6 Techy Home Gifts To Buy Everyone You Love This Christmas
Echo products available at Amazon.com.au
How’s that Christmas shopping list going? Barely touched? Checking it twice?
Every year, December appears as if out of the blue – it’s a month full of festivity and a good dose of last-minute shopping mayhem, but if you’re not sure what to buy for your loved ones, it can quickly turn into a nightmare. Here, you’ll find techy gifts that’ll guarantee ear-to-ear grins from your nearest and dearest.
#1 Echo Dot
Echo Dot is the hockey puck-shaped bedside dynamo you – and ultimately everyone – ought to have in their life. Available in sleek charcoal or a fun white, all-fabric design, the Echo Dot is one of the most popular smart speaker systems going around, and absolutely one of the most compact and space-friendly.
Fully voice-controlled and Amazon Alexa-ready, the Echo Dot is at your beck and call with music, news, info, and hands-free phone chat functionality. Better still, you can rig this thing up to all compatible home appliances and devices: locks, lights, air con and thermostats, entertainment systems, you name it – all are delightfully controllable through one sweet, powerful unit (and your very own dulcet tones).
#2 Echo Show 5
Those keen to take their Echo action to the next level should look no further than the Echo Show 5: it has all the functionality you’d expect from a base Echo range, but with a snazzy 5.5-inch screen and dynamic, crisp audio to supercharge your experience.
Akin to attaching high-powered, generous-sized smart phone display to the already existing Echo functionality, this unit allows you to catch up on all your favourites shows, news and trailers, make hands-free video calls with your loved ones, and indulge in heaps of different apps, while making your home as streamlined as possible. Neato.
#3 Sonos One
“Clever” speakers exploded onto the sonic tech market in recent years, but it’s the Sonos that continues to deliver when it comes to the all-important product trio of aesthetics, sound quality, and functionality. With sleek design, beefy bass, sparkling trebles, and creamy mid-range, the Sonos One not only looks and sounds a treat – a marked improvement on the Sonos Play – but, with fully added voice control, it becomes an even more effortless task to queue up all your favourite jams. Listening to (and talking to) a device has never been more satisfying.
#4 Philips Hue Bulb
A perfect gift for lovers of light, the Philips Hue Bulb sustains that festive glow long after Santa has retired for another year. The era of single-coloured lighting is over, people – fully voice-controlled via Amazon Alexa (the Hue app through Wi-Fi), the Philips Hue Bulb allows you to enjoy 16 million different vibe-altering colours and tones in your lounge, bedrooms, and kitchen, from bold, effusive reading light choices, to sultry luminous tones that’ll turn your home into a den of ambiance.
#5 Echo Ring
Fans of voice-driven functionality and reliable home security will be stoked to rip open the wrapping paper on a brand-spanking Echo Ring, surely one of the smoothest smart devices this side of the 21st Century. The hands-free home-monitoring smart device (read: doorbell) is fully Alexa-integrated, meaning you can see when someone’s at the door and talk to visitors – even if you’re out and about – from your phone, tablet, or PC.
It also has built in motion sensors and infared night vision that will let you know when less savoury visitors are hanging about. That’s what we call the gift of a good night’s sleep.
#6 Bose headphones
If you’re not wired for sound these days – and wired properly (which is to say, un-wired through wireless means) – then you’re missing out on an entire world of sonic experience. Bose has long held the title of bona fide sonic masters and continues to deliver the goods with its wireless range. Chat to Alexa wherever you are with the new Bose range and access tunes, apps, info, and voice calls sans hassle.
With their lightweight stainless-steel headband, streamlined with angled ear cups, you’ll never want to take these things off – which, depending on who you gift them to, might either be a good thing or a bad thing.
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(Lead image: Kira auf der Heide / Unsplash)