Amazon’s fall Prime Day event is underway! For more great deals across all categories, check out our complete roundup.
Every month we ask our staff about their favorite things, whether that be board games, smart tech, kitchen gadgets, etc., and the results are usually highly diverse, highly interesting, and a whole lot of fun.
Amazon is currently running a lot of great deals in their Prime Day sale, so I checked out some of my recent “favorite” articles and found great deals on many of my favorite devices. So I’ve listed a few for you if you read them before and thought, “Oh, that looks good, but it’s a bit pricey.” (Or, it’s pretty cheap, but maybe I should wait until the price drops a bit…)
Here are some of our staff’s favorite games, gear, and gadgets.
game
Strategy card game
Becca Furserch, Senior Producer
It is a strategy card game in which players compete to build the most profitable and prestigious jewelry business in Renaissance Europe.
The best thing about playing Splendor is just looking around and watching your friends think hard. It’s a board game, no board, just cards and chips, where the goal is to collect gems to gain capital and wealth. It’s best played with 3-5 people on a large table. It requires a lot of strategy, thinking and endless scanning of cards. You’ll look great with your thoughts!
I ditched the box for a small pouch and now take the game to most bars, and when I’m at home, it’s best paired with a long playlist that doesn’t require me to spend extra mental energy thinking.
Ecological Board Game
Jennifer Pattison Twohy, critic
A strategy board game set in the mysterious world of Earth’s oceans.
Finding board games that my 13 year old girl, 16 year old boy, partner and I enjoy can be tough. We’ve tried everything from classics to newer games like Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride and Catan. They’re all great, but when one of our group develops an intense dislike for a game (usually after losing too much), it falls out of our rotation. However, Evolution: Oceans has been a consistent hit for over 6 months now and we all love it.
Part of NorthStar Game Studio’s Evolution series, Oceans is a beautiful, complex, engrossing and challenging strategy game where you create new species to populate the oceans, and fight to help them grow and survive using adaptations and abilities like swarming, speed, tentacles and parasitic abilities.
Cards give players powers, and those powers are beautifully illustrated, making the game a visual delight. There is a fairly steep learning curve, but once you’re in and a strategy is developed, the gameplay is smooth and relatively fast-paced. There is a fair amount of player interaction, which caused us a few tantrums, but not enough to knock the game from the top spot in our family…at least for now.
Smart Home Devices
Keep your grass green
Jennifer Pattison Twohy, critic
It uses a Wi-Fi connected system to ensure your irrigation system doesn’t run before, during, or after a heavy rainfall while adapting based on rainfall. It can handle 4, 8, and 16 zones.
You don’t want to come home to a heavy rainstorm only to find your sprinklers running. What a waste of water. With a smart sprinkler controller, you can avoid this insult to Mother Earth. I’ve been using the Rachio smart sprinkler controller for a few years now, and it reliably adjusts my irrigation system to not activate before, during, or after a downpour, adapting based on the amount of rainfall. The Wi-Fi connected system uses local weather data, so it requires constant monitoring. If the forecast says an inch of rain but it only turns up a trickle, your garden may be short on water. But with an easy-to-use app, you can make these adjustments from the comfort of your couch. It’s much like using a smart thermostat, and you get just as much satisfaction from saving precious resources (and money).
Smart garage opener
Wes Davis, Weekend News Editor
It’s a handy add-on that can transform a range of garage door models into smart devices that work with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Samsung SmartThings.
Most of the stuff I own is, frankly, unreliable and frustrating. All but one or two. My favorite of them all is the Meross Smart Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener for HomeKit. I love it not only for its robust performance, but also because, as far as I can tell, it’s compatible with just about every garage door opener on the market, making it timeless. And I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. My rough guess is that the chunky mustard yellow metal box that cranks open my garage door (an Automatic Doorman Model 455) was made sometime between the fall of the Roman Empire and 1975.
But the Meross adapter is $30 and, to my surprise, after a very easy install, it worked and continues to work almost every time I need it. And best of all, I don’t have to carry a chunky remote control when I leave my bike – I can just talk to my Apple Watch when I get back and keep riding.
A smart plug you can trust
Sean Hollister, Senior Editor
This smart Wi-Fi plug not only lets you control your devices but also monitors your energy usage.
The fastest, most reliable devices in my entire smart home are the stupid-as-a-brick appliances that plug into this little box. I can honestly say that I believe the Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug Mini is the only smart home device that has never let me down. Christmas lights, garage freezer, hot water circulation pump, humidifier, bedside lamps, and electric fans are all real-world examples in my home, and I always know that Alexa, Google, Siri, or Home Assistant will instantly flip a virtual switch or follow a programmed schedule.
Moreover, it saves energy. My Brother printer used to consume 4W daily, but now with the Smart Plug Mini connected it consumes only 0.5-0.8W. I hope TP-Link will stop making new versions so that they can advise me which one to buy. If I had a little more foresight, I would have bought one with energy monitoring.
Door Lock Upgrade
Victoria Song, Senior Reviewer
Tamper-resistant smart locks for keyless entry, including keypad deadbolts.
I lose my keys all the time. Every time I leave the house I have to open a find my keys app and look for them. It’s even worse when I go for a run because I have to stuff my keys in my running belt, my pocket, or even my sports bra. So installing the Nest x Yale lock has been a game changer for me.
I can go for a run or walk with just my headphones and my smartwatch on. So freeing! I can literally leave the house to do anything. My spouse and I have a shady habit of listening to scary true crime podcasts right before bed. We used to play rock, paper, scissors to see who had to run down three flights of stairs to see if the door was locked. Not anymore! Now I just ask the Google Assistant or pull out my phone. I also love being able to create temporary guest passcodes for pet sitters or visiting relatives. It’s only been a few weeks, but this has been the simplest, yet most impactful quality of life improvement I’ve made in a long time.
Kitchen Helper
Sticky insect trap
Victoria Song, Senior Reviewer
They use bright yellow coloring and sticky adhesive to trap pesky little pests and are available to buy in a variety of quantities.
In our previous apartment, we kept all our plants on the windowsill. Unfortunately, we are on the first floor, with bushes outside, and every time my wife opened the window for some fresh air, mold flies would come in.
At first I tried neem oil and diatomaceous earth, but they were smelly and not very effective. What worked was an old-fashioned sticky bug trap; shove it into a pan and watch in ecstatic disgust as it catches all the nasty bugs. (Be careful if you have cats or any inquisitive pets; one of my cats had a tiny patch of hair on her butt for a week after getting stuck in the trap.) They’re also cheap and handy if you have a summertime fruit fly infestation in your kitchen.
Old-fashioned toaster oven
Amelia Holowaty-Klares, Senior Photo Editor
It’s a sturdy, basic toaster oven that can fit four slices of toast or a 9-inch pizza.
I love toaster ovens. They’re compact, quick to cook, and great for reheating pizza, making nachos, and of course toasting food. I use my toaster oven more than a regular oven, probably more than any other item in my kitchen. I have a basic model like this one, but these days many have other features like air frying and convection oven capabilities.
Electric Gooseneck Kettle
Becca Furserch, Senior Producer
An elegant electric gooseneck kettle with a 0.8 liter / 27 ounce capacity.
Okay, hear me out! Watering cans take up too much space and disposable gadgets are a waste of money. Ever since I got too into the coffee habit, I’ve been using an Aroma Housewares Professional electric kettle to water my houseplants (which unfortunately are no longer sold, but any similar kettle will do). The gooseneck is great for getting over the edge of the pot, the small spout lets you control where the water falls, and the handle feels just like a watering can. Plus, it looks great on your counter and you can keep it right next to the tap where you need to pour the water. So instead of buying a kettle with an open spout, buy a gooseneck kettle and you’ve got a 2-in-1 gadget. Just make sure the kettle is cool before you start watering.
Multipurpose rice cooker
Victoria Song, Senior Reviewer
This is a 5.5 cup rice cooker and warmer that can be used not only to cook rice, but also comes with a steaming basket that can be used as a steamer and a cake menu setting for baking cakes.
Many people say that a rice cooker is just a disposable appliance for cooking rice, but that’s not true. Although a rice cooker is great for cooking rice, it can do most of the same things an Instant Pot does. For example, you can use it to make boiled eggs, oatmeal, steam vegetables, make porridge, cook one-pot meals, bake cakes, and more.
As a kid, I had a giant 10-cup rice cooker at home, but I didn’t realize how versatile this appliance was until I left the country for college. A small 2-cup rice cooker kept me going in my tiny 250-square-foot apartment in Tokyo. It was programmable, so if I was late for class, I could wash some rice, put it in the rice cooker, and quickly whip up some ochazuke or oatmeal for a cheap, nutritious breakfast. (It also saved me the trouble of making steel-cut oats.) And when I had a sweet craving, it was super easy to bake a single-serving Japanese cheesecake using pancake mix.
I’ve since switched to a 5.5-cup Zojirushi microcomputer rice cooker, which is one of the most convenient tools for meal prep. When I was sick, I took advantage of the porridge mode to make a porridge-like dish with chicken and ginger, just like my mom used to make for me as a child. It stayed warm for days, so I could get out of bed, scoop up some porridge, and get back into bed with minimal effort. If I’m too lazy, I’ll throw an egg in there for an extra layer of hard-boiled protein. My rice cooker also comes with a little basket, which makes it super easy to throw in some veggies or steamed dumplings.
But what I like most is that the rice cooker is more space-efficient than the Instant Pot. In my kitchen, the only space I could fit the Instant Pot in is taken up by the rice cooker, blender, and spoon rest. A multi-function kitchen gadget that doesn’t take up the entire counter? If you live in a small space, this is a must-have.
Garlic Rocker
Barbara Krasnoff, Reviews Editor
The Joseph Joseph Garlic Rocker is a simple curved piece of metal with holes in it, but it’s one of the easiest and most effective ways to chop and crush garlic.
We use a lot of garlic in our house, and traditional garlic presses usually just produce a thick, gooey paste that’s pretty much useless. A friend introduced me to her garlic press, which is not only fun to play with, but also chops garlic beautifully, perfect for sautéing, etc. It also looks like a quirky piece of art that you can keep as a decoration on your counter.
