With so many products on the market, it’s increasingly hard to tell the difference between a piece of tech that will tangibly improve your life and one that’s way too much effort to get your head around, which you’ll pay hundreds for then hide guiltily in a drawer. While many millennials are seeking digital detoxes and the idea of another piece of technology to keep up with is exhausting, half the products in this list are actually designed to help you switch OFF and sleep better, so could be of ironic benefit if you’re looking to reduce your tech time. From replacing your television (who actually watches TV anymore?) with a slick projector, to a device that only allows emergency calls through so you can truly switch off your phone, tech is now so advanced, it’s anti-tech...
Alongside the items we've become attached to this year which we'd recommend to a friend, are some fun items from a new, all-female tech company called Soda (this is not sponsored, we just like them), founded by Grace Gould and creative directed by Jackie Annesley. Identifying a gap in the market for women and tech, Grace told WGSN: “Most tech products on the market today are made by boys for boys. Nothing resonated with us in a language we understood.” And so she started Soda, an online (obviously) shop which also has an IRL pop-up in Selfridges, curating quirky products that you’d never have thought of from around the world.
From the Snapchat-obsessed teenager in your life, to your mum who's started sleeping in the spare room because your dad's snoring has become "unbearable", hopefully you'll find something for someone, including yourself.
The Light Phone
The size of a credit card and not much heavier, the light phone is a digital detox. It’s hooked up to your actual phone and stores nine of your closest contacts' numbers so if there’s an emergency, you will find out, but if not, you can really switch off without any notifications, apps, texts, internet, etc. After the nightmarish year of notifications we’ve had, we could all use a light phone.
The Light Phone, £120, available at Soda
Dodow Dimming Lamp Sleep Aid
Created by two French guys, one of whom is an insomniac, this small but powerful lamp calms busy minds and restless bodies by using a blue projection light which glows across your ceiling and guides you through a relaxing breathing exercise designed to send you to sleep. According to Soda, this product has proved unexpectedly popular with children. The perfect gift for the insomniac in your life, parent or otherwise. Batteries included!
Dodow Dimming Lamp Sleep Aid, £44, available at Soda
Master & Dynamic MW60 Wireless Headphones
Ok these are for someone you really, really love (yourself?!). It’s a lot to pay but if you spend significant portions of your day listening to things on headphones, it is worth investing in a good pair. Master & Dynamic headphones are slick, low-key and compact, with excellent sound quality. They’re also really comfortable to wear, with particularly soft cushioned pads. It's probably time to switch to wireless anyway and these were described by Wired as "simply the best wireless headphones". The battery on these lasts 16 hours.
Master & Dynamic MW60 Wireless Headphones, £499, available at Master & Dynamic
Snapchat Spectacles
Seventy percent of the 173 million people using Snapchat daily are women, and it's the number one way teenagers communicate around the world. Some clever person at Snapchat had the idea to start making merch for this overwhelmingly loyal and engaged market (Instagram, take note). These sunglasses come in three colour ways and "ward off rays" (ie. help you see your phone in the sun), and the cat eye design contains a 115-degree camera lens which records 10-second videos that save directly to your Snapchat. Learning from Google Glass 's mistake, Snapchat have made their tech glasses a hell of a lot cooler-looking. Buy for the teen in your life.
Spectacles by Snapchat, £129.99, available at Selfridges
Fiorucci Phone Cases
2017 marked the triumphant return of the cult '80s Italian brand, Fiorucci. A blast from the fashion past, these graphic phone cases are super cool and a really nice gift for your most stylish friend – or aunt, who’ll be old enough to remember the brand from the first time around. From this chilled out swordfish lady, to a punk in leopard print, to a ‘Let’s Dance’ zombie couple, there are lots of designs to choose from.
Fiorucci Phone Cases, £30, available at Soda
Chipolo Smart Key Finder
From the sink to the fridge to the inside pocket of your coat, looking for keys and trying to track your frenzied thoughts takes up an embarrassing amount of time in life. This key finder sets off a 92-decibel alarm to unite you with your precious keys, and shows you on a map if they’ve wandered further than the fridge. Buy for the scatterbrained adult in your life.
Chipolo Smart Key Finder, £19, available at Soda
Beam Smart Projector
Looks like a lamp, is actually Netflix. This clever lamp is a projector that plugs into normal sockets. If you’ve always fancied being the kind of person who’s too cool for a TV and only watches David Lynch films on a projector, this product is for you, or the person you love who meets that description. With the rise of streaming services, TVs are becoming frightfully old-fashioned, and at a similar price to a flat screen, this is a nice way to modernise your home life.
Beam Smart Projector, £479, available at Soda
Calm App Subscription
“Take a deep breath” appears on a serene blue background when you open the Calm app, followed by the sound of rain (or a waterfall, or waves, you decide). The point of Calm is, quite simply, to help you relax. Through guided meditations, mindfulness sessions, breathing exercises, bedtime stories, music playlists, moving images and sounds, Calm is a one-stop shop for chilling out. A highlight of the app is Stephen Fry reading bedtime stories for insomnia sufferers. Subscriptions range from £9.99, which makes for a nice stocking filler gift for a stressed-out family member – or parent who still doesn't quite get the App Store. There's also a bestselling Calm book published by Penguin and some lavender sleep spray which you can purchase alongside a year's subscription to the app.
Calm Subscription, from £9.99, available on iTunes
Apple Watch Series 3
Apple Watch technology got a whole lot better this year. A fully functioning computer on your wrist, the new Series 3 comes with built-in cellular, which means you can go out without your phone and just use your watch to make calls, send messages via Siri and use Apple Pay. (Previously, you had to carry your phone for your watch to work.) Music streaming is another new feature, ideal for runs or working out where you don't want to carry your phone. And the health features are seriously advanced too, with the watch now able to check your heart rate and alert you when it's too high or low.
Apple Watch Series 3, £329, available at Apple
Amazon Echo
This is the second generation of Amazon Echo, a hands-free speaker called Alexa connected to an app on your phone (also called Alexa). Once you’ve installed the app, you can just speak to the echo freely without having to use your phone, the idea being that you use your phone less and spend less time looking at screens and more time talking to yourself, oops, we mean Alexa. Alexa has many talents; she can play music, read audiobooks, make calls, send messages, read you the news, weather, sports scores, turn the heating up, check your commute time – she can basically tell you anything you usually ask your phone, but out loud. From “What’s on my calendar today?” to “Play pop songs from the '90s” or “Play the song that goes ‘All you need is love’,” Alexa is responsive to your needs. Alexa works with smartphones with an iOS 9.0 or higher and Android 5.0 or higher.
Amazon Echo, £89.99, available at Amazon
SmartNora Anti-Snoring Device
Can you put a price on a good night's sleep? This anti-snoring device is inserted into pillowcases and detects vibrations from throat muscles, which signals snoring. It then subtly alerts the snorer to their snoring so you don't have to, prompting them to revert to natural breathing. Creators say the device was created with back and side sleepers in mind, which is worth remembering when purchasing.
SmartNora Anti-Snoring Device, £300, available at Selfridges
Google Pixel 2 Phone Covers
Google have collaborated with ten fashion designers on these phone cases for the Google Pixel 2 phone, which is proving a popular model with the fashion crowd on account of its sick camera. From Mimi Wade and Ashley Williams to Marques’Almeida and Ryan Lo, the cases are a who’s who of the London fashion scene. Buy for your friend who owns a Google Pixel 2!
Google Pixel 2 Phone Cases, £40, available at www.selfridges.com
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