Whether your goal this year was to strengthen your skills in the kitchen or you’re obsessed with testing out viral trends from TikTok, we found incredible kitchen gadgets on Amazon that allow you to cook smarter, not harder. Amazon is filled with everything you need to improve your cooking prep time no matter the meal (so you can rest easy until your dinner guests arrive). Thankfully, Amazon’s fantastic coupon page and outlet section includes finds you won’t think twice about purchasing.
We searched high and low to find clever kitchen gadgets and appliances that can shorten how long it takes you to prepare dinner. From the ever-popular salad spinner to a rapid egg cooker, these clever gems make the perfect hostess gift for any season! A majority of the must-haves on this list are under $50, so you won’t break the bank while elevating your cooking style.
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1
7-Blade Vegetable Slicer
Gift this to the veggie lover in your life or use it as an innovative way to get your kids to eat more veggies. The adjustable blades can slice any vegetable and even includes four recipe Ebooks!
2
Snap N Strain Pot Strainer and Pasta Strainer
Enjoy a steamy facial from hot paste without worrying about burning your hands thanks to this silicone paste strainer that attaches to your pot.
For one reviewer, the pasta strainer is worth the purchase. “This thing is so handy! No more pulling a stainer out when you have this little gadget. It fits on all size pots and pans. When you are done you just pop it in your dishwasher and put it back.”
3
KitchenAid KHB1231IC 2-Speed Hand Blender
If you are low on counterspace, you can quickly whip up a delicious milkshake, smoothie, or soup with a hand blender. The S-shaped fixed blade effectively chops up fruits and veggies.
4
Ninja BL660 Professional Compact Smoothie & Food Processing Blender
Or, if you can spare some room, invest in Ninja’s 72-oz. blender. It even includes reusable, dishwasher-safe to-go cups and spout lids.
Here’s a best-selling purchase you can’t knock until you try it. With a six-egg limit, you can boil, poach, or scramble eggs—or better yet, create an omelette with one press of a button! The gizmo auto shuts off, so you don’t have to run back and forth from the kitchen.
With over 100,000 ratings averaging 4.7 stars, this egg cooker is an absolute must-have. One reviewer states, “If you are on the fence about getting one of these, GET ONE. It really is as easy as it sounds to have a perfectly cooked egg—no guesswork.”
6
Smooth Touch Electric Automatic Can Opener
Using a manual can opener can cramp your hands and be pretty intimidating to use. This automatic can opener has a push-down lever and includes stainless steel scissors. What more could you want?
7
OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner
You’ve likely seen this salad spinner everywhere—and for about $30,
A lot of companies have been caught off guard by changes in our spending choices this year. Americans eager to travel and party after two years of staying largely at home are gorging on plane tickets and fancier clothes — and ignoring the patio furniture and soft pants that we splurged on in 2020.
Consumer electronics may be the flaming center of Americans’ flip-flopping shopping habits. Gadget buying has suddenly switched from hot to not, a change that will most likely bring pain and confusion for many companies — and potentially some great deals for people who still want to buy electronics.
In the early months of the pandemic, many of us were so eager to buy internet routers, laptops, video game consoles and other tech gear to keep us productive and cozy from home that some products were impossible to find. However, experts cautioned that people would definitely pull back on buying some types of gadgets until they needed them again.
The magnitude of change after two flush years of gadget purchases has surprised many people. From January through May, electronics and appliance stores make up the only retail category for which sales fell compared with the same five months of 2021, the Commerce Department disclosed last week. Best Buy said last month that purchases at its stores dropped across the board, especially for computers and home entertainment, and are likely to stay meh. And the research firm IDC expects global smartphone sales to decline this year, most sharply in China.
What’s bad for electronics manufacturers and stores could be good for us, but value hunters will need to be careful. Nathan Burrow, who writes about shopping deals for Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from The New York Times, told me that prices for some electronics are already being discounted. But a sale when inflation is at a 40-year high in the US may not always be a good deal. A discounted product might still cost more than similar models a few years ago, Burrow said.
The whipsaw in shopping habits has led Walmart, Target, Gap and some other retail chains to be stuck with too much of the wrong kinds of products. That’s true about some types of electronics, too, which means that more price chopping is likely during summer shopping “holidays” from Amazon, Target, Best Buy and Walmart.
Burrow predicts significant price breaks are coming for tablets, internet networking equipment, Amazon devices and some laptops including Chromebooks.
The research firm NPD Group said this year that consumer electronic sales would most likely decline in 2022 and again in 2023 and 2024 — but two previous bonkers years of electronics sales would still leave overall sales higher than they were in 2019. Despite the overall higher sales , this phenomenon of electronics sales unexpectedly going through the roof and then suddenly sinking is disorienting for gadget makers and sellers.
“It’s the unpredictability that makes everything worse,” said Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager at IDC.
Buying thoughtful, interesting, and useful tech gadgets for men, women, and kids on your holiday shopping list used to be pretty simple: acquire Sharper Image catalog, flip to a random page, done. It’s a lot more complicated now. For one, um, catalogs? But more importantly, pretty much everyone these days is into tech and regularly interacts with extremely advanced gadgetry on a day-to-day basis. The most popular headphones in the world are true wireless. Politicians stream their video game sessions on Twitch. most parents know how to use Bluetooth speakers. The phrase “tech-savvy” has pretty much lost all meaning, so how can you get something for the tech-inclined people in your life that feels considered? Well, to get you thinking about it, we’ve gathered up a list of our favorite gadgets for men, women, and everyone else on your list. This lineup includes plenty of entries from our 2021 and 2022 Home Awards, a high-quality charger for small tech accessories, and a fun laptop cleaner (yes, it turns out a laptop cleaner can be fun). Just make sure to stealthily check that your giftee doesn’t already own whatever you decide to get for them.
All products featured on GQ are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Tools for the road that can improve the driving and riding experience every mile along the way. (Dreamtime/TNS)
ATLANTA — Crumbs, odors, discomfort — they can all ruin a good road trip with the family. For children, sitting in a vehicle for hours on end can be daunting. For parents who are unprepared, a road trip can be derailed by gas station stops for last-minute supplies. Ensure your road trip doesn’t bring the family fun on your vacation to a screeching halt by gearing up before the big drive.
Here are a number of different items that can improve the driving and riding experience every mile along the way.
Voice activate your space
Music and movies are road trip staples, but they can be dangerous. Taking your hand — and your attention — off the wheel can lead to tragedy on the road.
Keep your family safe, and your record clean, by using Apple’s Car Play or Android’s Auto systems to make your vehicle’s entertainment center voice activated.
1. Plug your phone into your vehicle’s dashboard.
2. Activate the Car Play or Auto feature from your phone.
3. If your vehicle features a voice to speech button, press it. Otherwise, say “Hey, Siri” for iPhones or “Ok, Google” for Androids to enable voice activation.
Radar detector
To increase the safety of your drive even further, consider purchasing a radar detector. A high quality radar detector comes equipped with a GPS to ensure that you can find your destination in areas with spotty phone service. The detector will also keep you notified of what’s ahead — traffic lights, speed limit changes, traffic — ensuring that your road trip is as efficient and safe as it is fun.
Tablets
For children, long road trips can be daunting. It can be difficult to stay in one place for hours on end without some distraction. Keep your kids entertained by purchasing a tablet and installing a collection of child-friendly games.
Gel seat cushions
Sitting in one place for hours can become uncomfortable, especially for people who suffer from back pain. Take the stress off of your body and your mind off of the discomfort by bringing along a quality gel seat cushion that better supports your spine.
Using a gel seat cushion will help ensure that you are not only comfortable for the ride to your vacation spot, but that you are also ready and capable of moving around freely and enjoying yourself when you reach your destination.
Car diagnostic scanner
Many miles from home, the last thing anyone wants to deal with is a broken-down car. So, it’s important to make sure your vehicle is in tip-top shape before the rubber meets the road.
Taking your vehicle to a local mechanic’s shop can be costly and time consuming, but there is another way. A car diagnostic scanner, which can be purchased online or at many auto parts retailers, will allow you to check your car’s engine, ABS, airbags and other features in real
Windows XP and Windows Vista both supported adding “gadgets” to the desktop, like a clock or calendar. It looks like that functionality might make a return for Windows 11.
Microsoft started rolling out Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25120 to testers in the Dev Channel, which includes an interesting new feature: the ability to add interactive widgets to the desktop. The company said in a blog post, “Windows Insiders who use the Dev Channel may get to try out new ideas, longer lead features, and experiences that are intended to help validate concepts. Starting with this preview build, some Insiders will see one of these conceptual features as we begin to explore exposing lightweight interactive content on the Windows desktop.”
Microsoft
The only desktop widget available for testing for now is a web search bar, similar to the Google Search bar available on most Android devices. predictably, the search always opens results in Microsoft Edge, even if your default browser is set to something else. Microsoft Classics.
Windows 11 already has widgets, but they’re only accessible from a special panel accessible from the taskbar — you can’t keep them on the desktop, taskbar, or anywhere else so they’re always visible. Microsoft also doesn’t allow widgets created by third-party developers. Meanwhile, Android has offered robust widget support for over a decade, and Apple brought them to the iPhone and iPad with iOS 14. Widgets are accessible on Mac through the Notification Center, and many Linux distributions have some version of the feature.
Gadgets on Windows 7
Microsoft has also experimented with interactive desktop widgets in the past. Windows Vista introduced Desktop Gadgets, but they were removed in Windows 8 because they were a security risk. Many third-party widget services and frameworks have also been available over the years, like Google Gadgets.
It’s not clear when (or if) this functionality will roll out to everyone using Windows 11. Microsoft said in the blog post that this is just an experiment for now, and the company will listen to feedback for future changes.
