I’ve been staring at the same pair of headphones on my desk for three years. Not because I love them — I do, mostly — but because Bose took its sweet time updating the base QuietComfort line while the Ultra got all the attention, all the spatial audio tricks, and all the price-tag glory. Today, …
My 2015 Accord has a CD player. It has a 3.5mm auxiliary jack that I actually used to use. And until six months ago, the most advanced piece of technology in the center stack was a Bluetooth module so bad that calls sounded like I was broadcasting from inside a tin can at the bottom …
I’ve been wearing a smart ring on my finger for the better part of four months. Not the same one — four different ones, rotating weekly, charging constantly, and explaining to my wife why there are tiny titanium circles scattered across every flat surface in my office. The reason was simple: I wanted to know …
I’ll start with a confession. When the first Ember Mug landed on my desk back in 2019, I rolled my eyes so hard I nearly pulled a muscle. A hundred-plus dollars for a coffee cup with a battery in it? A mug that pairs with your phone? I wrote it off as the kind of …
I counted them last Tuesday. Seven separate cables snaking across my desk like ivy crawling up a brick wall — two USB-C for the phones, one Lightning for the AirPods case, one Apple Watch puck buried under a stack of mail, a micro-USB for a portable speaker I keep meaning to retire, and two more …
I have a confession. Over the past three years, my team and I have ordered roughly 140 desk gadgets from Amazon in the sub-$25 category. Most of them went back. Some went into a drawer of shame. A handful earned permanent spots on the desks in our test lab — and then migrated to my …
I’ve been testing AI hardware for years — NPUs, GPUs, dedicated accelerators, the works. But the most surprising AI upgrade I’ve made in the last six months didn’t involve a new computer at all. It came from three devices sitting on my desk that I hadn’t thought about in years: my webcam, my headset, and …
I’ve been testing gadgets professionally for over 25 years, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about health tech, it’s this: the number most people obsess over — total body weight — is the least interesting thing your body can tell you. I learned that lesson the hard way last spring, when I started training …
I’ve been carrying portable storage for longer than some of my colleagues have been alive. Floppy disks, Zip drives, the very first pocket-sized USB sticks that held a laughable 128MB. So when I tell you that the portable SSD has fundamentally changed how I work, test, and travel with gear, it’s not hyperbole — it’s …
I’ll be honest — when my team first suggested I test a walking pad under my desk, I was skeptical. I’ve been writing about technology and productivity gear for over 25 years, and I’ve seen every “revolutionary workspace upgrade” come and go. Balance ball chairs. Under-desk ellipticals. Those bizarre standing desk converters that wobbled like …