Setting Up Your Home Office

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. Whether you’re preparing for an emergency, planning a camping …

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. 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. If you're in the market for a high-end espresso mach…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The JBL Tune Flex 2 earbuds are on sale for $49.99 in open-box condition on StackSocial, which is less than half the $109.95 price of a new pair on Amazon. "Open-box" just means the packaging might have some shelf wear like scuffs, stickers, or light handling marks, but the earbuds themselves are tested, in new condition, and backed by a one-year warranty. If you don’t mind imperfect packaging, that’s a solid savings on a feature-packed set of wireless buds. JBL is known for its bass-driven sound, and the 12mm drivers in the Tune Flex 2 deliver plen…

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. Cyber Monday is here, 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. Bluetooth tracking tags a…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. I've been a fan of Ultimate Ears since I first got the Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3 back in 2018, and I'm still using it as my personal go-to portable speaker. The Wonderboom is their smaller, more portable version. The Wonderboom 4 released last summer, and dropped in price 40% during Cyber Monday, but you can still get it for $59.99 (originally $99.99) right now. This is the lowest price it has reached according to price-tracking tools, and it's cheaper than the Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 3. Ultima…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Apple Watch Series 11 is the middle-of-the-pack smartwatch, sandwiched between the budget-friendly Apple Watch SE 3 and the flagship Apple Watch Ultra 3. It also happens to be the only one still holding on to its Black Friday discount. You can get the GPS version starting at $329 (originally $399) and the GPS + Cellular version starting at $429 (originally $499), both the lowest prices they've reached, according to price tracking tools. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday may have passed, but there are still some serious deals out there for gamers—especially PS5 owners. This PlayStation VR2 bundle with Horizon Call of the Mountain is currently $299 on Amazon, a 25% discount off the usual $399 and its lowest price ever according to price tracking tools. PlayStation VR2 Horizon Call of The Mountain™ Bundle …

I hit 250 days on my Duolingo streak this week. That's more than eight months of consecutive daily Spanish lessons. My virtual owl loves me! There's just one problem: I'm not actually any better at speaking Spanish than I was in March. I'm just better at playing Duolingo. Somewhere along the way, keeping the streak alive became more important than learning the language. That same rewiring happens with all my health-related apps. It doesn't take long before I'm more focused on getting a hit of dopamine from building my streak than I am with the hard work of hitting my fitness goals. I've written before about how chasing the concept of "wellness" stopped serving my well-be…

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, and…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Opening presents is supposed to be fun. And while everyone has their own idea of what constitutes fun, no one likes a gift that is too functional or boring. This may be why you don't often consider gifting educational goods. However, there are plenty of gifts that are can challenge or enrich your giftee in some way—and which are decidedly not boring. Here are 10 suggestions to get you started. The best educational gifts for kidsGetting an educational gift for a kid is tricky business. When I was about six, my mom kept hyping up a Christmas present she was so excited for me to open, she actually made me open it early, on t…

Using keyboard shortcuts is a lot faster than clicking around in the menus, but only after you learn them. That's the hard part. You could look up the documentation for the application or explore the menu bar—but if you're on a Mac, you could also just install KeyClu. This free application shows an overlay with all the keyboard shortcuts for the currently open Mac application, which is very useful for anyone trying to become a more keyboard-savvy computer user. To get started, install the application. Then, you'll need to choose a trigger key (basically one of the modifier keys on your keyboard). By default, you will tap the key twice and hold on the second tap to trigger…

It’s likely you’ve heard of the Pareto principle (maybe even while reading my tips on how to be more productive at work or study more effectively). But do you really know what the Pareto principle is? To be honest, I only just started to get a grip on it fairly recently, because it's a lot easier to read about than put into practice. Also known as the 80/20 rule or the law of the vital few, it can be little confusing at first, but understanding and implementing it can truly transformative, helping you to better manage your time and get more done with less effort. Who doesn't want that? What is the Pareto principle?Basically, the Pareto principle states that 80% of your …

Forgetting where you parked your car isn't just a sitcom trope—though it does make for classic TV. Even in the age of the smartphone, it's all too easy to walk away from your car and retain zero memory of where you left it. As it happens, Google Maps has a solution—provided you have an iPhone. So long as you're running the app on an Apple device, Google Maps can automatically remember where you parked and display that information on the map. There's no need to mark the location yourself, tell the app to save your spot, or take a picture of the cross streets in case you forget: You can simply glance at the screen to find a "You parked here" label. The thing is, while som…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The wall-mounted Amazon Echo Show 15 has built-in Fire TV, but it also functions as a customizable family hub that keeps you on track with calendars, lists, and more. Right now, it’s $254.99 (originally $299.99), its lowest price on Amazon to date, according to price-tracking tools. Amazon Echo Show 15 $254.99 at Amazon…

If you find yourself in an emergency or crisis situation, the more information you can give first responders, the better. Android users can now share a live stream of their surroundings with 911, allowing emergency services to assess and provide guidance in real time while you wait for help to arrive onsite. Emergency services on AndroidYour Android already shares some information with first responders via Emergency Location Services (unless you disable this feature). This built-in tool sends an accurate location as well as contextual information, such as language settings, when you call or text an emergency number. Now, that includes live video from your device's camera.…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Philips Hue is one of the most well-respected and popular brands in smart lights—but what about its smart security cameras? Parent company Signify has been developing Hue cameras for a couple of years now, with a video doorbell and 2K camera upgrades recently added to the portfolio of devices. (Note: This 2K version hasn't yet landed in the U.S., but the existing 1080p versions are quite similar.) I got a chance to test out the new 2K Hue Secure camera, and alongside all the basics of a camera like this, it came with an extra bonus that worked better than I expected: seamless integration with Philips Hue lights. These two…

I can be pretty tough on AI, especially when it's used to make misinformation slop. But as cynical as I may seem, I do acknowledge that there are plenty of useful and beneficial features that AI powers. Take live translation, for instance: Not long ago, the concept of a device that could translate someone else's words directly in your ear as they spoke would seem like some far future technology. But not only is it not a futuristic technology, both Google and Apple have their own takes on the feature that users can take advantage of. That said, not all iPhone and Android users alike have been able to use live translate. Both companies have limited the feature to work with …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Efficient time management takes, well, time to perfect. There are a variety of hacks out there to help you schedule, focus, and complete your work, but it’s still hard to actually do all of that without the right guidance and mindset. If you’re struggling with time management, it might be worth spending some time digging deep on the topic and reading what experts have to say. Here are some of the best books I recommend to help you improve your time management skills. The 5A…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. One of the often unspoken truths of being a tech reviewer is you get to test out, recommend—and sometimes even keep!—gadgets that you would never buy for yourself, because you can't justify what they cost. This is why I tend to spend large portions of my reviews talking about price: I love a cutting edge gadget as much as the next nerd, but I have two kids and I live in the most expensive city in America. As much as I admire the Boox Palma 2 Pro, my budget doesn't really have room for a niche $400 e-reader. That's why the Xteink X4 e-reader, a minimalist 4.3-inch e-reader, is my tech upgrade of 2025: Here's a device that h…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Roku Sticks have useful features that can make your dumb TV smarter (or replace the interface on your smart TV), and they are seeing great discounts right now. In particular, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K with HDR and Dolby Vision is $24.99, the lowest price it has ever been after a 50% discount, according to price tracking tools. It's also my personal favorite option, and the one I would recommend to most people. …

You can customize more on your Mac than you might have realized, and that extends to the file management software you use to browse around your system. Take, for example, Finder: There are a good number of alternatives around that bring with them extra features and different layouts. I've been testing out three of the most well-known and highly rated alternatives to Finder to see what I might be missing. Each one has its own appeal, but the third in the list here is so good that I might switch to it permanently for all my file and folder needs on macOS. Commander One …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Smart glasses have promised convenience for years, but few have felt practical enough to wear daily. The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses (Gen 1) come closer by keeping things familiar. They look like classic Wayfarers, not a tech experiment, which lowers the barrier right away. Right now, they’re also easier to justify on price. The matte black version with polarized lenses is 25% off at $246.75, down from $329, which is the lowest price so far, according to price trackers. A glossy black version with clear lenses costs less at $224.25 if you don’t need …