In an era of social detachment and digital competition, Hidrate also shows statistics from your friends and family if they also own a bottle, so you can turn drinking water into a rivalry. Yes, the bottles are still expensive, but if you like to track your own data, or save the planet from disposable plastic, or if you are just in for a health kick, Harvard University School of Public Health says you drink enough water is linked to regulating body temperature, preventing infections, improving sleep quality and maintaining proper organ function – it’s worth trying a smart bottle of water. —Saira Mueller
21st Century Audiovisual Equipment
We all have our blind spots. My kitchen may be equipped with a top-of-the-line Vitamix and Kitchen-Aid mixer. But before the pandemic, my spouse and I had the same huge, heavy 55-inch Panasonic TV with broken and frizzy speakers that we’ve used for the past 10 years. We just didn’t watch TV enough to think about it.
Everything changed in March 2020. In April, desperate for some feeling that all was not lost, I provisionally started my update by adding a sound bar. The improvement in sound quality made my hair on my scalp stand on end. A few months later, our A / V tester Parker Hall delivered a medium-sized TCL 6 Series television for long-term testing. The difference between the huge dusty stone from our old TV and the light, narrow and shiny one was obvious even to our 5 year old son. “Because Paw Patrol looks much better now? “she asked, jumping on the couch in her pajamas. If you also forgot that your television is worth upgrading, I recommend it. —Adrienne So
Table Guitar Amps
I never realized how inconvenient the guitar amps were until I purchased one. Classic tube amplifiers sound amazing, but they are expensive, weigh a ton and provide enough heat to heat small rooms (and enough sound to shake a small house).
This year, I discovered the table guitar amplifier. Light box-sized amps like the Yamaha THR30-II and Positive Grid Spark bring everything you like in a physical amplifier for the 21st century. With everything from wireless cable technology to onboard processing for compelling effects (sans-pedalboard), these new digital amplifiers finally look too good to call them toys. Of course, I prefer my Fender Bassman with hand-wired in the studio, but for most other applications, I look for these little ones for sheer convenience. Both Spark and THR models come with USB and headphone outputs, as well as Bluetooth, which makes it easy to play along with music, record fast demos or play during hours of silence.
I’m not the only one who liked them. I recently watched a documentary about Taylor Swift’s Folklore, and I noticed the composer playing with a small familiar Yamaha in an intro segment. If it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me. —Parker Hall
Ebikes
There has been no turning point this year when ebikes have advanced technologically. It was more of a gradual arrival. Perhaps it was because so many were pushed into service as message and passenger bikes because of Covid-19, and performed admirably. Or because you can now buy a decent electric bike weighing not much more than 40 pounds and not costing much more than $ 1,000 which, even after removing the hub motor and pedal sensor, is also a decent bike made with components brand solids.
I’m a biker at heart, so the early days of heavy ebikes announcing high speeds (for a bicycle) and high price tags (for any vehicle) didn’t hold my attention. I wanted them to compete against analog bikes and become a tool for the masses – even though they didn’t suck. Intervals will increase, prices will drop and electronics will fully fit as affordable ebikes get better, but this was the year when I stopped telling people to “wait a little longer” when asking if they should buy one . —Matt Jancer
A hot water bottle
After moving to a new place last winter, I quickly learned that my apartment’s upper ventilation wall furnace was good for heating exactly one corner of my room and nowhere else. A friend suggested that I put a hot water bottle on the bed at night to keep warm, which I found strange and ineffective. I was wrong. For just $ 13 on Amazon, all the joys of non-modern heating become mine, a thermoplastic bag filled with hot water every night. As if it isn’t cozy enough yet, it still comes with a knit sweater. (To be clear, the sweater is for the water bottle, not for you.) Know that you can’t put it in the microwave, and hot water is also not recommended. —Lauren Goode
A remote support for TV
Pre-pandemic, I tried to avoid watching TV from bed, but this year that rule was thrown away. My Fire TV Stick has become a self-consoling need, but I would inevitably lose its tiny remote control in my blanket nest. This super cheap remote control stand was an impulse purchase and is now strangely indispensable. It can be mounted with a screw or adhesive and helps me control my remote controls so I don’t have to rummage through my panicked candy wrappers to adjust the volume or skip an ad on YouTube. Cheap emotions! —Louryn Strampe
A document camera
The Hue HD Pro ($ 100 on Amazon) is the most useful thing I tested in 2020. If you do any kind of teaching, demonstration or peer review on paper, or anything else that requires a camera on you and another one document, the Hue HD Pro is the device you’re looking for. It integrates with Zoom, Skype, Webex and Microsoft Teams, or you can record using the included software.