals—and AI is making these campaigns even more difficult to spot than usual. New data from McAfee suggest that nearly half of Americans have come across an AI-powered scam while shopping, from deepfakes impersonating celebrities pushing promotions to near-flawless spoof…

If you're having trouble accessing sites and services on the internet this morning, it isn't just you: It appears Cloudflare is experiencing a global outage. When I try to load sites like X or, ironically, Downdetector, I'm met with various errors. X shows me an internal service error, while Downdetector asks me to "Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed." (I definitely do not have that authority.) You may experience similar errors on websites you try to load this morning, even ones you don't regularly visit. As part of this article, for example, I would google queries and click the top results to websites I had never heard of before, only to encounter simil…

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…

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. 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 and inventory are always subject to change. For years, the M1 MacBook Air has been the default cheap MacBook recommendation every deals season. Even now, it’s available for just $549 at Walmart.…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Watching Clark Griswold fail at hanging up Christmas lights in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation may be a hilarious annual holiday tradition, but in real life, decorating failure is no laughing matter. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, around 15,000 people in the U.S. go to the emergency room every year for holiday decorating-related injuries. And no one is keeping statistics on the countless serious injuries my eyes suffer when I see neighbors with a half-ass light display. So let's avoid all that unpleasantness with this ultimate guide to Christmas lights, from planning, to tools, tips, safety, a…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Based on the (really rather excellent) comic book series from Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, Prime Video's satirical superhero romp The Boys picks up the genre deconstructionist torch passed by Alan Moore's Watchmen. The tone is less philosophical but even more cynical, suggesting that power doesn't just corrupt—it makes people absolute dicks. It's set in a world where people with superpowers work for a powerful multinational corporation, with plenty of money and a powerful PR machine behind them to clean up their messes and excesses, and keep them in the public's good graces. When the girlfriend of Hughie Campbell (…

Because it’s Christmas time, I’ve been digging into myths and misconceptions we have about the holiday: Yuletide misinformation is rampant, and I’m setting the record straight. Last week I dug into who Santa Claus really is, with side quests about St. Nicholas bringing children back from the dead and the religious war between Santa and Kris Kringle. One thing I didn't talk about? His elves. Christmas elves feel like they’ve been around forever, and people have strangely consistent ideas of what they’re all about—they’re small, they wear green, they make toys out of some innate magical compulsion, they love shelves— but that variety of elf is a recent invention; “real” e…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Most outdoor speakers claim they can handle water. The Soundcore Boom 3i goes further: it's fully waterproof and dustproof with an IP68 rating, but it also resists saltwater, which is still rare at this size and price. That matters if your weekends involve beaches, boats, or the ocean rather than a backyard patio. Also, it floats, and more importantly, it does so facing upward, which keeps the drivers out of the water and the sound clear. That one detail makes a real difference when waves or movement would normally flip a speaker onto its side. Th…

If you received gift cards over the holidays, don't throw them in a drawer and forget about them. While many gift card scams involve thieves demanding payments—for everything from taxes and fines owed to outstanding utility bills—via prepaid cards, there's a less obvious type of fraud known as gift card draining. How gift card draining scams workIf you forget how much money is on a gift card you received a while ago, you're likely to check the balance online. You'll typically need to enter your card number and PIN or security code, but some websites that claim to provide gift card balances are actually collecting that information to use it later. Always use the official …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Usually, you can open a laptop screen, you can close it, and that's it. But Lenovo's newest laptop, debuting at CES 2026, can also rotate from side-to-side, open and close itself, turn into a tablet, and talk to you while doing it. That's all thanks to a small motorized hinge in between the screen and the keyboard, giving the laptop full, self-powered 360-degree movement. It's an evolution of a previous concept laptop, but now it's finally coming to market as the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist. The idea is obviously there for a bit of a cool factor—you ca…

My number one hack to consistently exercise is my ability to lose myself in the moment. When the music fades, your doubts quiet, and you're simply there—fully immersed in the rhythm of your workout—is what psychologists call a "flow state." And it's not reserved for marathon runners, or professional dancers, musical geniuses or chess masters, or what have you. Whether you're lifting weights in your garage, following a YouTube yoga video, or taking a morning jog, tapping into flow can transform your workout from a chore into something genuinely energizing. What is a flow state?Flow state, a concept popularized by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, describes a mental sta…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. It's been nearly five years since Apple released the first—and only—AirTag, but that's not necessarily a surprise: These trackers aren't really the kind of product you expect to update every year or two. Unlike an iPhone, which gets new processors, cameras, and other hardware features every year, AirTags just ... track your stuff. The only thing that needs replacing annually are their batteries; otherwise, they do exactly what you expect them to. That said, Apple has made changes over the years. In response to initial criticism, the company made it much more difficult for someone to slip one of these AirTags in your bag…

There’s an art and a science to picking a good starting word when you play Wordle. And now that the New York Times has announced it will start repeating previously used words, it may be time to rethink your strategy. While previous solutions used to be off-limits for future puzzles, that rule has changed. As of February 1, 2026, they're fair game again. That rule change matters because every word choice in Wordle has to be split between two jobs—gaining information about what to guess next, and trying to solve the puzzle with your guess. If you don't care whether your starting word might be a solution, then the rule change may not affect you. But some solvers prefer to u…