Setting Up Your Home Office

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I broke one of the biggest rules in the running book and lived to tell about it. Everybody knows you need to replace your running shoes after 300 to 500 miles to avoid injury (or 200 to 400, or whatever running companies are saying these days). Well, I put over 1,000 miles on mine, and I’m not sorry. I know it’s been over 1,000 miles because I’ve been tracking my shoes’ mileage in the Garmin Connect app. My watch logs the mileage, and I make sure the credit goes to the appropriate shoe in the app. I carefully ported my shoe miles to and from the Coros app when I switched ecosystems for a bit this past summer. Some of my r…

Google is adding one of the iPhone's most controversial features to its latest Pixel phones, but it's promising to show a bit more restraint than Apple did. Yes, as part of the November 2025 Pixel feature drop, Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 phones (excluding the Pixel 9a) are getting AI notification summaries. The problem with AI notification summariesIf you're reeling back after reading that, I don't blame you. This is one of the few AI features Apple beat Google to the punch on, and when they came out during the iOS 18.3 beta, the summaries were quickly criticized for handling hard topics like breakups with a cold tone, as well as for misreporting the news. Apple quickly pulled …

In a strange reversal of the usual seller/customer dynamic, Google is now giving buyers the power to send out their own robocalls. It's not the first time the company has experimented with giving the average Joe the ability to send AI robocalls, but it is much more robust than previous outings. Rolling out today, the feature will show up while you're browsing for certain products on Search, so long as you add a "near me" to the end of your query. If the product is supported, you'll see a "Let Google Call" button, which is where the fun begins. Credit: …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. With the holiday season just around the corner, deals on VR headsets are selling fast. The Meta Quest 3 continues to remain the gold standard in this arena. Right now, the more affordable but equally popular Meta Quest 3S (128GB with a Gorilla Tag bundle) is $249.99 (originally $299.99) on Amazon, marking a 17% discount and its lowest price ever, according to price-tracking tools. Meta Quest 3S VR Headset 128GB …

My mom has been a master Chinese painter for over 40 years. I recently used AI to incorporate her art into physical gifts. If you want to achieve the same quality with a meaningful family photo, here's how you can utilize Adobe's new upscaling features to get the best results. For this process, I used Adobe Firefly and Photoshop. Adobe Firefly is Adobe's generative AI application, and the company released a phone app this summer to help you create on the go. If you're a total newbie to Firefly, you can just ask the app for help along the way. Photoshop, which has long been the gold standard for image edit…

I may be home all the time, but I'm enjoying Nest's Gemini-aided summaries, even if they're not always on the mark. The new summaries let me easily glance at a notification to see if it's worth getting up for. They've become a metronome of my day, as I see that the local feral cat is on its rounds of mouse hunting in my backyard. And the daily Home Brief is good at summarizing the relative chaos coming in and out of my house. I'm not even using the latest Nest hardware. I have a mix of first- and second-generation cameras, including two 2012-era indoor Nest cameras and a blend of 2021-era releases. It's been interesting to see how the Gemini infusion has revived the aging…

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. More than 45 million people in the United States rent their homes, and as purchasing a home continues to be out of reach for many, that number probably isn’t going down anytime soon. If you’re a renter, you know that renting often comes with some compromises in terms of control over your environment, space, and interior design. Being limited in what you can do because you don’t actually own the walls and floors can be a real challenge when it comes to making the space nice. But with a few clever ideas, you can make your rental more comfortable, more useful, and less expensive—and ensure that you get all of your security de…

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. 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…

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. 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. If you've been curious about s…

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. Rockstar fans might be all-in on waiting for GTA VI, but Grand Theft Auto is far from the only big title the company makes. One of Rockstar's most impactful games, Red Dead Redemption, turned 15 in May. All these years later, it's still very much worth your time—if critics and fans have anything to say about it. On Tuesday, Rockstar announced some big news for the first Red Dead: First, anyone who owns a copy of the game for PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, can now upgrade to the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, or Nintendo Switch 2 versions for free. That includes upgrades like 60 fps, upgraded visuals, support for HDR, and 4K r…

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Safari is better than Chrome. Apple's default browser runs faster, is less cluttered, offers privacy features Google would never contemplate, and doesn't try to cram AI down your throat. But that doesn't mean Safari is perfect. Like all browsers, it works better if you install the right extensions. Here are a few I've found in the past year or so that make the best browser even better. Block ads and other clutter Credit: Justin Pot The internet is increasingly useless without a good ad…

It's tough to get people to answer the phone—though I'm not really blaming those who don't pick up. We are so inundated with spam calls these days that refusing to answer incoming calls en masse isn't actually a bad strategy. When that call could be someone trying to break into your bank account, or alerting you to fraudulent credit card charges that never happened, perhaps it's best to just wait for friends and family to text instead. But let's say the call is from you to someone you know and trust, and let's assume they see it's you who's calling. Even though they know the call isn't spam, there are still plenty of reasons someone won't pick up the phone—including, of …

In a way, the Christmas season is more fun if you don’t celebrate it. There’s no pressure. You get to enjoy all the brightly colored lights your neighbors put up, but you don’t have to put up your own. You don’t have to do any duty-shopping. But Christmas Day itself leaves you in a mostly shuttered world that feels like there’s nothing to do. Fortunately, there are still quite a few options to make Dec. 25 a fun day off, regardless of your observances. Un-Christmas classics: Chinese restaurants and moviesYou can’t go wrong with some moo shu pork and a trip to the multiplex. Chinese restaurants and movie theaters traditionally stay open on Christmas day for those who don't…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. What if you make this the year you don't fill all the stockings with candy or socks? Both have their place, but if you want to really make this the best Christmas ever, you have to shove some tech in those stockings. The good news: tech gifts don’t have to be expensive to be impressive. No matter who you're shopping for, there are tons of affordable gizmos that are some combination of cool and useful and that feel pricier than they are. Here are 20 cool tech stocking stuffers to light up any holiday morning, all of which cost less than $50. This ha…

Love it or hate it, there's one thing that ChatGPT avoids that many other tech products include right now: ads. Everything from websites, streaming services, and games ship with ads—either as a subsidized choice, or as a requirement. Chatbots like ChatGPT, however, have so far managed without this ad model, which is somewhat refreshing. The chatbot might lower your critical thinking skills, but it won't try to get you to buy something. That might not be the case for long, however. Over the past week, reports have been circulating about OpenAI's plans to incorporate ads into ChatGPT. These aren't just based on rumors and conjecture, either: Engineer Tibor Blaho spotted ref…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Are smart glasses worth the hype? If you’re looking for a stylish accessory that doubles as a camera, headphones, and AR display without needing to pull out a phone, they’re a life hack that’s worth the splurge. Right now, the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 1) smart glasses are 25% off at $246.75 (originally $329), marking their lowest price ever. This version is matte black with polarized lenses, but you can also get a slightly less expensive version that’s shiny with clear lenses for $224.25. Ray-Ban Meta…

I've been seeing a number of videos on my feeds circulating a serious, but perhaps not unbelievable, claim: The idea is, come Dec. 16, 2025, Meta will update its privacy policy to give itself permission to scrape direct messages from users on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, all in the name of training its generative AI models. While Meta is no bastion of user privacy by any stretch of the imagination, this particular claim is, fortunately, not true. You shouldn't expect the company to necessarily respect your data, but you also don't need to worry that future iterations of Meta AI will be generating text based on your Instagram DMs. What's going on with Meta's Dec. 16 …

If you're getting bored with your Galaxy phone, there are changes on the horizon. Samsung announced One UI 8.5 on Monday, Dec. 8, the latest update for Galaxy devices. At present, this new update is only out in beta, but select Galaxy users can try it out right now. Here's what's new, according to Samsung. Proactive Quick ShareWith One UI 8.5, Quick Share can automatically identify people in photos. While that sounds a bit creepy, the idea is to proactively offer sharing recommendations to the people who are featured in any given photo. Say you hit Quick Share on a family photo you took over the weekend. Rather than manually enter all of the contacts you'd like to share …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Many of us with professions that center on writing once toiled in a book shop to make ends meet, including me. When I worked at Barnes & Noble in college, I was dumbfounded by how many books there were on productivity and self-betterment. Surely, they couldn't all contain nuggets of wisdom. Certainly, they must be money-grabs aiming to profit off people's self-doubt. In many cases, that's true; but, I learned, some of them do have serious value to share. The catch is that if you spend all your time reading about some author's productivity, you won't have much time for enhancing your own. Smartly choosing which to read …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Soundcore Boom 2 is built for people who don’t want to baby their speakers. With an IPX7 rating and a floatable design, it’s something you can toss in the pool, hose off after a beach trip, or take out on a boat without much worry. And right now, the black model is $89.99, down from $139.99, its lowest price ever according to price trackers. Soundcore Boom 2 by Anker …

Android remains one of the most customizable mobile operating systems out there, despite Google's recent efforts to rein it in. You don't necessarily have to root your Android device to get it to do something off script, either. The fix you need might be hidden behind a system menu or Developer Options. You can personalize Android to address common frustrations with speed, battery life, privacy, and the interface as a whole. I've compiled ten helpful Android hacks that require no third-party apps, no ADB commands, and no rooting. All you need is the patience to dig through the operating system and tap as required. Please note that many of these hacks require you to enabl…