Setting Up Your Home Office

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When shopping for cordless power tools, you'd think you could simply purchase the best option of each to fit your needs. But there's a big problem that makes this a lot harder (and more expensive) than it should be: battery incompatibility. By design, you can’t simply pop a Ryobi battery into a DeWalt tool and expect it to work. Engineering decisions aside, using proprietary batteries allows companies to create a sort of obligatory brand loyalty, forcing you to stick with their line of tools unless you want to invest in a whole new set of batteries for every new tool you buy. If you've been building your cordless tool coll…

Google is adding a slate of AI features to Gmail that could save some of the hassle of searching for important information buried in messages and threads. Many users will soon see a more personalized inbox with AI-powered suggestions, summaries, and proofreading support. Plus, some AI functionality that was previously available only to paid subscribers will be rolling out to all Gmail users, including Help Me Write, AI Overviews for threaded emails, and Suggested Replies. See personalized, AI-powered snapshots Gmail users will soon have an AI Inbox view with two sections. "Suggested to-dos" will show immediate action items found in your inbox, such as bills to be paid an…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Garmin, maker of fitness watches (among other things), announced this week that the subscription tier of the Garmin Connect app will now include nutrition tracking. According to the company, the app can identify foods based on a photo, and can set your calorie targets based on your activity data. Garmin announced this feature during CES 2026, although a new feature announcement isn't exactly traditional CES fare—I was hoping it would show off a new watch. Still, I did get a chance to try out the feature on my own phone (and watch), and thought it worked well. How Garmin Connect+'s nutrition logging works …

Garmin displays a real-time stress level from 0 to 100. Oura calculates "daytime stress" and resilience metrics. For Whoop, it’s the stress monitor; for Fitbit, a "stress management score." However it’s branded, some version of a “stress score” has become ubiquitous across smartwatches and wearables. This number is marketed as a window into our internal emotional state, turned into quantified proof of how our day is really going. The only issue: these numbers aren’t all that accurate. What your "stress score" actually tells youThe scores lighting up our wrists aren't measuring what most of us think they're measuring. When you check your smartwatch and see that your stress…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Meta Quest Pro launched as Meta’s vision of what high-end virtual and mixed reality could look like without dragging a gaming PC into the equation. At $679.99 on Woot, it’s now $320 off its original $999 price and still more than $100 cheaper than Amazon at the time of writing. This deal runs for six days or until it sells out, with free standard shipping for Prime members and a $6 fee for everyone else. This headset won PCMag’s Best VR Headset award in 2022, and while it’s no longer the newest thing Meta sells, it’s still positioned well above …

In the middle of the Las Vegas Convention Center, amidst the world's largest tech trade show, an awards show was taking place. The audience included nominees ranging from large companies like Nvidia to scrappy startups introducing themselves to the world, alongside journalists, tech insiders, and enthusiasts gathering to watch the Best of CES 2026 awards. After days of scouring showroom floors, speaking with innovators about their new technologies, and deliberating for six hours, finalists and winners were chosen by experts from CNET, PCMag, Mashable, ZDNET, and Lifehacker. I had the privilege of helping to judge and present several awards, and aside from my gratitude for…

Robot vacuums are a convenient way to keep your house clean without actually putting in much work, but they've all got one major problem—what if your house has multiple stories? At CES this year, I saw two attempts to fix this problem, but one of them was much more fabulous than the other. Roborock has a robot vacuum with legsThis is the more unique of your stair climbing robot vacuums, and the one that's new for this year. At CES 2026, robot vacuum company Roborock introduced the Roborock Saros Rover, which has two fold-out and individually articulated legs built into it, with wheels on either one. This …

Gaming controllers are just one of those things that I love to collect, but living in a small New York apartment, eventually enough is enough. At CES this year, I saw three new controllers that are all trying to be the last ones I'll ever need to buy (for specific systems, at least). It seems like modularity is in, and all three of these devices want to meet all of your needs. However, they're not settled on what the best approach is. GameSir x Hyperkin X5 AlteronThe GameSir x Hyperkin X5 Alteron is probably the cutest controller on this list, especially if you grew up playing GameCube or Nintendo 64. Essentially, it's a telescopic mobile controller that stretches to fit …

Listen up, Ford drivers: You're getting a new AI assistant this year. During a decidedly low-key CES keynote, the company announced Ford AI Assistant, a new AI-powered bot coming to Ford customers in the early half of 2026. While the company has plans to integrate the assistant into Ford vehicles directly, that isn't how you'll first experience this new AI. Instead, Ford is rolling out Ford AI Assistant to an upgraded version of its Ford app first, and plans on shipping cars with the assistant built-in sometime in 2027. In effect, Ford has added a proprietary version of ChatGPT or Gemini to its app. How Ford AI Assistant worksFord's idea here is to offer users a smart as…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Laptop screen extenders help add more display area without costing as much as two separate monitors. They’re also tidier, more integrated, and more portable, making them ideal for remote workers or students who want a mobile workstation with as much visual real estate as possible. The KYY 15.6-inch laptop screen extender, with its triple-screen setup (one on either side of your laptop's display), is a solid choice for anyone looking to give their laptop some extra elbow room—and right now, it’s 35% off, bringing its price down to $227.99 (originally…

Some people love AI. If you're not one of them (or if you have a favorite AI tool that isn't baked into it), using Windows 11 can feel increasingly hostile. It seems like every part of it now exists to push you into using Copilot—even notepad.exe has a prominent AI button in the user interface at this point. If you'd like your operating system to go back to being an operating system, check out RemoveWindowsAI. This free script changes various registry keys to disable AI features including Copilot, Recall, and the Copilot integrations in applications including Edge, Paint, and Notepad. Using various workarounds , it then configures Windows Update to not install those upda…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Nothing, an upstart tech brand from the U.K. that makes products like phones, smartwatches, and headphones, has quickly become one of my favorites lately. Its products offer unique features and designs, and the prices are competitive. Right now, Nothing's latest budget over-ear headphones, which were released in October, the CMF Headphone Pros, are just $79 (originally $99), the product's lowest price ever, according to price-tracking tools. This is a great option for anyone looking to get budget over-the-ear headphones that punch above their weight…

There are likely occasions in your day-to-day life in which you allow someone else to use your phone, whether it's letting your kid play a game or sharing content with a friend. You may do this without thinking about the privacy implications and what might happen if another person has access to everything on your device and—accidentally or on purpose—uses it to view your search history, scroll through your photos, or send messages to your contacts. If you're an Android user, you should enable app pinning to keep others from snooping around your device. This feature keeps the user in the pinned app until you enter your PIN, pattern, or password. (On iOS, you can achieve a…

I write a lot about productivity, which means I also read a lot about it. Over the last few months, I've noticed an uptick in people discussing something called "cognitive overload," citing it as a potential reason for a decline in output. The phrase stuck out to me as one of those buzzy terms that has the potential to be overused until it's meaningless—but at its core, it certainly has a real, clear definition that can be helpful tool in maximizing productivity. Basically, cognitive overload is what happens when you're inundated with more information than your brain can process, so your brain just gives up altogether, making hard to focus on anything at all. Here's what…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. After a decade, Stranger Things is at an end. Well, I mean, except for planned animated and live-action spin-offs...and possibly an unlikely secret extra episode related to the 'Conformity Gate' theory; adherents are convinced that the whole thing we watched was just Vecna messing with our Hawkins crew. But the story that started way back in 2016 is mostly over, almost for sure! Given the pace of life these days, the end of the Obama administration feels, somehow, as distant as the series' nostalgic 1980s setting. The show solidified Netflix as the streamer to beat in terms of original programming, and introduced a new gen…

Wheelchairs are available at airports, hotels, resorts, theme parks, and on cruises, but standard wheelchairs require ongoing effort and can struggle through difficult terrain. Standard wheelchairs are simply less capable than electric ones. WheelMove wants to change that. WheelMove is a portable wheelchair attachment that turns any standard wheelchair into an electric one, allowing people to travel more easily wherever they are. It debuted at CES 2026, marking a significant leap in accessibility for wheelchair users who travel. When I found WheelMove at CES "Unveiled," I thought back to a recent family trip just two weeks ago, where two of my older family members often…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Living in a comfortable, heated house is something a lot of us take for granted. When the cold weather hits, we just put on thick socks, turn up the thermostat (or take other steps), and go about our business. But most modern homes rely on the electrical grid to keep that heat flowing. Even if your home is heated by natural gas or heating oil, there’s most likely an electric component to your heating system. That means that when the power goes out—say, in the middle of a fierce blizzard—so does your heat. Even recently built homes can lose interior heat pretty quickly, dropping to uncomfortable (and even unsafe) temperatur…

At CES 2026, Swedish furniture giant Ikea showed off its new Kallsup Bluetooth speaker, which will cost just $10 in the U.S. Normally, I'd be skeptical of any speaker this cheap, but the Kallsup grabbed my attention for a few reasons—chief among them that Ikea says you can chain up to 100 of them together to create the multi-speaker setup of your dreams. That aside, the hardware seems pretty basic: The speaker has a USB-C port at the back, and two buttons up top (play/pause, and pair). Chaining together Bluetooth speakers is nothing new, but this is the first time I'm seeing the ability to pair as many as 100 of them. The only reason this use case is even remotely plausib…

Like many parents, sometimes I view my kids as lazy. This was one of those times: At Orlando International Airport, on our way to Disney World, my 16-year-old daughter shared how much she wanted a rideable suitcase. I laughed and told her that she can walk just fine. "Besides," I added, "that would never work." I hadn't seen rideable luggage yet, and I pointed out the immediate detractions that came to mind. First, it wouldn't work for someone like me—6'3 and 215 pounds. Second, I had doubts that it would have much storage space to carry items, which is the whole point of luggage. And third, who would be caught dead riding something so silly? But my daughter was determin…

Plenty of people have been asking for a MacBook with a touchscreen display, and now that is possible with the Intricuit Magic Screen, according to an announcement at CES 2026. It's a snap-on accessory that attaches to your MacBook's display, and uses one of the USB-C ports on the laptop for power. Once connected, you can touch the Magic Screen and your input will be registered on the Mac. The good news is that this product ships with a stylus, which will make it a lot easier to interact with different Mac apps. When you tap something on your iPhone or iPad, the UI takes into account the fact that your fingers are a lot thicker than a mouse pointer. On the Mac, the default…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. My Canadian in-laws include a famous (I'm told) ice hockey star, and yet I've still spent more time engaging with hockey via the HBO Max streaming sensation Heated Rivalry than from the stands of any actual court or rink or whatever it is you call the place where people pass around their pucks. Not that I know any more about the game after watching, because frankly, that's not why we're here, nor is that what the buzz is all about. Heated Rivalry is all about the very horny relationship between Japanese-Canadian team captain Shane (Hudson Williams) and Ilya (Connor Storrie), a headstrong Russian playing for a different te…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. While we’ve reviewed Anker’s Solix C800 and covered deals on the C1000—whose second-gen version even earned a Guinness World Record for being the fastest recharging portable power station in the 1,000Wh category—Anker has added another new and improved solar generator to its lineup. The brand’s newest portable power station, released in October 2025, is the Anker Solix C2000 Gen 2, and it’s currently 52% off on Amazon at $719.10 (originally $1,499). Anker Solix C2000 Gen 2 Portable Power Stati…

There are a lot of apps on the market that claim to "clean up" your Mac—for a price. Some offer subscriptions, some cost a lot up front, but for the most part, they offer the same few features—wiping things like caches and logs, completely uninstalling apps, and monitoring system health. These apps all tend to be a little on the bloated side, with a lot of animations and graphics. The free, open source, Terminal-based Mole is the opposite of those applications. Running entirely from the command line, Mole couldn't possibly look less flashy, but it combines a number of different tools that can free up hard drive space on your Mac while also keeping things running smoothly.…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The new Google Pixel Watch 4 came out in the late summer of 2025, and it's already heavily discounted. You can now get the 41mm LTE Google Pixel Watch 4 in all three colors for $349.99 (originally $449.99), the lowest price it has ever been, according to price tracking tools. It now comes with a much faster charging time, satellite SOS, dual-band GPS, and a new circular display design. Google Pixel Watch 4 (41mm, LTE, Matte Black) …

Before this CES, I thought gaming headsets had gotten about as complex as they ever would. How many improvements can you possibly make on speakers and microphones? Well, forget all that. Apparently, the future of gaming headsets is mind-reading. In a private demo with a colleague from IGN this CES, I tested out a collaboration between HP's HyperX gaming brand and brain-computer interface company Neurable. Neurable's been at CES before, but most of its work has been in the defense and enterprise sectors. The idea behind the brand is specifically aimed at helping you nail down your focus, and now, Neurable thinks it can use that to help gamers. …