The Fitbit brand has long been defined by fitness trackers with tiny screens, yet it's been three years since it released a new one. Now that the Fitbit Edge has been announced (and pre-orders have opened), longtime Fitbit users are probably wondering how it compares to the last Fitbit release with a screen, the Charge 6.

The design is the first clear difference: The Edge fits in perfectly between the screenless Fitbit Air and the smooth, curved screen of the Pixel Watch. It runs on the same operating system as the Fitbit Air, which is slightly different from the OS that runs on Pixel watches. Like other Fitbits, the Edge pairs with both iPhones and Android devices. Now, let's look at what Google has added since the Charge 6—and what it took away.

Google Fitbit Edge - Activity Tracker - Pyrite/Olive - Small & Large Band

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The Fitbit Edge has a real side button

I just unboxed the Fitbit Edge that Google sent me to review, and can confirm: There is a physical button on the right side of the casing. It makes an audible click when you press it in, even when the device is turned off. The Charge 6 has a "button" that is just a haptic nub—squeeze it, and if you're lucky it might recognize your touch and buzz in response. (Sadly, I found it often didn't work.)

The Fitbit Edge has an altimeter and an allegedly better GPS chipset

The altimeter is a brand-new bit of hardware in the Fitbit Edge. You have to go back to the Charge 4 to find a Fitbit tracker with an altimeter. This is the sensor that tells you your altitude and enables a measurement of how many "floors" you have climbed throughout the day. It also allows for more accurate tracking of hills on your hikes and hilly runs.

The Charge 6 and the Edge both have GPS capabilities, allowing the device to know where you are in the world, even if you left your phone at home. (The Fitbit Air, by contrast. does not have its own GPS and has to pester your phone to find out where you are and how fast you're running.) The Charge 6's GPS has some serious flaws, the main one being that tightening the wristband too much could strain the GPS antenna, leading to comically distorted maps, as you can see from my testing. Google says the Fitbit Edge has better GPS hardware. I believe them, but mainly because it would be hard for it to be worse.

The Fitbit Edge does not have Google Pay or NFC capabilities

This is the biggest downgrade: With the Charge 6, you could set up Google Wallet and be able to tap your Fitbit to pay for things at stores. That's a convenient feature if you like to run or walk without your phone and still be able to buy a drink at a convenience store. But the Fitbit Edge dropped this capability, probably to make room for other internal components. If you loved Google Pay on your older Fitbit, you'll miss it if you upgrade to the Edge.

The Fitbit Edge will be able to play music from any app, not just Youtube Music

The Charge 6's music player is one of the most frustrating things about it. The music controls only work for Youtube Music. That's a premium service, meaning you need to pay a monthly subscription fee just to be able to control music playing on your phone, and it has to be a subscription to Youtube Music—Spotify or Apple Music users are out of luck.

Fortunately, that's been fixed in the Fitbit Edge. Google says it will be able to control whatever is playing on your phone (like pretty much every other watch in existence) rather than relying on a specific app.

Google Maps directions are unsupported on the Edge—but "coming soon"

At launch, the Fitbit Edge doesn't support Google Maps directions—but Google's spec sheets say it's "coming soon." To be fair, Google Maps directions were never particularly useful. They lived in their own little app, and only gave you turn-by-turn directions, not a map view showing where you are. In the long run, this isn't likely a difference that matters, since Google plans to bring this feature to the Edge. But if you enjoy it on your Charge 6, you should know it's not going to be available right away on the Fitbit Edge.

If you’re looking to outsource as much of your floor cleaning as possible, a combination robot vacuum and mop is your best bet short of hiring regular house cleaners. The Roborock Saros 10R Robot Vacuum and Mop is a great option, with powerful suction, a slim silhouette that gets into tight spaces, and a bevy of automated features that deliver a mostly hands-off experience—especially at its current 44% off price of $899.99 (originally $1,599.99).

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Though it comes in at under $1,000, it still delivers reliable obstacle avoidance, a super-slim design, and powerful hard-floor vacuuming and mopping, with up to 22,000 Pa of suction. According to Mashable, it’s better at mopping than competitors like the Saros 10, and comes with dual rotating mop pads and an extending arm to get into nooks and crannies, as well as a split brushroll to reduce hair or fur tangles. Its slim 3.14-inch profile means it more easily fits under low-profile furniture than bulkier robot vacuums, which are typically about an inch taller.

While it excels at cleaning hard floors, it’s also more effective than older Roborock models at managing rugs, thresholds up to 4 centimeters high, and rooms with various obstacles, including furniture. The low-maintenance dock empties the dustbin, refills the Saros 10R’s water tank, and washes and dries the mop pads. While it accomplishes quite a lot, the self-cleaning station does require dedicated floor space, as the dock is on the larger side.

If you want an everyday cleaner that excels at navigation and hands-off routines, the Roborock Saros 10R Robot Vacuum and Mop is one of the most reliable “set it and forget it” vacuum-and-mop combos available. And at a lower-than-ever $700 off, it offers a fantastic value right now.

QLEDs are a great mid-tier TV option, sandwiched firmly between cheaper LEDs and premium OLEDs—but there's a wide range within that QLED category, too. The Hisense E7SF QLED is in the low to mid-range of that category, but with its 46% discount, the price is much lower. Amazon currently has the 100-inch Hisense E7SF QLED for $1,697.99 (originally $2,999.99), a new record-low price, according to price-tracking tools. The other sizes are all also seeing discounts, like the 65-inch E7SF QLED, which is down to $599.99 (originally $999.99). These discounts are especially notable given this TV came out in April of 2026.

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Native 144Hz, AI Picture, Dolby Vision IQ · Atmos, FALD, HDR10+ Adaptive, MEMC, Alexa+

65" Hisense E7 Series 4K Hi-QLED Mini-LED Smart Fire TV (2026 Model)

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Hisense 85" E7 Cinema Series Hi-QLED Mini-LED 4K UHD Smart Fire TV (85E7SF, 2026 NEW) - Native 144Hz, AI Picture, Dolby Vision IQ · Atmos, FALD, HDR10+ Adaptive, MEMC, Alexa+

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Hisense 100" E7 Cinema Series Hi-QLED Mini-LED 4K UHD Smart Fire TV (100E7SF, 2026 NEW) - Native 144Hz, AI Picture, Dolby Vision IQ · Atmos, FALD, HDR10+ Adaptive, MEMC, Alexa+

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The first thing you'll notice about the Hisense E7 is how thin and lightweight it is. It comes with four HDMI ports, including one with eARC support for connecting a soundbar and two that support a native 144Hz refresh rate for smoother gaming. Like most new TVs these days, it'll be 4K and have AI modes that improve picture quality. This will be most noticeable when watching sports; the TV will recognize the content and automatically switch the picture settings to sports mode. Because this is a Fire TV, it'll come with built-in Alexa+, which is a nice touch for those already in the Alexa ecosystem. You can also install Kodi to watch virtually anything for free.

Another standout feature is the support for Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Atmos, which can make your streaming much more immersive as your TV adapts its picture in real time to its environment and gives you a 3D surround-sound experience (if you have a sound system). For its price, this is an excellent choice for someone looking to upgrade their TV to a new 2026 QLED without breaking the bank.

Apple's new HomeView smart hub is fun. It looks like a cross between an iMac G4 and an Apple Watch, especially if you opt for the one with the stand—which you should probably do, seeing as the wall-mounted option requires separate hardware purchases. If you have more than one Apple user in the house, it's certainly a tempting product. But as sleek as the HomeView looks, I can't help but wonder: Is this really a better decision than an iPad on a stand?

After all, you can already control smart devices from the Home app on your iPad, not to mention take FaceTime calls, play music, check the weather, etc. And, since it's an iPad, it's inherently more versatile than a device made as a smart hub. Would you be better off buying one of Apple's tablets with a stand, and calling a day? The short answer: maybe, but not necessarily. After thinking it through, it might not make sense for everyone to splurge on the iPad in this scenario.

Feature crossover between the HomeView and iPad

Despite being a new product, there's a lot of crossover between the HomeView and your average iPad. They both support FaceTime, and both place the camera along the top bezel—at least, if you have one of Apple's modern iPads. (For years, the company put the camera along the short side of the iPad, which meant it was always off-center for landscape video calls.) They both run the Home app, which means both can control your compatible smart devices. You can access Apple Music on both devices, as well as the Messages app. To that point, they both run some of the same first and third-party apps, including Calendar, Weather, Podcasts, and Find My, but it's a bit too early to know the full list of compatible apps. That said, Apple told The Verge that any app that works with CarPlay and supports audio and video streaming will appear on your HomeView if you have it on your iPhone or iPad.

Both devices also come with Safari. That's obvious on the iPad, but it's a welcome addition on the HomeView. I'm not seeing much about how Safari works on HomeView, however, other than the fact you can tap "Start Cooking" on a recipe you find in the browser to see the steps in a "streamlined format." While you can do many things on HomeView with simple gestures and voice commands, Apple also includes an on-screen keyboard here, so the iPad isn't the only device of the pair you can type on. Depending on the iPad, HomeView might actually be on-par power-wise, as well: Apple outfitted this device with the A18 chip, one generation newer than the A17 Pro in the iPad mini, and two generations newer than the chip in the A16 iPad. That runs Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, a big selling point for Apple with this device. Like other smart displays, the company wants you to ask Siri AI complex questions and make requests across your apps. That's something you can do on certain iPads too, as long as they support Apple's AI suite.

The iPad can do a lot the HomeView can't

It might sound like the HomeView and the iPad are surprisingly similar, but there's a wide array of features that are exclusive to Apple's dedicated tablet. Perhaps most importantly, you have a dedicated OS to work with on iPad. It might not be macOS, but you can run multiple apps side-by-side, including with desktop-like window management, if you'd like. Speaking of apps, you'll have many more options on iPad than on HomeView. It's great that there's third-party support on HomeView, but your iPad can also tap into the entire App Store; HomeView can't.

iPads have mouse and keybord support as well, in case you don't want to rely on gesture and touch controls for everything. There's also Apple Pencil support; optional, but useful. And while both devices have front-facing cameras, all iPads have rear cameras—some better than others, but they come in handy. If you're on a FaceTime call, you don't have to turn the entire device to show someone something in front of you. There's a host of other smaller features that may matter to some, but not all, like a USB-C port, or external drive support.

The HomeView has exclusive features of its own

On the flip side, there are perks you get with a HomeView that you just don't get on an iPad. While you can place an iPad on a stand in your kitchen, you won't be able to take advantage of HomeView's dedicated "faces." That includes the Home face, which puts all your smart devices on-screen in tiles. If your home is relatively smart, this is useful (not to mention sleek), and is a bit more streamlined than moseying over to the Home app on your iPad. To that point, HomeView's other faces make it stand out in your room: You can use it as a dynamic clock or calendar, with fun designs and effects. Even the Weather app's face looks better on HomeView than the Weather app on iPad.

The HomeView really shines if you have multiple people in your house—at least, on paper. Apple says the device can recognize up to six different users, and personalize the experience to each. You can have a custom Home Screen layout, and only be able to access your own data (like Messages); then, when a different member of your household looks at HomeView, they can access their personal setup. This type of personalization is great, and is sorely missing from the iPad. Hopefully, Apple adds profiles to iPadOS at some point in the future, like it does on macOS. Until then, HomeView offers a much better experience for multiple users.

HomeView also has the advantage when it comes to speakers—particularly if you buy the model with the stand. Apple says the screen comes with two full-range drivers, while the base has a down-firing woofer and two force-canceling passive radiators. If you opted for an iPad on a stand, you'd need some sort of external audio solution to match that, which would only increase your costs.

The HomeView's price actually makes sense

If you're torn on buying an iPad as a HomeView alternative, the cost might just be the decision maker here. Apple is pricing the HomeView on a stand at $299, which, to me, sounds a bit pricey at first. But you get a lot for that money, especially when you consider the other option: Apple's cheapest iPad is still quite expensive, retailing for $449. The iPad mini, which gives you a more comparable display size to the HomeView, is even more expensive. Your best bet would be to find a refurbished iPad, but even then, you're likely still spending more than the cost of the HomeView. That's before you factor in a stand, or even alternative audio solutions, like a Bluetooth speaker or HomePod mini.

If you plan to use your iPad as a dedicated tablet in addition to a smart home display, that additional cost might be worth it. After all, you can switch from taking FaceTime calls in the kitchen to sending emails, making music in GarageBand, or playing games like Minecraft and Stardew Valley. But if your main goal is finding a smart display that fits in well with your existing Apple ecosystem, the HomeView isn't a bad buy.

Although October Prime Day is officially over, some significant deals on home-maintenance essentials are still available. One of the best is the Ecovacs Goat O1000 LiDAR Pro Robot Lawn Mower, now 37% off at an all-time low of $949.05 (originally $1,499.99).

Ecovacs Goat O1000 LiDAR Pro Robot Lawn Mower

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The O1000 Pro can mow up to 0.25 acres and handle slopes of up to 45%, making it ideal for smaller suburban lawns that need regular upkeep. It uses LiDAR, a 3D time-of-flight sensor, and an AI camera to map and navigate, so it doesn't need perimeter wire or an RTK antenna. In the app, you can create zones and no-go areas, adjust cutting settings, and schedule mowing.

The built-in TruEdge trimmer is what sets it apart from many competitors. Unlike some robot mowers that still leave a strip for you to finish manually, this model has edge trimming integrated to reduce cleanup. Another perk is how quiet it is: The mower operates at just 61 dB (significantly quieter than a gas mower), though the trimmer can reach around 81 dB.

While it has a PIN and lift alarm, it doesn’t offer the same location-tracking protection as premium competitors, which could matter if your mower is accessible from the street. Still, if your lawn is a quarter acre or less, somewhat level, and regularly maintained, the wireless Ecovacs Goat O1000 LiDAR Pro Robot Lawn Mower can handle most of your weekly mowing needs—and is even more appealing at nearly $550 off.

Google announced the Fitbit Edge earlier this week, making it the company's first Fitbit with a screen since the Charge 6 was released in 2023. Pre-orders are open now, and the devices are expected to start shipping on Oct. 27.

The Fitbit Edge ($179.99) has features and a price that are right in between the Fitbit Air, which has no screen and retails for $99.99, and the Pixel Watch 5, a full-featured smartwatch that starts at $399.99.

You can pre-order the Fitbit Edge here. It comes in black with a black band, silver with a "fog" (gray) band, "champagne gold" with a salmon-pink band, and a metallic color they're calling "satin pyrite" with an olive green band. There's also a Steph Curry edition for $219.99 in gray and orange. The standard packages come with two bands, a small/medium that fits wrists 130 to 170 millimeters around, and a medium/large for wrists 170 to 210 millimeters. There are a few other bands available for an extra fee: an "active sport" band with larger holes for ventilation ($39.99), a magnetic band ($49.99), and a band with metal links ($149.99).

What's new in the Fitbit Edge

Unlike the screenless Fitbit Air, the Fitbit Edge adds its own GPS chipset, so you can track distance without bringing your phone, and an altimeter to detect elevation changes like hills. The latter also enables a "floors climbed" metric each day. The Fitbit Edge also has an ECG app, a morning report, and can control music playing on your phone no matter what app is playing it.

If you're upgrading from a Fitbit Charge 6, the Edge adds an altimeter and a morning report, and you'll be glad to see the music controls work for any music app, not just Youtube Music. The Edge is missing some features, though: With no NFC, it can't do tap-to-pay with Google Wallet. The Edge also does not have Google Maps directions at launch, although Google says these are coming soon. The EDA scan and stress tracking are also gone. (Personally, I'm glad about that. Stress tracking isn't accurate enough to be useful.)

Yesterday the MARQ Gen 3 turned up on Garmin's support pages, and today, the company has made it official. Garmin launched its third-generation luxury smartwatch collection, a lineup of six models priced from $2,500 to $3,100. That sure is a lot of money for a watch. Let's take a look at what exactly you get with the new Garmin MARQ Gen 3.

Garmin MARQ® Adventurer (Gen 3)

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What to know about the Garmin MARQ Gen 3

The new collection consists of the MARQ Athlete, Adventurer, Aviator, Commander, Golfer and Diver. Across all six, Garmin has moved to larger AMOLED displays, added LTE and satellite connectivity, expanded its mapping, and brought in its latest health and fitness features that I detail in my review of Garmin's other recent release, the Fenix 9 Pro.

The hardware follows the luxury formula the MARQ line is known for. Each watch has a 47 mm Grade 5 titanium case, a sapphire crystal lens, and a ceramic bezel inlay. Each is 15 mm thick and carries a 1.4-inch AMOLED display, up from 1.2 inches on the previous generation.

At the bottom of the range, the MARQ Athlete is the entry point at $2,500. It comes on a silicone strap with VO2 max markings on the bezel, and includes Garmin's full collection of running and training features. The MARQ Adventurer costs $2,700 and pairs an Italian leather strap with a compass bezel. This one is aimed at hiking, navigation and climbing, and includes preloaded ClimbPro information.

And so on: The remaining four models are each built around a specific pursuit, as MARQ variants have been since the line debuted. The MARQ Aviator is the flight-focused model, the MARQ Commander is the tactical one, the MARQ Golfer is built for the course, and the MARQ Diver is the one for the water. Garmin's pricing and strap details for these four sit between the Athlete's $2,500 and the $3,100 top of the range.

What else is new about the Garmin MARQ Gen 3?

In terms of software updates, the biggest addition is embedded inReach connectivity. All six watches support LTE calling, messaging and location sharing without a phone nearby, along with satellite messaging and emergency SOS through Garmin Response. Note: These services require a separate inReach subscription.

Garmin has also added a speaker, a microphone, and an LED flashlight. Other upgrades include the ECG app in supported regions, newer health and recovery metrics, and worldwide TopoActive maps with address search. Storage has jumped from 32GB to 128GB, and battery life reaches up to 18 days in smartwatch mode, or seven days with the always-on display enabled.

How the MARQ compares to non-luxury Garmins

What's most exciting is how these changes bring the MARQ much closer to Garmin's latest high-end sports watches, as opposed to being more of an aesthetic purchase. Previously, MARQ buyers were paying a considerable premium for hardware that lacked some features already available elsewhere in the range. Honestly, the earlier MARQ was, in effect, a fancy-materials version of a watch you could get for less, with fewer capabilities.

Now, the MARQ Gen 3 is finally a watch that tops the Garmin lineup with all the features of a Fenix. And for the first time, the MARQ has pluses the Fenix doesn't, like increased storage and on-device mapping features. The question of whether such premium price Garmin has set is worth it? That's still up for debate.

Garmin says the collection is available now, with broader availability reportedly scheduled for Nov. 5. You can see the full lineup on Garmin's site here.

You just finished running a race, but your watch disagrees with the official distance and timing. Which should you trust? While race organizers can screw up their distance or timing, they usually don't. Let's look at how races are measured and why they may disagree with your watch—which happens more often than you might realize.

How races measure your time

Before we compare a watch time to an official race time, we need to know what kind of official race time we're looking at. There are two different numbers you might see from a race: gun time and chip time. They may differ from each other and from your watch. Here's where each comes from:

Chip time 

Chip time, also sometimes called net time, is the time from when you personally cross the start line until you personally cross the finish line. This is the time that matters for most of us.

Chips measure your personal start and finish because big races often have a crowd at the start line. If you’re running a big-city marathon, it could be 10 minutes or more of waiting and then slowly moseying forward with the crowd before you are able to cross the start line. In that case, your marathon could have a 4:40:00 gun time and a 4:30:00 chip time.

The “chip” in the name refers to a computer chip that is usually embedded in your racing bib (the numbers you pin to your shirt). The timing system registers a data point whenever you cross a timing mat on the ground. There is a timing mat at the start and another at the end of the race. (Longer races like marathons and half-marathons may also have timing mats at a few checkpoints along the way, such as the halfway point.)

Gun time

Gun time is the time from when the race starts (often signaled by a starting pistol, hence “gun”) until you cross the finish line. This is also sometimes called clock time.

If you are trying to actually win the race, you may need to care about gun time. Sometimes the rules specify that the person who wins the race is the person who crosses the finish line first, regardless of when they crossed the start line. If you are an elite athlete who is in the running to win a big race, you’ll generally work out arrangements with the race organizer to be at the actual start line when the race starts, so that the gun time accurately reflects how long it took you to run the race.

But for the rest of us, gun time doesn’t matter at all. The exception is if you are in a very small local race that doesn’t use chip timing, or that only has one mat at the finish line (no mat at the start). In that case, only a gun time will be reported, and no chip time.

Watch time

Watch time is the name I’m using here for the time you see on your wristwatch, or in your running app after the fact. If you start and end the timer exactly when you cross the start and finish lines, and never pause it in between, in theory, it should be the same as the chip time. All the major brands of running watches and smartwatches do an accurate-enough job in most situations. But you shouldn't trust it too much—let me explain why.

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Chip time is the one that counts (for most of us)

As I mentioned above, gun time only matters if there is no chip time, if you’re trying to win an award in a race that uses gun times for awards, or if you’re trying to qualify for the Olympics. 

Use the chip time anytime you’re telling someone what you ran, or when you’re keeping track of your personal bests (PBs). (Only use a watch time if you ran a race with no chip time, and even then make sure to use your actual total time between the start and finish lines, no pausing. In that case, you're not trusting the watch over the chip time; you're just using it to estimate a missing chip time.)

Watch time should be the same as chip time if you started and stopped your watch at the start and finish lines. But it’s often not. Some of the reasons your watch time might be wrong: 

• Your watch auto-pauses. This is a convenient setting on training runs, if you often stop for a water break or to wait to cross a street. Your watch will pause your run when you stop, and resume recording when you move again. But during a race, stops aren’t free! If you stop to spend two minutes in a porta-potty, that’s still part of your race time.

• Your app (such as Strava) might report a “moving” time. Same idea as above, but it happens even if your watch recorded the whole thing. For example, on one longish run I did, I remember stopping to tie my shoe. Strava shows this run as taking 1:17:02. But if I scroll down through the numbers it gives, I can also see an elapsed time of 1:17:28. I guess it took me 26 seconds to tie my shoe.

On Strava, you can make your elapsed time show up first by selecting Edit Activity and then changing Type of Run to Race. If I do that on my shoe-tying run, the elapsed time with the extra 26 seconds shows up on that Strava activity.

There is one other reason why your official race result might not make sense, even if it’s a chip time and it’s showing the same as your watch’s elapsed time: Every now and then, a race organizer fucks up. 

One time, I was running a 2K race (1.2 miles) and was expecting a finish time somewhere between nine and 10 minutes. My watch registered a number in that range, but I knew it was probably off by a few seconds. When I checked the official results shortly after crossing the finish line, I had a time of 12:29, about three minutes longer than I was expecting! And in this case, I had started near the start line (it was a small, local race), so I couldn’t blame a gun/chip time difference. Turns out the timing service had accidentally added three minutes to everyone’s times. They noticed the error pretty quickly, though, and my official time was soon updated to 9:29. (I got an age group medal that day, and wrote my time on the back, which is why I remember it all these years later.)

So if your official race result is way off, consider speaking to the race organizer. There may have been an error that affects everybody, or they may only have a gun time and not a chip time.

How races measure distance

There’s one other consideration here: not just the time on your watch, but the distance. You may find that your watch’s time was within a few seconds of your chip time, but the distance seems wrong—usually too long. Or if you upload your run to Strava, you may find that the notorious "Strava tax" has been applied, appearing to shave off a bit of distance. (My best 5K in the last few years was recorded on Strava as 4.99 kilometers and thus didn't update my 5K PR. Am I mad? OK, yes.)

The first thing to check is whether the race course was certified. (Most are.) The process of certifying a race course ensures that the course has been measured to be the correct distance. And that distance is nearly guaranteed to be shorter than most runners actually run. So, yes, you will probably run a smidge longer than 3.1 miles in a 5K (3.1 mile) race! 

You can read the USATF course certification guidelines here. Of particular interest is this part: "A race course is defined by the shortest possible route that a runner could take and not be disqualified. A given runner might not follow the shortest possible route…[t]he actual path of any given runner is irrelevant. The shortest possible route is a reasonably well-defined and unambiguous route that ensures all runners will run at least the stated race distance." (Emphasis theirs.)

How does one find the shortest possible route? "You might envision the shortest possible route as a string, stretched tightly along the course so that it comes within 30 cm (one foot) of all corners, straight through S-turns, and diagonally between corners when crossing a street. You should measure the course following the same route as that hypothetical string." In addition, there is a 0.1% correction factor added to the measured distance, to ensure “that your course will not be short, even if you make small errors in following the shortest possible route.”

The only time your smartwatch’s distance should make you doubt the course measurement is if your watch thinks you covered a significantly shorter distance than the advertised length of the race. In that case, check your map to see if the GPS route looks like the route you actually ran. If you had poor GPS accuracy, your watch (or phone) might draw a line that cuts a corner that you did not actually cut. 

If your map looks correct, but your distance is still short, it’s worth checking with other runners to see if they had a short distance as well. Mistakes in course measurement or signage are rare, but they happen! The San Francisco Marathon accidentally shaved half a mile off its half-marathon course once. If you think your race course was short, contact the race organizer.

What counts as my PB?

Your PB, or personal best, can be whatever you want it to be in your heart. But if you want to brag about your times or compare them with other runners, you'll want to talk about chip time.

This is where the distance issue comes up. Maybe you finished your first 5K in 30:03 chip time, but your watch congratulated you on a 5K PR of 28:59. What gives? Check the distance, and you might see that your total race distance was 3.22 miles, with 28:59 being the time it took you to hit 3.1 (at which point the finish line was in sight, but you weren't actually done with the race). Sorry, but you didn't officially run a sub-30 5K.

This is why we distinguish race PBs from training PBs. The race course's timing is more accurate, and its certified distance is more accurate than your GPS even though the actual route that you personally run may be a bit longer than the certified distance. People tend to hit PBs at races because that's when you're the best prepared for a big effort and you have a crowd cheering you on. But the distance being potentially longer than advertised means that it is more of an accomplishment to run a "5K" race in a certain time than to run exactly five kilometers in that time.

So when another runner asks for your 5K time, they mean a race. You can proudly and accurately cite your chip time—in our example, 30:03. But you could also add: "My best training PB for that distance is 28:59, so I know I'm going to break 30 minutes officially soon." You will. I believe in you.

Having a powerful monitor with high-end specs can make gaming more immersive and make input lag as small as possible, which is helpful for any serious gamer looking for an edge over their opponents. The Samsung Odyssey G9 is a 49-inch gaming monitor with some impressive specs, including a 240Hz refresh rate and a 1 ms response time. It's available for $797.99 (originally $1,299.99 at launch), $502 off and the lowest price it has reached this year, according to price-checking tools.

49" Samsung Odyssey G9 Curved 5120x1440 240Hz Gaming Monitor (LS49CG954ENXZA)

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The Odyssey G9 came out in January 2024 as a refresh of the QLED Odyssey G9, sporting a new stand, HDMI 2.1, a black design, and a cheaper listing price (the 2020 version launched at $1,479). In addition to the low response time and high refresh rate, this monitor has NVIDIA’s and AMD’s adaptive sync technologies. Its huge 49-inch diagonal screen has a sharp curvature of 1000R and a 178-degree viewing angle. Because of its curve, the monitor measures 11.5 inches front to back, so make sure you have enough space on your desk before buying.

The VA screen panel has a 5,120 by 1,440 resolution with a 32:9 aspect ratio, which is equivalent to two side-by-side 2,560 x 1,440 monitors. Since this isn't the OLED version, it can get brighter, reaching 1,000 nits of brightness while still giving you a good contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1. You can swivel, tilt, and adjust the height of the monitor.

If you're an Xbox Series X or PS5 gamer, be mindful of the output at 16:9, meaning you'll have empty space on the sides of the screen. Try the even bigger Odyssey Neo G9 if this one isn't enough.

Apple HomeView is the company's first dedicated smart hub

Credit: Apple

Without a doubt, the biggest announcement of the day is the new "Apple HomeView." This is Apple's first dedicated smart hub, complete with a seven-inch square display attached to a domed speaker by a stainless steel hinge. While it doesn't resemble anything in Apple's current collection of devices, it is vaguely reminiscent of the iMac G4. Like Apple's other screens, the display comes with True Tone, and while it reaches a respectable 500 nits of brightness, it can also drop to as low as 0.3 nits, which Apple says makes it great for nightstands. It is also selling a display-only HomeView that mounts to your wall.

Apple isn't positioning HomeView as a personal device—the smart hub can recognize up to six people, so each member of a household can set their own Home Screens with custom apps and widgets, while shared data (like photos and music) can be accessed by anyone, even guests. Apple also designed Apple Watch-like faces for HomeView: You can customize your HomeView face to include things like calendars, clocks, full-screen images, the weather, and more.

Like other smart hubs, HomeView uses an AI assistant to answer questions and run tasks. As such, it seems well-timed with the launch of Apple's new Siri AI. If you have an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone or iPad, you can ask Siri AI to take action in the app or pull relevant info from Messages, Calendar, and Apple Music. Any conversation you have with Siri on HomeView syncs across the Siri app on your other devices.

Apple is also touting the HomeView's speakers. The company says the device has two custom full-range drivers in the display, as well as a down-firing woofer and two force-cancelling passive radiators in the base. You can stream audio and video from Apple's many services, including Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Apple News, Apple TV, as well as some third-party apps. If you have more than one HomeView, HomePod, or AirPlay-compatible device, you can beam audio to all. It even works with Handoff, so if you're listening to or watching something on your iPhone, you can pick it up on your HomePod.

The HomeView's greatest strength might be as an always-available FaceTime receiver. It has a camera built into the top bezel with Center Stage, which makes it easier to stay in frame when walking around the room. HomeView can read your messages and let you respond with your voice, but there's also an on-screen keyboard. If you have other HomeViews or HomePods, you can use Intercom to send an audio message to everyone in the house.

This is a smart hub, so HomeView comes with a smart home dashboard to control all of your smart devices. You can check on video feeds (including up to nine at once), adjust lights, or change the thermostat, in addition to a number of other tasks. Apple is adamant that the A18 chip in the HomeView, including its Secure Enclave, ensures all data passing through the device is protected. It even notes that personal data, like Messages, is not accessible until the user verifies themself via Face ID.

How much will the Apple HomeView cost?

Apple is charging $299 for HomeView or HomeView (Wall Mounted). If you choose the latter, you can pick from three different wall-mounting options, each sold separately. You can preorder either starting today. A note: You need an iPhone or iPad running iOS 27.2 or iPadOS 27.2 or later to use the HomeView, so don't order one if you don't.

Apple TV 4K doubles as a home hub

Credit: Apple

Apple also announced its next-generation Apple TV 4K this morning. At first glance, you wouldn't know anything's changed. Both the Apple TV and its remote look just about the same as the previous model. But the major changes are inside, not out. Apple is positioning this Apple TV 4K as a home hub of its own, pairing an upgraded processor with Siri AI to offer new smart capabilities.

Like other smart devices, you can ask Siri AI on Apple TV 4K questions in natural language and get results in kind. Apple says you can request things like "What Apple TV shows won at the Emmy Awards this year?" or "What are some nature documentaries available on Apple TV?" While watching content, you can ask Siri AI about what's on screen, including questions like "Where was Pluribus filmed?" or "Is this movie appropriate for a 14-year-old?" Apple says Apple TV 4K won't stop your content to answer a question; it will place answers in a subtle overlay, so you can keep watching while getting your answer. Apple even recommends trying to control Apple TV 4K hands-free now, which I suppose is a response to complaints about how easy it is to lose the remote.

If you do lose the remote, you're in luck: It now comes with Find My support with Precision Finding. You can play a sound on the remote from your iPhone to make it easier to find, or you can get guided directions to know exactly where it is. (Spoilers: It's between your couch cushions. It's always between your couch cushions.)

Inside, the Apple TV 4K runs Apple's A19 chip, which Apple says improves the CPU performance by up to 50% and offers up to double the GPU performance of the previous model. Apple says the new Apple TV 4K offers a new AV1 decoder, which should improve the quality of streams while using less data. You can also pair the new Apple TV 4K with four speakers if you have Apple's new HomePod mini 2 (more on that below). Apple's AI calibrates the speakers to your space by analyzing their position in your room.

While Apple would love for you to buy a HomeView too, you can also control all your smart devices from the new Apple TV 4K. You can see who's at your front door and unlock it if necessary, and even set the Apple TV 4K to guest mode if you want your friends to be able to adjust the lights when you're not around.

How much is the new Apple TV 4K?

Apple's newest Apple TV 4K starts at $299, or $49.83 for six months. You can pre-order it today, and it will go on sale starting Friday, Nov. 13.

HomePod mini 2 has an upgraded chip and cute new colors

Credit: Apple

Apple's second-generation HomePod mini is now official. While the new HomePod mini 2 isn't as radical a change as the HomeView or even the Apple TV 4K, it does have some upgraded hardware and comes in new colors: pink, green, blue, white, and midnight.

Apple says the new HomePod mini 2 comes with its S10 chip, quite an upgrade from the S5 chip used in the original HomePod mini. While we'll need to wait for testing to confirm sound quality, Apple says the S10 chip powers the mini's new computational audio, which automatically optimizes things like dynamic range, loudness, and acoustics to fit your space. As mentioned above, you can now pair four HomePods together with the Apple TV 4K, including any assortment of HomePods and HomePod mini 2s.

While the original HomePod mini has a glowing touchpad, the new HomePod mini 2 takes it a step further with "Sound Glow." This new feature glows and pulses in sync with your audio, and reacts to both bass and treble in real time. Sound Glow pulls the color scheme from the current album art. Of course, this announcement is all about smart home, so Apple also touted how you can control your smart home from your HomePod mini 2 as well. You can ask Siri AI on the speaker to configure your smart home devices, and you can find manual controls from the Home app as well.

How much is the HomePod mini 2?

HomePod mini 2 is $149, and is currently available for preorder. You can buy the unit in stores starting Oct. 30.

Apple Home Collection includes third-party devices designed to work together

Credit: Apple

Finally, there's "Apple Home Collection." This is a series of devices not made by Apple, but by partner companies that now sell their devices through Apple. The idea is that these devices were all designed with Apple's smart home experience in mind, which means you can buy them knowing they'll work with HomeView, Apple TV 4K, and the HomePod mini 2. (Apple also seems quite proud of how each device matches the company's overall look.) Here's what's in the collection:

• LG Video Doorbell: This doorbell has dual cameras (one 2.5K camera, one 1080p camera), a built-in spotlight, and a chime that plays on HomeView, HomePod, and HomePod mini. ($249.95).

• LG Floodlight Cam: This camera comes with dual floodlights that automatically turn on when it detects motion. It also supports low-light color night vision. ($399.95.)

• LG Outdoor Cam: This camera supports low-light color night vision with flexible angles. ($299.95.)

• LG Indoor Cam: This camera can automatically adjust itself, including tilting out of frame when someone comes home. ($199.95.)

• LG Smart Deadbolt Lock: This lock uses Ultra Wideband to automatically unlock when the user approaches it. You can also tap to unlock with your iPhone or Apple Watch, use the hardware keypad, or use the hidden physical key slot. The lock alerts users if it detects tampering. ($349.95.)

• Smart Thermostat: Apple is working with both LG and Schneider to sell two different thermostats. Schenider's is square, while LG's is round. Both pull from iPhone data to automatically adjust the temperature based on certain scenarios, such as whether anyone is home, time of day, or user preferences. There are also optional temperature and humidity sensors. ($199.95 per thermostat, $39.95 per sensor.)

With an iCloud+ plan, you can access up to 10 days of video event history, with automatic video descriptions and summaries of those events. You can use natural language to search your event history for specific clips, and there are built-in storage options to retain data when a connection goes down.

The DJI Osmo Pocket 3 Creator Combo is currently down to $495 from $629, saving you $134 and bringing the bundle to its lowest price ever, according to price trackers. That's a decent discount if you've been considering a dedicated camera for vlogging, travel videos, or social media content, particularly since the Creator Combo includes accessories you'd otherwise have to buy separately—along with the camera, you get a DJI Mic 2 transmitter for clearer voice recordings, a battery handle for longer shooting sessions, and a mini tripod that comes in handy when you want to film yourself without holding the camera.

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As for the camera itself, it uses a one-inch (Type 1) sensor that handles dim light better than earlier Pocket models and records 4K video at up to 120fps, so you can capture everything from everyday vlogs to slow-motion footage. And because it has a three-axis mechanical gimbal, you can walk around while filming without ending up with shaky footage, while the wide 20mm-equivalent lens gives you enough room to fit yourself and your surroundings into the frame. Its rotating two-inch touchscreen also makes switching between horizontal videos for YouTube and vertical clips for Instagram fairly simple.

PCMag also praised its natural-looking color profiles, while more experienced creators can use 10-bit D-Log M for greater control over colors during editing. Audio gets similar attention, as the camera records in stereo and connects directly to up to two DJI Mic 2 or Mic Mini transmitters, so the bundled transmitter clipped to your collar keeps your voice clear during an interview or a walk down a busy street. Its main limitation is durability: It isn't weatherproof or particularly rugged, so rain, dust, and rough handling are concerns. You'll also need a microSD card for storage, and there's no HDMI output.

Amazon is currently offering a 50% discount on the 75-inch TCL QM8L SQD-Mini LED TV, bringing its price down to $1,497.99 from $2,999.99, its lowest price ever, according to price trackers. That's a pretty significant price cut for a television that only came out earlier this year, especially considering PCMag gave it an outstanding rating and its first Lab Award for being the brightest LED TV it has tested. The discount also extends to the 65-inch model, now $1,197.99 (from $2,499.99), along with steep cuts on the larger 85- and 98-inch versions. You also get free delivery to a room of your choice, a service that normally costs $19.99, though unpacking, assembly, packaging removal, and haul-away aren't included.

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TCL 98-inch QM8L SQD-Mini LED TV

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Beyond the price, the QM8L has TCL’s slim “Zero Border” bezel for a clean, minimalist look—but its brightness is the real draw, with PCMag measuring an impressive 3,504 nits. And while that falls well below TCL’s advertised 6,000-nit peak, it is still enough to make HDR highlights stand out and keep the picture easy to see in a sunlit room—an area where Mini-LED televisions generally have an advantage over OLED models. TCL pairs that brightness with up to 4,000 local dimming zones and Halo Control, which limits the glow around bright objects and brings the contrast closer to OLED. CNET was similarly impressed, giving the QM8L an 8.8 out of 10 and naming it the best television its reviewer had tested in 2026.

Gaming support is equally comprehensive, with a native 144Hz refresh rate, variable refresh rate, and four HDMI 2.1 ports capable of accepting 4K video at 144Hz. Beyond gaming, Dolby Vision and HDR10+ cover movies and streaming, while Google TV brings together your apps and adds Gemini voice controls. As for audio, its Bang & Olufsen audio system works with Dolby Atmos and produces better sound than many built-in TV speakers. While it cannot give you the deep bass or directional effects of a dedicated surround-sound system, it may still be enough for someone who wants to avoid adding a soundbar immediately.

Ever since I got my power station, I've been sleeping a bit better whenever a storm comes through, confident I'm covered if my power goes out. Power stations are pricey, so the best time to get one is during a sale, and not when a storm is imminent or the food in your fridge is spoiling from a power outage.

Right now is a good time to buy: The Anker SOLIX S2000 is 46% off, landing at $649.99 (originally $1,199). The S200 is great for anyone who lives in an area that is prone to losing power or in need of a compact but powerful portable power station they can take camping. It can power an average fridge for 35 hours, according to Anker, which gives you an idea of how powerful it is.

Anker Solix S2000 Portable Power Station

$649.98 at Amazon

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Don't let the size or weight of the Solix S2000 fool you. Although it's small, at 8.2 × 11.1 × 12.7 inches (LWH), and relative light, weighing in at around 36 pounds, it has a battery capacity of 2,010 Wh. According to PCMag's "excellent" review, the Solix S2000 delivers an unusually high percentage of its rated capacity while consuming remarkably little idle power on intermittent loads like refrigerators and routers. It's very quiet while operating, and the Anker app is one of the best power station apps I've used.

There are two AC outlets in the back and three more on the front. There are also two USB-C ports in the front, along with a USB-A port and a solar port that will allow you to attach an optional Anker solar panel to recharge the unit.

To give you an idea of how long you can expect to have the S2000 last, if you were to use this power station and charge it every day, it would give you about 15 years of use (10,000 charge cycles) before the battery becomes severely affected. That's a long lifespan for a small power station. If you don't have a solution to power your home essentials in an emergency, this is a great option at a huge 46% discount.

With this live blog, you can keep up with the best deals the Lifehacker team finds every day—all in one place. Bookmark this page to keep an eye on what we're finding. As always, we use price-tracking tools to suss out the deals that are actually worth paying attention to, not just hype designed to instill a false sense of urgency.

Create a separate shareable vault in Proton Pass for guests

Password managers offer a secure alternative to writing down wifi passwords and other logins or sending them via text. In Proton Pass, you can create a separate vault specifically for your home and share a limited list of credentials—such as guest wifi, smart lock codes, and streaming information—with visitors. Vaults can be set as view only, and you can revoke access at any time. Users without a Proton Pass account receive a shared link, which can be set to expire after a specific amount of time or number of views.

Build an emergency kit vault in Proton Pass to share with trusted contacts

Another use case for separate vaults is as an "in case of emergency" selection of items that you can share with trusted contacts. For paid users, Proton Pass has a dedicated emergency access feature, which lets up to five contacts of your choice get into your account after a dedicated waiting period in the event of your illness or death. Alternatively, you can set up a vault that contains only specific items, such as logins or secure notes, and share it with those who may need the information if you are incapacitated or unreachable. Remember that guest access can be set to expire or revoked at any time.

Use custom hidden fields to protect security answers and PIN codes

When you create an item in Proton Pass, you have the option to add custom fields, which allow you to save additional information relevant to your credential, such as text notes and 2FA codes. You can also select a Hidden field, which masks the text by default until you reveal it (similar to how passwords are masked). This prevents someone from looking over your shoulder and catching sight of sensitive information, such as security question answers and PINs. Custom fields are available on paid Proton plans.

Create burner identities for online shopping by combining email aliases and virtual cards

A Proton Pass selling point is its hide-my-email alias feature, which generates a unique email address when you sign up for a new account. Email aliases forward to your main inbox, but they prevent you from having to share your real address, essentially creating burner identities that you can use for online shopping, newsletters or promotional lists, and other activity that you don't want tied to your personal email. Free users get 10 hide-my-email aliases, while those on paid plans have an unlimited number. While Proton Pass doesn't yet have an integrated virtual card option like 1Password, you can use a service like Privacy.com or Revolut to create single-use or merchant-locked payment cards that protect your real account information.

Add custom descriptions to hide-my-email aliases to track who is selling your data

Another benefit of hide-my-email aliases is that you can find out who is selling your data (again, without compromising your personal email address). When you generate an alias, add a custom text field with notes on exactly what the address is being used for. If you start receiving marketing emails or spam to that alias, you'll know where that compromise came from. You can then disable the alias instantly within Proton Pass.

Add multiple login URLs to one master entry to avoid duplicate accounts in Proton Pass

Some employers, universities, and service providers have multiple URLs for accessing online portals, but you use the same credentials across all of them. Instead of cluttering your vault with duplicate entries, you can add multiple URLs to an item so Proton Pass will autofill that item across all of them. This also prevents an issue where you have to update a password and then remember to sync it across duplicate items. When you edit an entry, simply tap Add in the Website box.

Recover old credentials using item history in Proton Pass

Proton Pass stores a history of your saved items so you can see previous passwords and information that's since been changed. This makes it easy to revert back to earlier versions if you encounter an error when updating a credential. You have access to the last 50 versions of an item on paid plans, and you can restore earlier versions to be the current version directly from the item history.

Switch password generation to passphrase for secure but easy-to-type credentials

When you create a new credential, Proton Pass can randomly generate a strong password to match site requirements. Alternatively, you can opt for passphrases, which are strings of words separated by hyphens (or another symbol). These are still highly secure but much easier to remember and type than a random string of letters, numbers, and symbols. Passphrases can be useful on accounts for which you have to manually enter your credentials.

Enable Extra Password to provide an additional layer of protection to your Proton Pass vault

When you sign up for Proton Pass, you start by creating a global Proton account that works across Proton apps. You should, of course, make this password highly secure and enable multi-factor authentication, but you may also want to set up a password specifically for your Proton Pass vault(s) so even if your Proton account is somehow compromised, your credentials remain protected. You'll find this option under Settings > Security > Extra password on the browser extension and under Profile > Account name > Manage account on the mobile app. Note that if you forget or lose this password, you won't be able to access your Pass account.

Use notes and attachments to create an encrypted document vault in Proton Pass

Some of the best password managers can double as encrypted storage vaults, meaning you can upload sensitive documents that you don't want to entrust to other cloud services that may be more susceptible to compromise. Proton Pass includes 1 GB of storage on its free plan and 10 GB for paid users. You can create secure notes and attach uploaded files to any item in your vault.

Is the treadmill harder or easier than running outdoors? Survey runners, and you’ll get plenty of different opinions on which feels harder or easier, but the basic physics of running are the same on both. (I promise.) So why do people who are used to treadmills find that they’re suddenly slower when they run outdoors? I’m going to run through the factors that are at play here, and talk about how to adapt if you want to be able to enjoy both. 

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Why treadmills sometimes feel harder than running outside

If you find treadmill running harder, you probably already know the reason: It’s boring. You have nothing to distract you from your own effort and the glowing numbers telling you how little progress you’ve made. This is a problem that we can train our brains to solve for us over time, whether with distractions, mindfulness, or simply being grateful that we’re not outdoors in the bad weather. 

The treadmill does not move your feet

Physics-wise, running on a treadmill is pretty much identical to running outdoors in identical conditions. It is not true that the treadmill "moves your feet," as I have seen runners claim. Running is the action of pushing off the ground to move yourself forward relative to the ground. If the “treadmill moves your feet” theory were correct, would we not have to consider the rotating Earth its own sort of treadmill? And thus it would be 2,000 times harder to run west than to run east?

In reality, you have to spend just as much effort to stay in place on a treadmill going 6.5 miles per hour, as you do to move forward at 6.5 miles per hour on flat, steady ground. In other words: in both scenarios, you are asking your muscles to push off with a force that will keep you moving 6.5 mph faster than the ground. Physics is not the reason why the treadmill feels different.

You only need to add a 1% incline if you are running very fast

Then there’s the issue of wind resistance. Some runners will say you need to set the treadmill’s incline to 0.5% or 1% to mimic outdoor air resistance. Even on a calm day, your body has to push into the air to keep moving. Adding a small incline to the treadmill is supposed to mimic that extra effort.

But that is only true if you run at a pace of 7:30 per mile (8.0 mph) or faster. Below that, “the difference is so small as to be meaningless,” a scientist who studied the question told Runner’s World. So if you’re jogging at 6 mph, you don’t have to worry about accounting for wind resistance. Now that we understand the physics, let’s talk about why treadmill runs often feel easier than outdoor runs. 

The treadmill may feel easier because it handles the pacing

Pacing is probably the biggest factor (aside from weather) in why outdoor running feels harder for a person who is used to treadmill running. On the treadmill, you decide on a pace, punch it in to the treadmill, and then you'll keep going at that pace whether you're thinking about it or not. 

But outdoors, you don't know when you start what pace you're running. Even if you're relying on a watch to tell you your current pace, it can take a moment to catch up and give you the correct numbers. It's easy to take off a little too fast, especially if you have a good song playing or you're excited to get the workout going (or over with).

So you, the treadmill runner, head off on an outdoor run without a good sense of how fast you’re going, and maybe you find yourself tired out a few minutes in. Meanwhile, outdoor runners learn to develop a sense of pace out of necessity. They know you have to listen to your body, not just look at a number, to know whether you're running at a pace you can sustain for the whole workout. Fortunately, you can learn this skill! Just run outdoors at least some of the time, and pay attention to your breathing and effort level.

The treadmill has no weather

If all your treadmill runs are inside of a 68-degree gym, they’ll all feel pretty similar. But the great outdoors is fond of blessing us with heat, wind, humidity, rain, snow, ice, and similar complications. 

Heat slows us down a lot, especially if we aren’t used to it. (You do build up some heat adaptation throughout the summer.) Humidity, in combination with heat, makes this even worse. Your body can’t cool itself as well through sweating, so you get hot and stay hot. It’s normal for your pace on a hot day to be anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes slower each mile. 

Heavy winds can also slow you down (when you’re running into the wind) or speed you up (when you’re running with the wind at your back). Ice can make you slow down to watch your footing. Snow can make you work harder as your feet sink into the ground and you have to fight to pull them back up again. 

On the other hand, a cool, dry day is better for your performance than the conditions inside a sweaty gym. Perfect running weather is (in my opinion) around 50 degrees, calm, and overcast. Most people will run a lot faster and feel better in those conditions than on a treadmill at room temperature.

The treadmill has no unexpected hills

If you live in a pancake-flat part of the country, you can skip this section. But many of us live where there are hills. Big ones, little ones, maybe some mountains. On the treadmill, you get to choose what incline to run with. Outdoors, your choices may be limited. 

I live in a hilly place, so even my “flat” outdoor routes aren’t entirely flat. A regulation running track is my only truly flat option. Even gently rolling hills can add up over the course of a long run, making you work harder on the uphills without ever fully giving you that speed back on the downhills. 

The treadmill has a more predictable surface

A treadmill only has one surface. Every step meets flat ground. Every step is the same softness or hardness. Outdoors, there’s so much more variation. 

Even on a simple city run, you’ll find yourself traversing curbs, slightly tilted sidewalk slabs, cambered edges of roads, pebbles, stray garbage, and occasional patches of grass or dirt. Take your run to the trails and you’ll also hit packed dirt, mud, soft grass, leaf litter, rocks, sticks, logs, little streams you have to hop over, ruts carved by mountain bike wheels—you get the idea. Your feet have to land and push off just a little differently for each of these. 

The variety in outdoor running is good for your feet, but it can be fatiguing on the small muscles of your feet and lower legs if you’re not used to it. 

How to train for an outdoor race if you prefer to run on the treadmill

It’s OK to do plenty of your training on a treadmill, even if you're training for an outdoor race, and in some situations it may be necessary. The treadmill can let you get your training in when the weather is bad, when you can’t line up child care at your running times, or any number of other reasons. 

The important thing is to still run outdoors at least sometimes. If you’re training for a marathon, try to do your long runs outdoors, even if some of your shorter runs and speedwork have to be on the treadmill. Get outside when you can. That way, you’re adapting to the weather, training your feet on different surfaces, and building the muscles and mindset necessary to tackle hills. 

If you're like most people, your TV is the centerpiece of your living room decor. That means when it's off, all your furniture is pointed at a black rectangle. If this bothers you, the "art TV" trend that started with Samsung's The Frame could be the answer. These sets are made to look like a piece of art, and they display an image of your choosing when not in use. The Frame is a pricey option, but other brands have their own offerings—including Hisense and its CanvasTV, which I've been using and loving for the past six months.

Already a more affordable alternative to The Frame, you can currently get the 50-inch Hisense CanvasTV for $649.99 (down from $1,299.99). This is the lowest price ever, according to price-tracking tools. Other sizes are also discounted right now.

Hisense 50“ QLED S7 CanvasTV Series 4K UHD Google Smart Art TV (50S7SG, 2026 New) - Art Mode, Anti-Glare Panel, Dolby Vision HDR, Hi-Matte Display, Frame & UltraSlim Wall Mount Included, Lifestyle TV

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The primary attraction of the CanvasTV over Samsung's The Frame is the price: You'll pay $200 to $1,700 less for the same-sized TV (depending on which size you choose). Not to mention, The Frame requires you to buy the actual frames that go around the set and pay for most artwork separately, while Hisense includes all of that in the base price. Like The Frame, the CanvasTV also comes with a flush TV mount that will allow you to hang it so it looks like a piece of art.

I like that CanvasTVs come with the Google OS, which is my favorite smart TV operating system, as it lets you cast seamlessly from your phone (Android or iPhone). The CanvasTV is a QLED TV with Quantum Dot technology and 4K resolution with a 144Hz refresh rate in Game Mode Pro, according to CNET's review. What gives it the art look is the low-reflection Hi-Matte display, which combats glare. You can swap out the teak frame with different colors, including white and walnut frames.

Considering Hisense's take on The Frame is cheaper and includes fewer upfront costs, it's a great option for anyone looking to save money on a TV that won't dominate their decor—especially at the current discount.

Rambler, Google's AI-powered dictation feature, seems genuinely useful. At its core, Rambler is like your phone's existing dictation tool, only much smarter. It can automatically edit your speech into a more polished end product. It'll eliminate your filler words like "um" and ah," shape up your grammar, and understand your intended meaning (e.g., if you say "we need to pick whole milk...I mean, oat milk," Rambler will type "we need to pick up oat milk.")

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This is the type of feature most of us would like to have on our phones, there's only one problem: Despite developing the Android operating system, Google decided to make Rambler a Pixel 11-exclusive feature. As such, if you have a non-Pixel phone, like a Samsung or a Motorola, you're out of luck, unless you want to upgrade to one of Google's smartphones—or, as it turns out, download this third-party tool instead.

"PixelBoard" adds Rambler to any Android

As reported by Android Authority, developer Akshay Kadam modded Google's Gboard app and uploaded it to GitHub under the name PixelBoard. Kadam advertises PixelBoard as a "supercharged Gboard mod" sporting features from the Pixel 11 series—including AI writing tools, and, notably, Rambler.

According to Kadam's GitHub page, PixelBoard runs side-by-side with the Gboard app on your phone. You don't need to replace the existing app or uninstall it, nor do you need to root your Android. Still, this is an unofficial port that requires sideloading onto your Android device. While the tool comes from a public GitHub page, exercise caution if you want to give it a shot.

If you do, Kadam's GitHub page has detailed instructions for downloading the app on your phone. It seems you have three options: You can download PixelBoard directly from GitHub, then install it from the notification drawer or File Manager on your phone; if you're a developer, you can sideload the app by connecting your phone via USB with USB Debugging enabled; and, finally, you can patch the stock Gboard APK using Morphe Manager. (Kadam recommends the first method.)

Once you do have PixelBoard on your phone, head to Settings > System > Languages & input > On-screen keyboard (or Manage Keyboards), then enable PixelBoard. Tap the keyboard switch button or spacebar selector, then choose PixelBoard as the input method. To use Rambler, choose "Rambler Dictation" from this settings page, choose "Voice typing," then, under "Dictation type," switch from "Standard" to "Rambler."

Hopefully, Google brings Rambler to more phones in due time. But, until then, you can use PixelBoard to bring the feature to your device on your own.

On most runs, I prefer to pay attention to pace and heart rate data from my Garmin, and ignore the rest (even though I love playing with the data later on). But I also believe in trying a fun experiment now and then. So, for my most recent training block, I’ve retooled my watch's data screens around several of the more nitty-gritty metrics available to me— cadence, stride length, vertical oscillation, ground contact time, and more—to see what useful insights I could gain.

First, a quick definition, because "running economy" gets thrown around a lot: Running economy is the energy (oxygen) cost of running at a given speed. Two runners can hold the same 8:00 pace, but the one who uses less oxygen to do so is more “economical.” That runner can run the same pace at a lower heart rate, hold it longer, or go faster for the same effort. It's one of the big levers for performance, alongside VO2 max and lactate threshold, and it's one you can improve with training, strength work, and technique.

Technically, your watch can't measure running economy directly and give you one neat number. What it can do is show you how you're producing your speed, so you can spot inefficiencies and then test whether fixing them lowers your heart rate at the same pace. That's the experiment I’m running (pun intended). After my next marathon, I'll break down how my running economy actually improved, and in what ways.

All the running dynamics on Garmin watches

Garmin groups these metrics under "running dynamics." Depending on your watch and accessories, they include cadence, stride length, ground contact time, ground contact time balance, vertical oscillation, vertical ratio, running power, and step speed loss. In all the examples below, I'm using a Garmin Forerunner 970; note that not every Garmin can show all of these data fields.

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• Cadence works on nearly every Garmin running watch.

• Stride length is available on many mid-range and higher watches, sometimes from the wrist and sometimes only with an accessory.

• Ground contact time, ground contact balance, vertical oscillation, and vertical ratio have historically required a compatible chest strap, but many newer watches now measure these from the wrist.

• Running power has its own requirements, depending on your watch and whether you use an accessory. Check Garmin's running power device requirements.

• Step speed loss and step speed loss percentage require an HRM 600 chest strap paired to a compatible watch. They aren't measured when you're moving at a walking pace during a run.

Check your watch's owner's manual (the "Running Dynamics" page) to see what metrics are available for you to rebuild your own data screens.

How I use Garmin data screens to chart my running economy

Keep in mind that while these metrics are useful, there is no universally "correct" cadence or vertical oscillation number. Chasing the oh-so-coveted 180 steps per minute can do more harm than good if you end up overstriding at a fast turnover or running stiff and choppy. Think of everything below as a diagnostic, not a target. Some more tips to make the most of your Garmin data screens, without succumbing to information overload:

• Change one variable at a time. I spent a few weeks laser-focused on cadence before getting stressed over anything else.

• Use the new data screens on easy runs. Hard workouts are for hard efforts; easy runs are where you can afford to observe more.

• Review after the run, not during. Staring at vertical oscillation mid-stride is a great way to trip and fall. Feel free to glance, but don't let the numbers take over your run.

• Watch the trends, not single numbers. Again, focus on personal patterns, not any specific number targets.

• Keep screens sparse. Three or four fields per screen is plenty. Anything denser is hard to read mid-stride.

• Consider keeping your base screen first in the rotation and add the experimental screens after it, so you can flip over on easy runs without losing your usual setup.

Screen 1: Cadence + Stride Length + Lap Pace

Credit: Meredith Dietz

"Run at 180 steps per minute" is one of the most repeated pieces of running advice, and one of the most misunderstood. Cadence naturally varies with pace, so chasing one magic number regardless of how fast you're going can actually hold you back. Pace is the product of cadence and stride length. Seeing those two variables together can help show you how you're getting faster paces (or not).

What I noticed immediately: on easy runs, I naturally fall into a longer stride and lower cadence. It felt relaxed, but it also meant a lot of braking on each landing. Over the past several weeks, I've been nudging my cadence up by about 3 to 5 steps per minute, which shortens my stride slightly at the same pace, and my heart rate at that pace has come down a bit (although cooler weather certainly helps there, too).

The goal is to find your own cadence range and shift it slightly higher, not to force a fixed number. When in doubt, aim for a cadence at each pace that keeps your foot landing close to your body rather than reaching out ahead of it.

Screen 2: Ground Contact Time + GCT Balance + Step Speed Loss

Credit: Meredith Dietz

This screen needs compatible hardware, and if you do have it, it's my favorite for spotting fatigue.

Ground contact time (GCT) is how long your foot stays on the ground each step. Generally, shorter is associated with a springier, more efficient stride, and it tends to shrink as you get faster. GCT balance shows the left/right split.

Step speed loss is the newest of these metrics, and the one most directly tied to economy. Every time your foot lands, it acts a bit like a brake, and your forward speed dips before you push off again. Step speed loss measures how much speed you give up during each footstrike, and the percentage version expresses that loss relative to your running speed. Lower numbers mean less braking and more of your energy going into moving forward instead of fighting yourself.

It's useful for a few reasons:

• It captures overstriding. Reaching your foot out ahead of your body increases braking, and this metric shows you the cost. That makes it a great companion to the cadence screen: if raising cadence brings your landing closer to your body, you may see step speed loss drop.

• It's a cleaner efficiency signal than bounce. Vertical oscillation tells you how much you move up and down. Step speed loss tells you how much you're slowing down horizontally, which is closer to what actually costs you energy.

• It shows fatigue. Like GCT, it can creep up late in long runs as form degrades.

Two other uses I found valuable on this screen:

1. Fatigue tracking. In long runs, my GCT always creeps up in the final third, well before my pace or heart rate tell me I'm utterly cooked.

2. Asymmetry flags. A consistent tilt away from 50/50 isn't automatically a problem, since a small imbalance is common. But if yours shifts noticeably on days something feels off, it's worth listening to.

Again, don't stress about small imbalances. Look for changes from your normal.

Screen 3: Vertical Oscillation + Vertical Ratio

Credit: Meredith Dietz

Vertical oscillation is how much you bounce with each step. Vertical ratio is that bounce relative to your stride length, which makes it easier to compare across paces and across runners. Lower generally means less energy spent going up rather than forward.

Personally, this was the most misleading screen in the beginning. I saw my number, decided it was too high, and tried to "run flatter." That just made my stride feel forced and awkward. What worked better was treating it as a trend. The plan is that when I improve cadence and let my stride shorten a touch, vertical oscillation naturally drops on its own. Strength work and a slightly higher cadence should do more for me than any overly contrived form cue about "floating."

Screen 4: Running Power (if you have it)

Credit: Meredith Dietz

The economy framing here is simple: compare power to heart rate over time. In fact, I'm planning to go in and put heart rate on my screen alongside power. Because power responds instantly to changes in effort and terrain, it's a better gauge of your economy compared to pace on hills or extra windy days.

If you can hold the same wattage at a lower heart rate than you could two months ago, that's a real improvement in fitness and efficiency, regardless of what pace says. Just be aware that different power systems calculate the number differently, so stick with one source and don't compare across devices.

Screen 5: Base screen

Credit: Meredith Dietz

Finally, the screen I never removed: pace, heart rate, and lap or average pace (plus a timer and time of day, since this is still my watch, after all). For the sake of these runs, I could judge my form changes by whether my heart rate at a given pace went up or down. At the end of the day, this is how you find out whether any of the tweaks above are making a difference. 

How to add or edit data screens on your Garmin watch

You can customize your screens on the watch itself or in the Garmin Connect app. The app is easier if you're editing several screens at once, since the fields are larger and easier to read. Menu names vary by model, so treat these as the general path.

On your watch

1. Open the activity settings. From the watch face, press Start and select Run. Then hold the Up/Menu button (or tap the screen on touchscreen models) and choose Run Settings.

2. Choose Data Screens. This lists every screen you cycle through during a run.

3. Pick a screen to edit, or choose Add New to create one.

4. Set the layout. Choose how many data fields appear, from one large field to several smaller ones.

5. Choose your data fields. Select each field slot, browse the categories (Cadence, Running Dynamics, Power, Heart Rate), and pick the metric you want.

6. Reorder or remove screens back in the Data Screens menu.

In the Garmin Connect app

1. Open Garmin Connect and tap your watch (usually under More or the device icon).

2. Go to Activities & Apps, then select Run.

3. Tap Data Screens and pick the screen you want to edit.

4. Change the layout and fields, then sync your watch so the changes carry over.

The bottom line

If you have the hardware and a little curiosity, spending a few weeks with running dynamics on your wrist can help you nerd out like you're a true running machine. Look, learn, adjust one thing, and let your heart rate tell you whether it worked. For more, check out these ten hacks every Garmin user should know.

Of course, this is not a standard feature in all apps yet. Some apps have it, like Telegram or iMessage, and it's a great addition when you need it. Others, like Messenger or WhatsApp, are sorely missing it. While Meta doesn't appear to have any plans to bring scheduled texts to Messenger, it does seem like WhatsApp users are getting the upgrade on the horizon. In fact, you might be able to try it out today.

Scheduling messaging in WhatsApp

As reported by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is currently testing a new feature for users to schedule texts, photos, and videos to send at a later time. At this time, the feature works even when you're offline, so your scheduled messages will still send even if you don't have a wifi or cellular connection. In addition, the feature is not limited to single chats, as so many new messaging features are. You can schedule texts in both one-on-one and group chats, and all scheduled messages are still end-to-end encrypted.

At this time, it looks like Meta is only testing scheduling messages on WhatsApp for Android. The bright side for iPhone users is that this test is quite limited: Only select users are getting the feature at this time—and, while it's no guarantee, you should enroll in the WhatsApp beta if you want a chance at trying it out early. To start, head to WhatsApp's official beta tester page on the Google Play Store. Here, make sure you're logged into your Google Account, then enroll in the beta. Head back to the official WhatsApp Play Store page, and you should have a new update. This is the beta.

Once you're on the WhatsApp beta, you can check if you have the feature like so: Craft a new message in any chat, then tap and hold on the send button. If you have it, WhatsApp will present a pop-up, letting you cycle through a date and time to schedule your message. (You can choose to send the message in as little as 10 minutes, or as long as two weeks.) When you're ready to schedule, you can tap the green schedule button at the bottom of the menu. You can then tap the contact or group name at the top of this window, then tap "Schedule messages" to manage all scheduled texts in that thread.

The ArtCraft apps have their own launcher. Credit: Lifehacker

What's the story behind apps like PhotoCraft?

One of the developers leading this particular charge is Brandon Thomas, a seasoned software engineer who has used Claude Opus 5.5 to build copies of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, Acrobat Pro, After Effects, and InDesign in the Rust coding language. They all get new names—Photoshop is PhotoCraft, Premiere is FilmCraft—but they're very similar in terms of features and layout to what Adobe puts out and charges a monthly fee for. It's another seismic industry shift driven by AI, and Thomas is apparently building clones of Microsoft Office apps next.

According to the developer, Thomas "got bit by the dark pattern 'cancellation fee' one too many times," which prompted the start of the project. "AI lets us take back tech and set the clock back to the pre-shitty era," says Thomas. "But now you can just create 1:1 functional equivalents, clean room, that are highly performant and cross-platform. Nothing is stopping you." In another comment, he declares, "Software is over." 

It's not clear exactly how Thomas completed this project, but he has used the term "vibe coding," so it sounds like some kind of AI-powered observe-and-copy is going on here, even with his programming experience. The developer has also suggested this is a more worthwhile endeavor than supporting open source apps such as LibreOffice and GIMP as, in his view, "There is no reason to save broken software."

This looks a lot like Photoshop... Credit: Lifehacker

Are apps like PhotoCraft legal?

As Ars Technica points out, reverse engineering is usually tolerated as long as no code is directly copied, but if the new suite of tools too closely matches the look and feel of the apps they're cloning, that could mean legal trouble. The truth is, no one's sure yet—and it brings up again the legality of the AI models themselves, which have been trained on vast amounts of human-made code to get to this level.

Adobe is no doubt taking a very close look at this, but while it's still available, I decided to give the software a try myself. You can download the apps from the ArtCraft website, though they're labeled as "early alpha" and "in development" for now. According to Thomas, 99% feature parity with the Adobe equivalents should be "measured in months and not years".

Getting started with PhotoCraft

The ArtCraft web portal offers a launcher app through which you can manage the entire 'Craft' selection of tools, but I focused on PhotoCraft as Photoshop is the only Adobe program I really make much use of. My first impressions: It definitely looks like a Photoshop rip-off.

PhotoCraft has the same color scheme, the same layout of panels, and the same menus in the same order—with the exception of Plugins, which I suppose will take a while. The keyboard shortcuts are the same, as far as I could tell, and the various preferences screens are very similar too—both in terms of the options you have and how they're laid out.

Editing a screenshot of Photoshop, in PhotoCraft. Credit: Lifehacker

Most of the Photoshop work I do involves cropping and combining images, tweaking their colors and balance, and getting them in fixed formats for articles. I was able to transform my workflow from the Adobe app pretty much wholesale: The same panels, the same dialogs, and the same tools (from the clone stamp to the magic wand).

Plenty of image editors ape Photoshop, of course, because it's the industry leader—Pixlr, anyone?—but this seems on another level entirely. PhotoCraft is also fast and slick, and as far as I could tell, free from bugs. The only bumps I came across were some clunky snapping and selecting operations, which could definitely be improved upon but didn't actually break anything.

I'm by no means a power user of Photoshop, and people with more experience than me have found plenty of issues under the hood. I suspect that when it comes to playing around with more advanced tools and layer functions, cracks might start to show in the way you would expect from AI code trying to copy what another program does. I'm not sure "watch this program and make something that behaves the same" is the best way forward for software development.

A lot of the same tools are available, in the same place. Credit: Lifehacker

That said, for me, PhotoCraft did everything I needed it to in terms of image manipulations, adjustments, and layer control, and did it well. How the app carries on long-term remains to be seen, as AI-written bug fixes and feature upgrades will presumably be piled on top of existing AI-written code—and that's assuming Adobe doesn't get involved.

Personally, I'm not going to cancel my Photoshop subscription: I can afford it, I use it, and I'm not yet ready to trust my projects to something that's been coded by AI. But this is the era we're in now, where AI can look at something—a painting, a website, a movie, a sprawling Adobe software application—and give you a very convincing imitation in not much time at all.

Why are young people throwing fruit in the toilet?

This is a weird one, but young people are throwing fruit in the toilet in honor of the rapper Lucki. Backstory: The Atlanta rapper best known for his track "New Drank" was attending ComplexCon in Los Angeles on Oct. 3 when an entourage vs. entourage tussle with rapper Playboi Carti's crew broke out and Lucki was stabbed.

In response, the hashtag #throwfruitinthetoiletforlucki appeared on Instagram and TikTok, and kids started throwing fruit in the toilet and posting videos like this one:

and this one:

So that's what's happening; why it's happening is a little harder to explain. People posted screenshots indicating the lyrics to Lucki's "Y Not" include the line "When I get stabbed at ComplexCon, throw fruits in the toilet"—but the song doesn't actually include those lyrics and it's hard to imagine many fans bought into it. Some suggested that the trend is a dig at Lucki's lifestyle and weight: a not-subtle suggestion he eat more fruit. Maybe, but I think it's a classic online non sequitur. I don't think anyone is legitimately trying to honor Lucki by posting these videos. It seems like jokers trying to get fans of the rapper to throw fruit in their toilets so they can say, "Look at those weirdos! We tricked 'em into throwing fruit in their toilets!" But it doesn't seem to be working. All the fruit-throwers I've seen seem like they're "in on the joke," which actually reverses the joke. Anyway, Lucki is doing well and expected to make a full recovery.

What does "imagine spinning apples" mean?

The second fruit-related meme trending this week is "imagine spinning apples," a way to insult pretentious dinks online. It's a journey to explain how it came to mean that, so here goes.

Aphantasia is the inability to visualize things. If you can't imagine apples, you may have aphantasia. The idea that some people can imagine apples and some can't is big on 4Chan, Reddit, and other online communities populated by young people who would like to claim superiority over others, but can't do it based on money, attractiveness, or any other traditional measure of preeminence. Despite the actual neuroscience showing a correlation between aphantasia and a slightly higher IQ, these online weirdos decided that having aphantasia means you are dumb, or lack an inner life. Some took it even further and suggested that intelligence can be measured by the number of apples one can visualize and whether you can visualize them spinning.

So memes like this:

and posts like this:

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started showing up as a way of clowning on people who boast about how smart they are using a metric that actually makes them look dumber. It's like bragging about the results of an online IQ test or joining Mensa.

What is "glass skin"?

Glass skin is a beauty trend taking over TikTok. It's based on Korean skin care trends and refers to skin so smooth, luminous, and clear, it seems to shine. How one can achieve this look is debatable, but there is no shortage of videos giving instructions and hawking creams and tinctures that promise to make your skin shiny as glass. Like this one:

I'm in favor of people looking as greasy as they want, but viral "glass skin" videos are not giving good advice—a recent study found that almost 95% of viral Korean skincare and “glass skin” TikToks are misleading, and many can even be dangerous.

What is the "door kick challenge" (and does it exist)?

Reports about the new "door kick challenge" are coming from all corners of the nation, from Portland to Phoenix to West Virginia to California this week.

Here's how West Virginia's Taylor County Sheriff's Office Deputy Sheriff Chris MacQueen describes the door kick challenge: "There is a new trend out that’s either referred to the 'door kick challenge' or 'donkey kick challenge' and what that essentially is, is teenagers late at night are donkey kicking doors and then recording their reactions as they run off. This is absolutely not ding dong ditch."

There's so much wrong with this statement. First, the "door kick challenge" isn't new. Here's a report from 2021 about the supposed challenge. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of similar news stories have been published regularly since, all across the country, a steady drumbeat of warning about this dangerous trend. But it doesn't seem to be real.

I've looked through TikTok's doorkickchallenge hashtag and similar places on other video platforms, and I can't find any evidence of any young people "recording their reaction" to kicking a stranger's door or mentioning the challenge in a "you should try this too" kind of way. There are plenty of videos of people kicking doors, but they're all shot from doorbell or security cameras, presumably posted by homeowners, and we have no idea who is doing the kicking or why. They could be stalkers, robbers, or angry because they left their keys on the coffee table. So there is no discernible trend or challenge, beyond the trend of more people having doorbell cameras.

The cop's last point, that "this is not ding dong ditch," is debatable. Ding dong ditch dates back to the early 1800s, and I can't find any evidence that the game has changed since then, or that more kids are kicking doors instead of ringing doorbells. No one keeps stats on it, but it seems reasonable to assume that kids today do dumb things as often as you and your friends did dumb things. That's where the safe money always is.

If police departments want to warn the public about a truly deadly trend, they could look at the number of adults who shoot teenagers on their porches. Then they could hold a press conference warning about the "murdering children for ringing your doorbell" challenge.

Viral video of the week: "Running Minecraft Until It Beats Itself"

Looking at the volume of AI-generated brainrot that floods video-sharing platforms makes it easy to conclude that young people are not able to visualize apples spinning. But the counter evidence is out there, too. Like this week's viral video: "Running Minecraft Until It Beats Itself." It's a video about a kids' video game, but on a deeper level it's a video about deep time, evolution, the second law of thermodynamics, and more.

This video runs a simulation of a Minecraft world to prove that if you have the right starting seed and leave Minecraft running long enough with no input, the winning condition (the dragon being slain) would happen even if there was no player, by chance. You'd have to run your PC for a billion years instead of playing Minecraft for 100 hours, but it would happen.

The idea that anything that could happen will happen if enough time passes isn't new, but it's hard to grasp the concept of time scales so vast. This video uses a relatively simple model (that viewers understand intimately) to make the billions of years imaginable.

I have no doubt that the seven million people who have viewed this video (and played Minecraft enough to understand the implications) grasp the concept of a billion years better than the people who haven't: A billion years is about how long it would take for an Enderman to randomly drop a carved pumpkin on two snow blocks and for the resulting snow golem to lead a creeper to blow up next to the walls around the end portal so Endermen could randomly carry enough blocks from the Overworld to The End to make piles high enough that randomly moving snow golems would throw enough snowballs to destroy all seven crystals that protect the Ender Dragon.

The JBL Go 5 is down to $39.95 from $54.95 on Amazon, and price trackers show that this is its lowest price so far. At roughly four inches wide and just over half a pound, it is small enough to toss into a backpack, clip onto a bag, or keep on your desk without taking up much room. The upgraded IP68 rating also makes it a better travel companion than the Go 4, especially for beach days, hikes, or anywhere dust and water are likely to show up.

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Battery life gets a modest improvement too, with JBL rating the Go 5 for up to eight hours of playback, or around 10 hours with Playtime Boost turned on. That should comfortably cover a day out, but it is not built for all-day-and-night listening. The same goes for volume. It gets reasonably loud for something this small, but it is better suited to a picnic table, bedroom, or a few people sitting nearby than covering a backyard party. Its front-facing driver also makes placement more important, since the sound is noticeably stronger when you are sitting in front of the speaker than off to either side.

The Go 5 does add a few conveniences that make it easier to live with—you can now play audio over USB-C, Bluetooth 6.0 brings LC3 codec support, and AirTouch lets you pair two Go 5 speakers for stereo simply by bringing them together. JBL’s companion app also gives you more control over the EQ if you want to tweak the sound. None of these upgrades dramatically change the listening experience compared with the Go 4, so owners of the older model do not have much reason to rush out and replace it. At $40, though, the Go 5 is the better buy for someone who wants a compact speaker with more durability, slightly longer battery life, and a few useful extras without moving up to a larger model.

The rumors are true: Google has announced a new device, the Fitbit Edge. It’s a band with a narrow screen, much like the old Charge 6, but updated to match the look and some of the functionality of the Fitbit Air. 

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Before the Fitbit Air, which came out earlier this year, Google hadn’t come out with any new Fitbits since the Charge 6 in 2023. In the meantime, the Pixel Watch has gotten up to its fifth generation, and the Fitbit app became the Google Health app. I was worried the idea of a small-screen fitness tracker might have been lost for good. Fortunately, I was wrong. 

What’s new in the Fitbit Edge

Google says that the new Fitbit has: 

• A physical button on the side, unlike the Charge 6’s haptic nub

• Its own GPS chipset, instead of relying on your phone.

• An altimeter, which the Fitbit Charge 6 did not have (but many fitness watches do)

• A seven-day battery life, or about two days if you enable the always-on display

• The same charger as the Fitbit Air

• A replaceable battery

• Music controls that work with anything your phone is playing

Pre-orders open today, and the Fitbit Edge is expected to start shipping on Oct. 27. The retail price is $179.99, making it $20 more than the Charge 6’s regular price. For comparison, the Fitbit Air is $99.99, and the Pixel Watch 5 starts at $349.99. The Fitbit Edge’s price, size, and functionality put it right in between those two devices, and honestly it’s a well-rounded lineup. 

Google representatives said in a briefing that it will be possible to connect both a Fitbit Air and Fitbit Edge to your phone, so that you can switch between them at will. (Previously, you could pair a Fitbit and a Pixel Watch, but not two Fitbits.) 

Compared to the Charge 6, the Fitbit Edge gains an altimeter and more useful music controls; the Charge 6 could only control music playing on Youtube Music, which required a subscription. However, the Fitbit Edge will not have a tap-to-pay option like the Charge 6 did; it does not have NFC capabilities. Google says GPS tracking is more accurate on the Edge than the Charge 6, which isn’t surprising since that was a major weak point of the Charge 6. I’m looking forward to testing out the Fitbit Edge and reporting back on how well it performs in real-life use.

Amazon currently has the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro Ultimate AI Tracker Bundle for $154.99, down from $227.99, and price trackers show that as its lowest price so far. The main reason to consider a phone gimbal like this is not just smoother footage, but having a setup that can keep you in frame even when there's nobody behind the camera—its three-axis stabilization helps take the shake out of walking shots and handheld clips, while the built-in tripod and selfie stick make it easy to set the phone down for a vlog, workout, livestream, or travel video without carrying separate accessories.

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On the iPhone, Apple DockKit support allows subject tracking across more than 200 compatible apps, while the included AI Tracker brings similar hands-free tracking to Android and iPhone users across supported apps. That tracking is where this bundle earns its higher price over a basic gimbal—it can rotate continuously through 360 degrees, so you can move around without repeatedly walking back to reposition the phone, and its multi-person mode can keep a group framed instead of locking onto one face. The AI Tracker can also follow subjects while zoomed in, with the Flow 2 Pro supporting tracking from 1x to 15x.

Its built-in fill light also helps when the lighting is poor, while its Free Tilt Mode gives you more freedom to move the camera up or down while keeping the shot stable. None of those tools will make your phone camera better by themselves, but they can make it much easier to get usable footage without repeatedly reshooting a clip.

It's not waterproof, so rain, poolside filming, or other wet environments require more care than an action camera would. And some of its smarter tracking features also depend on the phone, app, and shooting mode you're using, so the experience isn't identical across every device. Still, for solo travelers, vloggers, sports parents, or creators who regularly move around while filming themselves, this $155 bundle gives you a lot more control without needing a second person behind the camera.

If you're like most people, you might still be getting used to iOS 27 on your iPhone. Perhaps you haven't even installed it yet, or maybe you're confused about why iOS 27.0.1 exists. (The short answer: The iPhone 18 Pro is a bit glitchy.) But there's a new iPhone update on the horizon that adds even more new features and changes to the mix: iOS 27.2. While this update isn't nearly as big of an overhaul as iOS 27 itself, it's still impactful, especially for Health app users. Here's what's new.

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The update is currently in testing, so if you want to try it out early, you can enroll your iPhone in Apple's beta and check these features out today. Just know that all betas come with some level of risk, so if you decide to go down this path, create a proper backup of all important data before installing the beta.

iOS 27.2's new Health app

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

With iOS 27.2, Apple is totally overhauling the Health app. This is perhaps the biggest change coming with Apple's update, and fitness users will likely welcome many of these new features. With the new Health app, you'll be able to see your Fitness rings within the Health app, rather than the Fitness app; there's a new "Longevity" tab that gives you insights into key aspects of your long-term health, including mental wellbeing, nutrition, daily movement, heart health, metabolic health, sleep, and hearing health. There are also new assessments you can take to analyze your current overall health and where you can improve, including a new "Health Age" feature. You can even allow your iPhone's camera to watch you exercise in order to rate your fitness in categories like flexibility, balance, VO2max, and strength.

This is by far the Health app's biggest revamp in years, and I'm looking forward to exploring the new features when the update drops. For more on what's new with the Health app in iOS 27.2, check out Lifehacker senior health editor Beth Skwarecki's guide here. (Beth is particularly fond of the new step count that appears at the top of both the Health and Fitness apps.)

iOS 27.2 expands "Call Context"

Call Context is an excellent use of Apple Intelligence. When you're on a phone call, Apple Intelligence checks if the phone number you're calling is related to a business that you have relevant information for elsewhere on your device. If so, it fetches that information for you and displays it on the call screen. For example, if you're talking with your airline's customer service line, Call Context can proactively display your flight number based on the itinerary it finds in your email.

With iOS 27.2, Call Context now includes anniversary alerts. If you're on a phone call with someone you have a saved anniversary for, that alert will appear on-screen. That way, you can get a small reminder if you call a friend on their birthday, but you happened to forget the occasion. (Thank you, technology, for saving some of us from our thoughtlessness, even if you are enabling bad habits.)

FaceTime is getting ASL support

As part of a previous announcement of accessibility features, Apple revealed it was adding a new API to FaceTime that supports adding a human interpreter to video calls. This feature did not make it to iOS 27, but it appears to be rolling out in Apple's next update, making video calls more accessible going forward.

Apple TV profiles are coming to iPhone and iPad

If you have an Apple TV, you likely know you can set up profiles, so individual users can personalize the experience when watching shows and movies. As MacRumors highlights, these profiles are now coming to the Apple TV app in iOS and iPadOS 27.2. That way, multiple users can personalize the Apple TV experience on a single device: If your family shares an iPad, for example, each user can switch to their Apple TV profile when it's their turn to watch. Now, if we could only get system-level profiles too, Apple.

Siri AI is coming in more languages

At launch, Siri AI is only available in English. But with iOS 27.2, Apple is expanding that list. Once you update to the latest version, you'll be able to use Siri AI in French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.

iOS 27.2 introduces small UI changes

Apple isn't thrilled with how some of its apps look in iOS 27, apparently. MacRumors also spotted that in the Music app, Apple removed some of the red accents and turned certain buttons from red to black—including the Play and Shuffle buttons, and the icons in the Library sections. In the Clock app, "AM" and "PM" are now smaller than the time when setting alarms. In Podcasts, "Up Next" is now "New Episodes," perhaps adding a touch more clarity. Finally, Apple changed "App Access" in Siri to "Excluded Apps," and now allows you to exclude multiple apps from Siri at once.

Ever since the Fitbit app became the Google Health app, the app’s AI features became impossible to avoid for Premium users—or at least it may seem that way. There are two ways to avoid the long-winded, sometimes judgy insights that pop up on your screen multiple times a day. I'll show you both: a way to turn off the AI entirely, and a way to get those insights to go away without turning off all the AI-enabled features.  

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Why you may want to turn off the Google Health Coach

The AI-based Health Coach is the centerpiece of the Google Health app, at least if you have a premium subscription. You may have accepted a three-month free trial of Google Health Premium when you connected a new device, or you may pay for Google AI Pro or Ultra, which includes the Health Coach. 

When the Coach is enabled, it updates the main screen of the app with a few paragraphs of text several times a day. (You’ll also get a notification with each of these updates). The Coach will tell you how well you slept, congratulate you on a hard workout, or suggest workouts for the day given how recovered you seem to be. 

But, as I wrote in my Fitbit Air review, the Coach hallucinates pretty often, misreporting your workout data or misunderstanding what you’ve told it are your goals. One user, returning to their normal routine after surgery, posted to Reddit that the Coach keeps trying to talk them out of doing workouts. They called it a “Demotivation Coach.” Others have pointed out that the Coach doesn’t seem to be reading its own data correctly. On a more personal note, the Coach uses a tone that I find insufferable: arrogant and excessively positive, except when it’s being unnecessarily negative. I’d prefer neutral, factual feedback or none at all.

To be fair to Google, the team has been hard at work on the Coach, and I've noticed its insights become a little more readable and a little less random since the feature first launched. But I'm still not always in the mood to see the Coach's chipper little pep talks.

How to turn off the Coach "insights" without losing other AI features

Left: the Today screen with no insights. Right: asking the Coach for an insight on-demand still works. Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Those unprompted pep talks are what the Google Health app calls "insights." Google quietly added a setting to turn them off in the August 2026 feature update. Tap on your profile picture, then Google Health Settings, then Coaching, and select No Coach Insights.

Once I turned off the feature, the insights stopped, as promised. But if I miss them, I can still tap Ask Coach in the bottom right corner of the screen, and ask the Coach how my day is going. All other features still work, including the AI-powered ones, like logging nutrition and workouts from the chat interface.

How to turn off the Google Health Coach entirely

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

If you're sick of the entire Google Health Coach, you can disable it: The same August update that gave us the "no insights" switch also made the Health Coach easier to turn off. To reach it, tap on your profile picture, then Google Health Settings, then Coaching. Then you can tap Turn off Google Health Coach. As the next screen explains, "your app will stop providing tailored guidance like fitness plans, recommendations, and proactive summaries of your sleep, fitness, and health trends. You also won't be able to ask questions or log your progress by chatting with the coach. You can turn this back on anytime."

Confirm your decision, and the AI will be gone. When you return to the Google Health app, you’ll still see the paragraphs of text that the Health Coach previously wrote, but you won’t get any new ones. There will be a card inviting you to re-enable the Health Coach, but you can tap “not now.” You can re-enable the Coach at any time by hitting the “Ask Coach” button in the corner (it does not go away) and following the prompts to turn it back on. 

The at-home version of the vaccine was approved in 2024, and became available for the first time in 2025. I used it then, and the process was so painless I did it again this year. I placed an order online, and one day a refrigerated box of vaccines showed up at my doorstep, one for each member of the family. We administered them in minutes, and could check "get flu shot" off our to-do lists.

How to get the at-home flu vaccine

The nasal spray vaccine, called FluMist, still needs to be prescribed by a medical provider. But since nearly everyone aged 2 through 49 is eligible, FluMist’s maker (AstraZeneca) has a created a telehealth website that bundles the provider's approval with an order to an online pharmacy. The process takes about five minutes on average, the company says, and I found that to be accurate.

The first time I ordered, last year, I had already gotten a flu shot, so I ordered just for my kids. The website allowed me to add multiple people to the same order, so I filled out the questionnaire for each child, giving their names, ages, allergies, and so on.

The website then reached into some big data cloud out there and told me it already knew their insurance information (existentially frightening, yet convenient!) and presented me with my bill: an $8.99 fee, which included $2.50 for physician evaluation and $6.49 for shipping and processing. Insurance covers the cost of the vaccine itself.

This year was similar, except that I ordered the vaccine for five people in total, one of whom had a different insurance plan than the rest. It took some extra time to manually enter that person's info, but otherwise the process was the same. The $8.99 fee only covers up to four vaccines, so in total I had to pay $17.98 for all five.

Who can use the at-home flu vaccine? 

The at-home vaccine is the same as regular FluMist, which is approved for ages 2 through 49. That means babies and older adults will still need to visit a provider for the regular, injectable flu vaccine. Children can get flu shots starting at the age of six months.

FluMist uses a live, weakened virus. It can't give you the actual flu, but it can cause some respiratory symptoms in people with weakened immune systems. So it's not recommended for people who are pregnant, have certain medical conditions, or are immunocompromised or have close contact with an immunocompromised person. If that's you, talk to a provider about your best options. You may be advised to get the regular injectable type, which doesn't include any live virus.

What happens when the at-home flu vaccine arrives

When I placed the first order, I had to choose a delivery date (to be sure I'd be home and ready to receive it). This year, there was no option to choose the date, but perhaps that's because I ordered it in mid-September, a few weeks before it actually shipped. Each time the box arrived via FedEx, with multiple texts ahead of time letting me know it was on its way. The vaccine needs to stay at refrigerator temperature, so you don't want it sitting out on your porch all weekend. I thought I would have to refrigerate it immediately—the instructions say as much—but it can actually be unrefrigerated for up to 12 hours before administration.

So the box arrives, insulated and with the vaccine packages surrounded by cold packs. There is a "TiveTag" sticker on the interior box, so when I received my first order I followed the instructions to download the TiveTag app from a QR code on the package. (This year, I had the app installed already.) It installed quickly, and then I just had to hold the top of my phone up to the RFID sticker on the box while my daughter said "now kith." I felt a buzz and a green checkmark appeared, telling me that the box had stayed at an appropriate temperature the whole time. We were good to go.

How to give yourself the at-home flu vaccine

Giving the vaccine to yourself or a child takes seconds, with no special preparation. All you have to do is remove the rubber cap, squirt the vaccine into one nostril, then take off the little spacer around the plunger and squirt into the second nostril. (The spacer makes sure that you get half the vaccine into each nostril.)

I hate having things in my nose, but this wasn't bad even for me. It isn't much liquid, and you don't have to inhale or do anything special. Just squirt and you're done. If you've gotten a FluMist at a pharmacy, it's the same idea.

Adults can administer it to themselves, and children will need an adult to do it for them. Instructions are, of course, provided. After I gave it to my kids, I clicked a link in a text message to "report vaccination," which supposedly updates their health records in, again, some big ol' data cloud. That cloud didn't convey the message to their pediatrician, though, so I just made sure to tell them at the next appointment.

After you administer the vaccine, there is a prepaid envelope you can use to return the sprayers for disposal. The paper packages and inserts obviously could be recycled. That left me with a cardboard box from each shipment, its insulated foam liner, and six liquid cold packs that the FluMist site says are filled with "non-toxic water" and can be either poured out and recycled, or reused as ice packs if I'd like.

This is a problem for all kinds of reasons, and, as such, the AI companies are attempting to address it. Images produced by Gemini and ChatGPT come with an invisible watermark called SynthID. That way, AI-generated images don't need visible branding in order to identify their origins. Of course, you need access to a detector to know whether this watermark is present. As it happens, Google just launched a standalone SynthID checker tool on the web, free for anyone to use. I gave "SynthID Detector" a shot, and while it largely works as expected, it isn't perfect.

How Google's SynthID Detector works

SynthID doesn't promise to always detect AI. Credit: Lifehacker

For a while now, Gemini has let you upload an image and ask if it is AI-generated. With the new online portal, it's even easier to check—though you do still need to sign in with your Google account. Once in, you can check a wide variety of files. This checker supports JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, WEBP, AVIF, HEIC, HEIF, TIFF, TIF, and GIF image formats; MP4, MOV, and WEBM for videos, and WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, and M4A for audio. As long as a file was made by a SynthID-supporting AI, it should have a watermark. (The SynthID watermark is a standard supported by Nvidia, OpenAI, Kakao, and Google, though OpenAI has its own detection tool.)

Google doesn't say exactly how SynthID works, presumably to make it more difficult to get around, but does confirm the watermark is "robust against common transformations." It also says the watermark is "woven into the content itself", which means pixels for images and video, and frequency components for audio. The company also admits its detection tool isn't infallible. What it calls "heavy modifications" can degrade the watermark sign, as can multiple "transformations" applied to the same image. The recommendation is to use files that are as high quality as possible, so it seems to me that more data makes detection more reliable (similar to AI text detectors).

Google also says the SynthID watermarks are "imperceptible" to humans, so you don't need to look or listen out for them—they're only revealed by an AI detector tool like this. If you're generating images, video, or audio with AI, the watermarking shouldn't impact the quality of the end result in any way.

Putting SynthID Detector to the test

I started with some easy tests. The detector correctly spotted that images created in Gemini and ChatGPT, and downloaded directly to disk, were indeed fake. It only took a few seconds to confirm, and it also identified the AI tool that had been used to make them.

It also correctly marked one of my own photos as AI-free, although it did hedge its answer a little, saying that it was "unlikely" that the media was made with AI. All the detector could say with confidence was that there was no SynthID watermark, showing that it's this watermark in particular that it's checking for. It's not looking for any other signs of AI.

In the majority of tests, the detector worked flawlessly. Credit: Lifehacker

I then tried screengrabs of the same AI images, and the detector correctly flagged that they came from Google and Anthropic's AI tools. This shows there's something buried deep in the pixels, rather than in the file metadata itself, revealing the SynthID watermark. You can't just copy and paste to get around it. Applying an oil painting filter in Photoshop to an AI image didn't trip up the detector, nor did adding a slight blur. Adjusting color, contrast, and tone made no difference, and the detector still spotted SynthID when I cropped and combined two different AI images: one from Gemini, one from ChatGPT.

Eventually, I did beat the detector. Once, when I heavily pixelated an AI image—at which point I rather suspect my disinformation campaign would be pretty ineffective anyway—and once when I created a composite image, which was 75% real, 25% AI-generated. With less AI to work with, the detector can falter.

Only the man in the foreground in this photo is AI—but the detector flagged it as fake. Credit: Lifehacker

On the back of that result, I used ChatGPT to add an extra person into an otherwise genuine group photo, though this time the tool detected SynthID—even though less of the overall image was AI. There might be some work to do in images that are only partly AI, which is understandable as the detector has less data to work with.

There is a quota limit here, which seems to be around 10 files per day—but 10 each for images, videos, and audio files. Once you've hit your limit, you need to wait 24 hours to try again. As far as I could tell, the SynthID Detector is exactly what Google says it is: a useful check to have, but far from a guarantee one way or the other.

The Ian Brennan/Ryan Murphy true crime anthology series Monster is back with its first trip into the more distant past, taking us back to 1892 to examine one of the most famous and discussed murderers in American history: Lizzie Borden, a woman said to have killed her father and stepmother with an axe. Borden was never convicted; controversy and conspiracy theories linger; and though it happened more than a century ago, the crime was recent enough that we can pore over police files and crime-scene photos and argue over the facts, which makes for thrilling dramatic television.

After all, while a story about an evil killer is one thing, one following an ambiguous, possibly sympathetic killer? That's the stuff of truly juicy true crime. If you're looking for more in the same violent vein, here are 10 shows to stream next.

Candy (2022)

The real-life Candy Montgomery has been portrayed multiple times—by Barbara Hershey in a 1990 CBS movie, by Jessica Biel in this Hulu miniseries, and, more recently, by Elizabeth Olsen in HBO Max's Love & Death. Like Lizzie Borden, Candy is a woman killer (maybe?) who we can't seem to get enough of. Jessica Biel is so good here, though, that this one earns extra points. In an impeccably reproduced 1980, Candy was accused of murdering her neighbor, Betty Gore (Melanie Lynskey), following the woman's affair with Candy's husband, Allan (Pablo Schreiber). And with an axe, no less. Was it cold-blooded murder, or self-defense? Stream Candy on Hulu.

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The Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015)

This TV movie could be described as speculative—it plays a bit like high-end Lizzie Borden fan fiction (or perhaps a fever dream), with a phenomenal cast led by Christina Ricci. Set after Lizzie Borden's acquittal for crimes that, the movie makes clear, she absolutely did commit, we find Lizzie and Emma (Clea DuVall) trying to get on with their lives, even as a Pinkerton agent (Cole Hauser) dogs their every move. A trip to New York City finds Lizzie in a love triangle involving a playwright and a sex worker, a woman whose pimp tries to extort our young murderer. That turns out to be every bit as bad an idea as you might expect. Stream The Lizzie Borden Chronicles on Prime Video.

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The Staircase (2022)

Inspired by a documentary of the same name, The Staircase sidesteps true crime tropes by taking a meta approach to its twisty story. Colin Firth stars as real-life crime novelist Michael Peterson alongside Toni Collette as his wife and, perhaps, his victim, Kathleen, who dies following a fall down a flight of stairs. Peterson was convicted of murder, a charge later reduced to voluntary manslaughter, but there are a lot of lingering questions about the case, and the drama focuses on many of the tangential players—lawyers, family members, and the French film crew that turns up to document everything—offering a glimpse of what life might be like inside of such a whirlwind. Stream The Staircase on HBO Max.

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The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox (2025)

In 2007, 19-year-old American student Amanda Knox was studying in Perugia, Italy, only to find herself arrested and accused of the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher. The prosecution did a remarkable job at smearing Knox's name in the Italian press, such that she was eventually convicted of the crime despite an almost total lack of evidence, and the fact that the actual killer had already been tried and convicted. Grace Van Patten is great in the lead, and the series does a phenomenal job of dramatizing the various missteps and fabrications that lead to a conviction. A bit of fascinating behind-the-scenes with this one: While the family of Meredith Kercher did not participate, Knox herself executive produced alongside Monica Lewinsky, another person who knows what it is to be tried in the media. Stream The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox on Hulu.

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The Act (2019)

As its subject has become something of a social media influencer and a reality star in the years since, the story of Gypsy-Rose Blanchard has become more complex, not less, since this show's 2019 debut. At the time, though, the series earned rave reviews for its exploration of the childhood of Gypsy-Rose (Joey King), who ultimately conspired in the murder of her mother, Dee Dee (Patricia Arquette), after years of apparent psychological abuse. Stream The Act on Hulu.

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Why Women Kill (2019 – 2021)

Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives) created this dark comedy series with a title that makes the premise entirely clear: it’s the story of women (Ginnifer Goodwin, Lucy Liu, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, and Allison Tolman) with reasons to kill. The first season took place in three time periods (the '60s, the '80s, and the present) with three main characters linked by a single home, each caught in a web of lies and infidelity that pushes them to the brink of murder, or beyond. The stronger second season sticks to 1949 Los Angeles. It’s a gorgeously photographed and deliciously soapy series—not true crime per se, though it does explore the big themes of the Lizzie Borden story: What drives a seemingly contented woman to contemplate murder, and how much can we blame her? Stream Why Women Kill on Paramount+.

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The Girl from Plainville (2022)

Another true crime story that's been dramatized multiple times, The Girl from Plainville doesn't redeem its murderer, but does add nuance to our understanding in the manner of the best true crime dramas. Elle Fanning is Michelle Carter, who undertook an extended campaign to encourage her emotionally fragile boyfriend, Conrad (Colton Ryan), toward a death by suicide, mostly via text messages. Elle Fanning is phenomenal, as is Chloë Sevigny (who, incidentally, played Lizzie Borden back in 2018) as Conrad's grief-stricken mother. Stream The Girl from Plainville on Hulu.

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A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story (2025)

Set in the 1950s, the miniseries dramatizes the story of nightclub performer Ruth Ellis, the last woman to have been executed in the United Kingdom (in the U.S., we're clearly far less chivalrous). Lucy Boynton is phenomenal in the lead role as Ruth, a tough and sometimes callous woman who found herself seeking escape from an abusive relationship with an emotionally manipulative lover. When she shot David Blakely dead, there was really no chance whatsoever that the British press or legal system were going to have any pity on her, despite the best efforts of her attorney, John Bickford (Toby Jones). This series might have impacted her conditional pardon in 2026, a reprieve that came around 70 years too late for Ruth. Stream A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story on Britbox.

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The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (2018)

Another Ryan Murphy true crime epic (for better and worse, given the creator's penchant for the operatic), this one stars Darren Criss as sociopath and serial killer Andrew Cunanan, whose last victim was legendary fashion designer Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez). With an emphasis on the sun-soaked sex and party life of Miami Beach in the 1990s, Murphy here refined his signature style: polish, heightened drama, and a focus on the killer that borders on the sympathetic. Stream The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (Season Two) on Hulu.

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Alias Grace (2017)

The other big Margaret Atwood novel adaptation (existing in the shadow of the buzzier Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments), this miniseries is every bit as biting and well-crafted. It’s based on the true story of a poor Irish immigrant found guilty of a double homicide in 1843 under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and following a life of trauma. Years later, a psychiatrist comes to examine her and explores her past and the circumstances that might (just might) have led a disenfranchised and powerless girl to kill. As with the best explorations of Lizzie Borden, the show understands that knowing whether or not she did it isn't as interesting as understanding what might have gotten her to that point. Stream Alias Grace on Netflix.

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Since iOS 15.4, Apple has allowed you to add a driver’s license or other state ID to your iPhone’s digital wallet. That was a while ago, seeing as we just got iOS 27 (or what would've been iOS 20, had Apple not changed how it names the updates) last month. But that doesn’t mean you’ve been needlessly carrying your ID around since then—some participating states have been slow to roll out support for the feature, and most have yet to sign on at all.

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When I first covered this feature in 2022, only two states actively allowed you to add your ID to your iPhone, while 10 more (plus Puerto Rico) had confirmed plans to offer the option eventually, on a loose timeline of “soon.” Fast forward four years, and just 16 states and one territory now officially allow you to add IDs to Wallet.

These states support digital ID now

Here’s the full list as it stands in October 2026:

• Arizona

• Arkansas

• California

• Colorado

• Georgia

• Hawaii

• Illinois

• Iowa

• Maryland

• Montana

• New Mexico

• North Dakota

• Ohio

• Oklahoma

• Puerto Rico

• Virginia

• West Virginia

In addition, the U.S. supports adding your password to the Wallet app as a digital ID.

Support is still "coming soon" in these states

These states had originally pledged that support was "coming soon," but after four years, still haven't committed:

• Connecticut

• Kentucky

• Mississippi

• Utah

States that will not support digital ID

I am not surprised that some states are delaying support for digital IDs, but up until recently, none had rejected the features outright. That changed this week, as reported by 9to5Mac, as officials from both Florida and Rhode Island independently rejected digital IDs for their states. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida posted his dismissal on X:

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Meanwhile, Walter Craddock, Chair of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) International Board of Directors, said the following on a podcast:

I want to see more universal adoption or need for an MDL [mobile drivers license]. I had one of my senators approach and try to talk me into doing it. I had to give him the old Heisman move and push him back…the main user right now is TSA. Up until recently, there was no airport in New England area that could accept an MDL. So why would I spend the money in the development of it? And also, I’m looking to do a solution that is across all platforms. Instead of just doing one for Apple or the Google Wallets, I don’t want to replicate and duplicate efforts.

In short, don't expect digital IDs to come to either of these states anytime soon—not that the program is expanding all that quickly elsewhere.

Airports where you can use a digital ID in Apple Wallet

Now, be warned: You can't simply hand a cop your iPhone when you get pulled over. There are specific, limited use cases for this feature. Right now, that means identifying yourself at the airport, as well as at select businesses. Apple worked with the TSA to make this happen, and while it used to maintain an active list of supported airports, it seems to have taken it down. This is the list as it was last updated:

• Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI)

• Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport (CVG)

• Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)

• Denver International Airport (DEN)

• Des Moines International Airport (DSM)

• Eastern Iowa Airport (CID)

• Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)

• John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH)

• Los Angeles International (LAX)

• Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU)

• Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)

• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)

• San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

• San Jose Mineta International (SJC)

• Missoula International Airport (MSO)

• Great Falls International Airport (GTF)

• Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN)

• Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)

• Lea County Regional Airport (HOB)

• Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)

This feature will also work with participating businesses to verify your age, including bars, restaurants, liquor stores, festivals, concerts, and certain age-restricted apps. However, there is no list of venues that support this feature.

How to add a digital ID to your iPhone

If you do live in a supported state, setting up the feature is simple. Open Wallet, then tap the (+) in the top right, then choose “Driver’s License and ID Cards.” Choose your state, then choose whether to add the ID to your iPhone 8 or newer, as well as your Apple Watch Series 4 or newer. (There are caveats here: California requires an iPhone XS or later running iOS 17.5 or newer, or an Apple Watch Series 4 running at least watchOS 10. Puerto Rico requires an iPhone XS or later running iOS 18.1 or newer, or an Apple Watch Series 6 or later running watchOS 11 or newer.)

If you're adding a passport to the Wallet app, there are different requirements. Apple says you'll need an iPhone 11 or later with iOS 26.1 or later, or Apple Watch Series 6 or later with watchOS 26.1 or later. Either way, you’ll need to scan your ID with your iPhone’s camera, then scan your face to prove your identity. Once complete, send all information to your state to confirm. If you live in North Dakota, you will need to pay a $5 fee to use this feature.

Credit: Lifehacker

The next time you fly from a participating airport, you can unlock your iPhone and place it next to the ID scanner. You’ll see your digital ID appear, complete with all information you will be sharing with the TSA if you approve (name, date of birth, sex, issuing authority, and issue and expiration dates).

Roku’s first OLED TV is already considerably cheaper than many competing models, and Amazon has now dropped the 65-inch Pro Series OLED to an even lower $799 from $1,199, taking $400 off and bringing it to its lowest price on record, according to price trackers. For that price, you’re getting a 4K OLED panel that delivers deep blacks and excellent contrast, though at around 496 nits, it’s relatively dim, meaning darker scenes can lose detail in rooms with plenty of sunlight or ambient light.

65-inch Roku Pro Series OLED TV

$999.99 at Amazon

$1,199.99 Save $200.00

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$999.99 at Amazon

$1,199.99 Save $200.00

Where the Pro Series OLED makes a stronger case for itself is gaming—its 120Hz refresh rate, VRR support, and AMD FreeSync Premium help keep fast-moving games looking smooth, with this PCMag review measuring an input lag of just 4.8 milliseconds at 1080p/120Hz and 8.8 milliseconds at 4K/60Hz, earning it the publication’s Lab Award for lowest input lag. That translates to very little delay between pressing a button and seeing the action onscreen, which is especially useful in racing games and competitive shooters. You also get four HDMI ports and support for Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG, although Nvidia G-Sync support is absent.

Outside gaming, the TV runs Roku’s own OS, whose straightforward interface puts your streaming apps front and center without burying them beneath endless recommendations—and it supports nearly every major streaming service except Twitch, along with AirPlay for casting from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Beyond streaming, you get Wi-Fi 5 for wireless connectivity and an ATSC 1.0 tuner for watching over-the-air broadcasts, although one convenience that's missing is hands-free voice control, so you'll need to use the remote for voice commands.

Anker’s Nebula P1i Portable Projector is down to $299 from $399 on Amazon, taking $100 off a full HD projector with built-in streaming—it runs Google TV out of the box, so you can jump straight into apps like Netflix without plugging in a streaming stick, while Anker’s Smart Instant Setup automatically handles focus, keystone correction, and screen alignment to get the picture ready with minimal effort.

That convenience extends to the projector’s portability, too, with the Nebula P1i weighing just under five pounds, making it easy to move between rooms or take outdoors—although its lightweight design does mean that an accidental bump can shift the image, so a tripod is worth considering if you want a more stable setup. Connectivity is fairly straightforward, with an HDMI port, USB-A port, and headphone jack for hooking up external devices, but the built-in interface already covers most streaming needs.

Anker Nebula P1i

Portable projector with wifi and Bluetooth

$299.00 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $100.00

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$299.00 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $100.00

As for picture and sound quality, the Nebula P1i delivers a decent viewing experience for its price, but there are a few limitations to keep in mind—it supports 4K input but projects at 1080p, producing fairly natural colors and a reasonably sharp picture, though the edges can appear softer when the projector is positioned at an angle. Brightness is another consideration, as the picture looks best in a dark room or at night, with daylight washing out much of the detail.

On the audio side, the fold-out speakers have enough volume for a small gathering and reproduce dialogue clearly, but they lack the depth to give movies a particularly immersive feel, so you may want to connect a Bluetooth speaker for better sound. There’s also no built-in battery, so it needs to stay plugged in, which takes away some of the flexibility you might expect from a portable projector.

We love us some home power tools at Lifehacker: Check out these roundups of the best cordless power tools at Amazon and Home Depot that were on sale during October Prime Day to see what I mean. I've been perusing tools since the sale started, and I'm definitely buying this DeWalt 20V MAX Cordless Drill and Impact Driver set while it's on sale for $149 (38% off).

Dewalt 20V Max Cordless Drill & Impact Driver Kit

$138.99 at Amazon

$239.00 Save $100.01

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$138.99 at Amazon

$239.00 Save $100.01

I'm tired of my drill with a damn power cord. It made sense when I bought it 15 years ago, but batteries have gotten so much more compact and powerful since then that you're not giving up the light weight of a corded drill just because you're using batteries. Both the drill and impact driver in this DeWalt set are powered by 20Volt Li-ion batteries that weigh around 12 ounces and are about the size of a deck of playing cards. The result is small, maneuverable tools (the drill weighs 3.6 pounds and the impact driver 2.8) that can fix that bookcase without you worrying about where an outlet is.

Some other improvements over my 15-years-ago-drill: an LED worklight, a simple upgrade that makes a huge difference, and one-handed loading of bit tips. The price is pretty sweet too: $149.00, which is 38% off the list price.

As you can see from our various tool round-ups, all kinds of specific tools, from belt sanders to nail guns, were marked down for October Prime Day. But if you missed out on the sale, all is not lost: This DeWalt 192-piece tool set is still 38% off after the end of Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days, so you can still build out your DIY kit for less. (It will also still make a great gift for a family member who still hasn't gotten around to fixing that sofa leg.)

DEWALT Mechanics Tool Set

$156.00 at Amazon

$289.99 Save $133.99

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$156.00 at Amazon

$289.99 Save $133.99

This set includes a variety of ratchets, drive ratchets, socket sets (SAE & metric), combination wrenches, extensions, adapters, hex keys, a metric wrench set, metric socket set, deep socket sets, and accessories. In other words: everything you need to fix nearly everything in your house or in your car. These tools are made by DeWalt, a trusted name in tools, and they're constructed from chrome vanadium steel, so they'll last a long time, won't corrode, and will look professional. They come in a hard-shelled, handled case, so you can take them along with you as needed, and you can store them away when you don't.

October Prime Day has ended, but you can still get some a great deals. And while flashy TVs and gaming laptops usually hog all the glory, don't sleep on tech like power banks and battery chargers: The products listed below will ensure you don't run out of charge halfway through the day or have to wait too long while your gear charges—and they're up to 38% off even though Prime Big Deal Days are over.

This Anker foldable MagSafe power bank is 20% off

You always need a power bank when you're traveling, and this Prime Foldable Power Bank from Anker is designed for the road. It's about the size and weight of an iPhone 17 Pro Max and delivers 25W of power. It's MagSafe, so you don't need to worry about a cord, it features a cooling system so it doesn't get too hot, and it can charge up to three devices at once. (If you trust the Anker brand, here's the best Anker tech still on sale after October Prime Day.)

Anker Prime 25W Qi2.2-Certified Palm-Sized 3-in-1 Foldable MagSafe Charger

$119.99 at Amazon

$149.99 Save $30.00

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$119.99 at Amazon

$149.99 Save $30.00

This EcoFlow Rapid Pro power bank is 38% off

This EF Ecoflow is so powerful, it's nearly illegal: The 27,650mAh (99.54Wh) is pushing the limits of what the TSA will let you carry onto a commercial flight. EcoFlow's Rapid Pro has a 140W USB-C cable built directly into the unit and a 3.9-inch LCD smart display that pairs with an app to show you real-time telemetry on your wattage and battery life.

EF ECOFLOW Rapid Pro Power Bank (27650mAh, 300W, 140W Built-in Cable), 4-Port Portable Charger w/ 140W Output, Up to 320W Recharge, Compatible with iPhone Series, Samsung, Laptop and More

$109.00 at Amazon

$175.99 Save $66.99

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$109.00 at Amazon

$175.99 Save $66.99

This ZZI portable charger power bank is 39% off

This ZZI Power Bank is way cheap—$30, down from $48.99—and can charge five devices at once. It juices an iPhone 15 to 60% in 30 minutes, has a display to track power, and weighs only 15.5 oz, so you can take it along to the zoo or wax museum.

ZZI Portable Charger Power Bank 60000mAh, 22.5W PD Fast-Charge Battery Pack

$31.99 at Amazon

$48.99 Save $17.00

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$31.99 at Amazon

$48.99 Save $17.00

This Podoru MagSafe power bank is just $16.99

This Podoru charger has over 12,000 Amazon reviews and a rating of 4.2 stars. It's less than $20, features a 5000mAh battery, and sticks to the back of your phone with a powerful magnet. Plus, it's slim enough to easily fit in the pocket of your skinniest jeans, and comes in a bunch of different colors.

podoru for MagSafe Power Bank 5000mAh, Ultra-Slim Magnetic Portable Charger

$16.99 at Amazon

$21.99 Save $5.00

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$16.99 at Amazon

$21.99 Save $5.00

Power Bank After Prime Deals FAQ

What is the difference between MagSafe wireless power banks and standard portable chargers?

MagSafe power banks snap directly onto the back of compatible iPhones and compatible magnetic cases for wireless, cable-free charging. They are generally portable but charge slower (usually 7.5W–15W) and generate more heat. Standard chargers require a cable, but charge a greater variety of devices and generally offer faster charging speeds.

What size power banks are allowed on an airplane?

TSA and FAA guidelines restrict power banks to a maximum capacity of 100Wh. All of the power banks here are compliant with FAA and TSA standards.

The JBL Tour One M3 Smart Tx headphones are still on sale for an excellent price: They list for $449, but you can pick them up on Amazon for $179.99 after the October Prime Day sale. That's 60% off for a pair of my personal favorite over-ear headphones. You can read my own testimonial here or read our full review.

JBL Tour One M3 Smart Tx

$179.95 at Amazon

$449.95 Save $270.00

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$179.95 at Amazon

$449.95 Save $270.00

These headphones are designed for travel, so they pack up into a tight space, and the sound quality is excellent. Before I got these, I usually took flights with cheap earbuds. Never again. Even long flights are almost enjoyable when you can cancel the sound of the engine.

They come with a Smart Tx Audio Transmitter, a separate module that acts as a universal audio bridge. It plugs into 3.5mm headphone jacks and other audio sources and improves the sound quality, wirelessly beaming audio from anywhere—airplane in-flight entertainment systems, that jack on the stair machine at the gym, older TVs, PCs, etc.—right to your headphones. It's also a wireless, touchscreen remote control. Very, very slick—especially at 60% off.

October Prime Day 2026 is over, but there are still some great deals on Bluetooth speakers. If you want great sound on a budget, I went through all the under-$50 offerings to pull out the best, focusing on trusted names like Anker and Sony.

Anker's Soundcore Select 4 Go is 31% off

If you need music in the shower or by the pool, the Soundcore Select 4 Go is so waterproof it floats. It plays music for 20 hours on a single charge and supports wireless pairing, so you can hook it up with another compatible speaker for stereo sound. Despite its small size, this speaker delivers strong playback.

soundcore Select 4 Go Bluetooth Shower Speaker by Anker, IP67 Waterproof/Dustproof, Portable Wireless Speaker, 20H Playtime, Floatable, Powerful Sound, Electronics for Outdoor/Home/Office/Travel-Green

$21.99 at Amazon

$34.99 Save $13.00

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$21.99 at Amazon

$34.99 Save $13.00

Sony's SRS-XB100 wireless Bluetooth speaker is 34% off

Sony's SRS-XB100 pushes right against the $50 maximum. It offers Sony's Sound Diffusion Processor for audio that punches above its weight, and 16 hours of playback per charge. You can take it to the beach, too; it's IP67 rated, so it's both dustproof and waterproof.

Sony SRS-XB100 Wireless Bluetooth Portable Lightweight Super-Compact Travel Speaker, Durable IP67 Waterproof & Dustproof Shower Speaker, 16 Hour Battery, Versatile Strap, & Hands-free Calling, Orange

$43.00 at Amazon

$64.99 Save $21.99

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$43.00 at Amazon

$64.99 Save $21.99

RadioShack's Vintage AM FM radio and Bluetooth player is 8% off

The sound quality you'll get from this speaker probably doesn't measure up to brands like JBL and Sony, but their speakers aren't also AM and FM radios, and they don't say "RadioShack" on the front, nor do they have a retractable antenna. This retro-styled speaker looks like a 1970s portable radio, but it's a Bluetooth speaker that can also play audio from USB cards.

RadioShack Vintage AM FM SW Radio 3 Band Bluetooth USB SD Rechargeable White

$34.99 at Amazon

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$34.99 at Amazon

It's hard to believe you can get an HDTV released in 2026 for under $100, but you can. This Roku 32-Inch Select Series Smart TV is still on sale for $99.99—40% off the list price of $179.99—even after the October Prime Day sale has ended. There's no telling how much longer the discount will last, so act quickly if you missed your shot at other Prime Day TV deals.

32" Roku Select Series 1080p LED Smart TV (2026 Model)

$99.99 at Amazon

$179.99 Save $80.00

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$99.99 at Amazon

$179.99 Save $80.00

It's 1080p, so not the highest resolution, but if you need a smaller set for the bedroom or kitchen, it will more than do the job for less than the cost of dinner and a movie for two. Because it's a Roku TV, it's designed around streaming apps, with a simple-to-navigate Home Screen and an uncluttered remote control that includes voice control. It even comes preloaded (yay?) with a ton of free TV options too, if you don't want to subscribe to anything.

October Prime Day is over, but you can still grab this great bargain. The Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+, a well-reviewed tablet at a solid price. Amazon is currently selling it for $229.99, $70 off the list price of $299.99.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+ 128GB 11" 1920x1200 Android Tablet (Gray)

$229.99 at Amazon

$299.99 Save $70.00

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$229.99 at Amazon

$299.99 Save $70.00

The Galaxy Tab A11+ has an 11-inch display with a refresh rate of 90Hz. This model has 6GB of memory and 128GB of storage. While that's not a particularly large SSD, the specs should be enough for most tasks, whether that's browsing, streaming, gaming, or getting some work done. The Galaxy Tab A11+ comes with a 5 MP front camera for video calls, and a big enough battery to last through a long flight. If you do find yourself needing more RAM or storage, the 256GB model with 8GB of memory isn't currently discounted: You can get it for $379.99.

The work you actually sat down to do rarely gets interrupted by something dramatic. It gets interrupted by housekeeping—a quick fix here, a quick lookup there, each one small enough to feel harmless and just long enough to break your focus.

This is true for freelancers, founders, designers, and developers. But it’s also true for work-from-home employees and busy people in general. And it’s not that any of these tasks are difficult (which almost makes them more annoying); it’s that each one takes just enough time and attention to pull you away from whatever you actually sat down to do. Little interruptions may not seem like much, but they add up to a surprising amount of time spent taking care of your Mac instead of letting your Mac take care of you.

MacPaw has spent 18 years building tools that take everyday work off Mac users' hands by noticing the small stuff you've stopped noticing, and quietly handling it for you. For anyone whose Mac doubles as an office, the files, apps, and projects add up—but the upkeep shouldn't have to.

MacPaw

Get more out of your Mac with less effort

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Here’s how MacPaw’s products help you save time and frustration while using your trusty Mac computer.

The cleanup you keep putting off

When storage starts disappearing, you can open folders one by one, sort through old downloads, track down duplicate files, and try to uncover large files that are eating up space and collecting dust. Or, you can make that maintenance somebody else's problem.

CleanMyMac keeps everyday care in one place, so maintenance takes less of your attention. If you work with video or like to keep many applications open at once, freeing up space can help your Mac work as intended. You’ll spend less time staring at the dreaded spinning color wheel and more time getting things done.

CleanMyMac

at MacPaw

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at MacPaw

The small, niche task that might already have a plug-and-play solution

Sometimes you just need an app for one specific task. Maybe you need to compress a video before sending it to a client. The job itself takes two minutes, but first you have to find an app, compare your options, figure out whether you trust it, download it, and possibly even pay for yet another subscription.

Setapp cuts out much of the scavenger hunt by giving you one trusted place to look for the right app, so a two-minute task doesn't start with 15 minutes of searching, comparing, and managing software. It also makes it easy to discover time-savers and cool tricks you didn't even realize were possible on a Mac.

Setapp

at MacPaw

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at MacPaw

The thing you did once before, but can't remember how

Splitting a PDF or trimming the first few seconds from a video isn't complicated, but if you only do it occasionally, you might still end up digging through menus or Googling it all over again. Eney is MacPaw's on-device helper for handling straightforward tasks like these. Instead of relearning the process every time, ask Eney to take care of it on your Mac.

Go on, then—forget the steps. For straightforward tasks like these, Eney can handle them on your Mac.

Eney

at MacPaw

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at MacPaw

Your Mac should ask less of you

There's no shortage of software promising to make you more productive, but finding, installing, learning, and managing all those tools can become another job of its own. The next time a small Mac task pulls you away from what you meant to do, see how MacPaw can help.

And there's more on the way. MacPaw is currently developing its own on-device AI stack for the Mac — an AI runtime called Elix and a memory layer called Mnemos — designed to make its products smarter, keep more of the work and your data on your Mac, and understand what you need before you have to spell it out.

Your Mac should do more for you without giving you more to manage. Explore MacPaw to see how Setapp, CleanMyMac, Eney, and other tools take everyday work off your hands.

What will Apple announce at its "Welcome Home" event?

Apple's product announcement hints are usually pretty subtle. This time, it isn't. "Welcome Home" is almost assuredly referencing Apple's long-rumored smart home devices. Sure, the company makes some smart devices, like the HomePod and HomePod mini, but leaks suggest the company has some big updates up its sleeve.

Perhaps no announcement will be bigger than its smart home hub. This device, according to the rumor mill, will be a mix between an iPad and a HomePod, competing with similar devices from companies like Amazon and Google. It may ship with a six-inch display (some reports suggest the screen is a square), but it won't be like an iPad on a stand. Instead, the experience seems more focused, letting you control smart home devices, make and receive FaceTime calls, watch videos, display the news and water data, and check your calendar. Of course, it will likely work with Siri AI, the company's new AI-powered assistant.

Apple may even expect users to buy more than one of these hubs. The idea could be to have multiple hubs throughout your house, which could let you use them like intercoms. (Apple currently offers a similar feature with its HomePods.) If the rumors are to be believed, the smart hub will understand the voice of whoever is talking to it, and tailor the experience to that user personally. If you have guests over, you could switch to a "visitor mode" to avoid revealing sensitive information.

While the smart home hub may steal the show, Apple is planning some updates to existing devices as well. The HomePod mini may come in new colors, and is expected to get both the N1 chip for improvements to wifi and Bluetooth, as well as an upgraded S-series chip for Siri AI. Apple may also update the Apple TV 4K with the A19 or A19 Pro chip, as well as that new N1 chip, and a new Siri remote. Apple may take this opportunity to reveal its new OLED iPad mini, but the company may keep the focus on smart home specifically.

When is Apple's "Welcome Home" event?

According to Apple's announcement, "Welcome Home" kicks off on Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 9 a.m. ET (6 a.m. PT). That's an early start time, considering the company is based in California, though it seems Apple is hosting the event in New York City this time around. For context, Apple's events usually kick off at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) when the company hosts them in Cupertino. It's not yet clear if there will be a livestream of the event, or if it will be exclusive for invited members of the media.

Amazon's October Prime Day sale is over, but some good deals on smartwatches are still live, from traditional smartwatches like those from Apple, Google, and Samsung, as well as fitness-focused watches from companies like Garmin. Here are the best sales still active right now.

The Apple Watch Series 12 is $50 off

The Series 12 is the newest watch in Apple's lineup, and it's one that I think is definitely worth the upgrade. It's been on the market less than a month, but it's already on sale for $50 off its original price. The GPS-only model starts at $349.99 (normally $399) and the cellular model at $449.99 (normally $499). This is the watch with the new heart rate sensor, which I found to be very accurate, on par with the best Garmins. It also has step counts and recovery HRV, features that will unfortunately not be coming to the Series 11 or earlier.

Apple Watch Series 12 (42mm)

$389.99 at Amazon

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$389.99 at Amazon

The Apple Watch SE 3 is only $199

Apple Watch SE 3 is still at $199 today for GPS-only models; the cellular models seem to no longer be on sale. The SE is the budget version of the Apple Watch, and these watches normally go for $249 and $299, respectively. The current sale price is the lowest I've ever seen it.

Apple Watch SE 3 (40mm)

$199.99 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $49.01

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$199.99 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $49.01

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is $200 off

It's hard to beat an Apple Watch as a combination smartwatch and fitness tracker. You can read more about how they hold their own against Fitbits and Oura rings, or see which are our favorite models for 2026. If you're looking for an Ultra, try the Apple Watch Ultra 3 for $699.97 (down from $899.99).

Apple Watch Ultra 3 [GPS + Cellular 49 mm]

$699.97 at Amazon

$899.00 Save $199.03

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$699.97 at Amazon

$899.00 Save $199.03

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic is $150 off

Samsung's Galaxy Watches tend to be strong in fitness features and are a great companion to a Samsung phone. I'm seeing the 2024 Samsung Galaxy Watch 7, 40 mm, Bluetooth only, for $159.99 (down from $249.99). But what's even better are the deals on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, starting at $219.99 (originally $299.99), and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, LTE, 46 mm, $399.99 (down from $549.99).

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic (46mm, LTE, Black Band)

$399.99 at Amazon

$549.99 Save $150.00

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$399.99 at Amazon

$549.99 Save $150.00

The Pixel Watch 5 is $65 off

Google's Pixel watches are good at fitness tracking and everyday smartwatch use, and I loved the ultra-fast charging when I tested a previous version. If you'd like to pick up the newest edition, the Pixel Watch 5, the wifi-only model starts at $349.99 today, down from $399.99. The cellular model is $429.99, down from $499.99.

Google Pixel Watch 5 (41mm, Wi-Fi, Obsidian)

$399.99 at Amazon

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$399.99 at Amazon

Amazon Prime Day FAQs

Is Amazon Prime Day worth it?

Yes, we’ve done the math, and it’s worth it for most people.

Is Prime Day once a year?

Prime Day happens every summer. Prime Big Deal Days (or October Prime Day) happens every October. Big Spring Sale happens every spring.

Is Prime Day a scam?

No. Prime Day is a legitimate online sale from arguably the biggest and most reputable online retailer in the world.

October Prime Day has officially ended, but some of the deals are still going. Most of the deals I covered yesterday are still live, including on one of the cheapest good smart rings you're likely to find, as well as several on Garmins, and even a Fitbit or two.

The RingConn Gen 2 Air smart ring is $159.20

RingConn makes some of the better subscription-free smart rings out there. I tested the Gen 2 and Gen 3 rings and found them to be decently good at sleep and lifestyle tracking, although not always great at workout tracking. (Add my standard disclaimer that rings are never good workout trackers.) In any case, the Gen 2 Air is on sale right now. This is a pared-down version of the Gen 2 ring, but honestly, you don't lose much—just sleep apnea monitoring and a few days of battery life. That still leaves the Air with a 10-day battery life, so it's a tradeoff that's well worth it if you want an affordable smart ring.

RingConn Gen 2 Air (Size 8, Dune Gold)

$159.20 at Amazon

$199.00 Save $39.80

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$159.20 at Amazon

$199.00 Save $39.80

The Garmin Forerunner 165 is $50 off

If you mainly want a general fitness tracker during the day, but would appreciate a precise and full-featured watch for workouts, something on the lower end of the Forerunner line can do both at a good price. Right now, the Forerunner 165 is $199.99, down from $249.99. This is an entry-level Forerunner from the previous generation (they're up to the 170 now), but I wouldn't call it out of date. Garmins age well, and the 165 is a solid pick that will give you many years of use.

Garmin Forerunner 165

$199.99 at Amazon

$249.99 Save $50.00

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$199.99 at Amazon

$249.99 Save $50.00

The Polar Loop smart band is $30 off

Polar makes a screen-free smart band called the Loop that normally retails for $199.99, but right now it's on sale for $169.99 (and some colors are $161.99). The Polar Loop looks like a slightly more stylish Whoop. In my testing, I enjoyed the physical design, but was underwhelmed by the app (it's pretty barebones). Still, it has no subscription, and may be just the minimalist tracker you're looking for.

Polar Loop

$169.99 at Amazon

$199.99 Save $30.00

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$169.99 at Amazon

$199.99 Save $30.00

The Fitbit Charge 6 is $26 off

Fitbit's Charge 6 normally retails for $159.99, but right now it's on sale for $133.49. Or somewhere around there—I've been seeing the price jump up and down a few dollars throughout the day. You can read my review of the Charge 6 here. I found it a solid tracker if you just want the basics, but didn't love that it limits music playback to YouTube Music and requires your phone to be on hand for payments and maps. Still, it's one of the best options out there for a band that has a screen but isn't shaped like a watch. And if you don't ned GPS, you can save a few bucks and go for the Inspire 3, which is on sale for $74 to $88 depending on color.

Fitbit Charge 6

$139.99 at Amazon

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$139.99 at Amazon

Amazon Prime Day FAQs

Is Amazon Prime Day worth it?

Yes, we’ve done the math, and it’s worth it for most people.

Is Prime Day once a year?

Prime Day happens every summer. Prime Big Deal Days (or October Prime Day) happens every October. Big Spring Sale happens every spring.

Is Prime Day a scam?

No. Prime Day is a legitimate online sale from arguably the biggest and most reputable online retailer in the world.

The heart rate sensors on smartwatches are usually good enough for casual training (and some of them are really good), but to get the best possible accuracy, you want a separate heart rate monitor—ideally a chest strap. Fortunately, these wearables are still on sale even after the end of October Prime Day. Heart rate monitors from Polar, Coospo, and more were available at discounts, and two of my favorite models are still discounted.

The Polar H10 chest strap is $20 off

All electrical chest straps are good, but the consensus in the fitness world is that if you want the best, you get the Polar H10. It’s the chest strap that Apple used in its own heart-rate accuracy testing; it’s also the one I recall being put on me when I did a VO2max test in a lab. It retails for $104.95 but goes on sale from time to time, and now is one of those times: You can pick up a Polar H10 for $84.74.

Polar H10 Heart Rate Monitor

$93.90 at Amazon

$104.95 Save $11.05

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$93.90 at Amazon

$104.95 Save $11.05

My favorite budget brand, Coospo, is 29% off

I love when a budget option works as well as the top-of-the-line model, and that’s why I swear by my Coospo heart rate monitor. Full disclosure, the H6 model I used for over four years finally gave up its ghost, so I’ve moved on to a newer model, the H808S. Both are on sale: the H6 for $23.99, down from $29.99, and the H808S is $26.26, down from $36.99. 

COOSPO Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor Chest Strap H808S, ANT+ BLE HR Monitor Chest, HRM IP67 Waterproof, Use for Running Cycling Gym and Other Sports

$26.26 at Amazon

$36.99 Save $10.73

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$26.26 at Amazon

$36.99 Save $10.73

How to use a heart rate monitor

Heart rate monitors connect to your watch or to gym equipment wirelessly, usually with Bluetooth and sometimes with an older protocol called ANT+. (Many heart rate monitors can do both.) 

You’ll need to set up the heart rate monitor to either broadcast your heart rate or to pair to another device. (Usually you broadcast to gym equipment, but pair to a watch or phone.) The specifics vary by brand, but it’s usually pretty straightforward. If you have a fitness watch like a Garmin, an Apple Watch, or a Samsung Galaxy Watch, pairing a chest strap is a simple job. Pixel Watches, unfortunately, can’t pair a heart rate sensor. 

But even without a watch, you can use a sensor with your phone. I like the Polar Beat app as a simple heart rate tracker, but there are plenty of other options. The Apple Fitness app can use third-party heart rate sensors, and so can Strava.

Garmin watches are my favorite training partner. The brand has long been one of the biggest names in the world of rugged sports watches and fitness trackers, and the Forerunner line especially is a go-to pick for accurate and reliable GPS tracking for runners.

So, looking at the date on my Garmin Forerunner 970, I can see that Amazon's October Prime Day sale is officially over. But if you missed your chance to upgrade your running watch, you're in luck: Two of the most popular Garmin Forerunners are still on sale, even after Prime Day has technically ended.

These Garmin Forerunners are still a great deal right now

The Garmin Forerunner 55 is $161.99, down from $199.99. This is the most basic Garmin running watch you can buy new. Don't be deterred by the word "basic." As my colleague Beth Skwarecki reports, it was good enough for Sabastian Sawe to wear to break the sub-2-hour marathon barrier earlier this year.

Garmin Forerunner 55 GPS Running Watch

$149.99 at Amazon

$199.99 Save $50.00

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$149.99 at Amazon

$199.99 Save $50.00

The Garmin Forerunner 165 is $199.99, down from $249.99. This is my favorite entry-level running watch. The music version is also on sale; as always, it runs $50 more than the standard.

Garmin Forerunner 165

$199.99 at Amazon

$249.99 Save $50.00

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Get Deal

$199.99 at Amazon

$249.99 Save $50.00

While it's not a dramatic, the Garmin Forerunner 265 is 5% off, bringing the original price of $449.99 down to $429. Although it isn't the latest and greatest anymore, this is still a fan favorite among Garmin users. It's a step above entry-level options, with dual-band GPS, power meter compatibility, and advanced analytics (like training status).

For more, I'll be keeping my eye on these other deals on Garmin watches that are still live after October Prime Day.

Amazon's October Prime Day sale has come and gone, but there are still some solid Garmin deals—for now, at least. Garmin is the biggest name in the sports watch world for good reason: They deliver advanced metrics and reliable GPS tracking, usually with a multi-week battery life. There was a time when I ran full marathons totally watch-free, but now I keep my Garmin Forerunner 970 on my wrist at all times. If you want to join the club, or need an upgrade, these are the best Garmin deals from this year's October Prime Day sale that are still live.

Garmin Forerunner 55 GPS Running Watch

$149.99 at Amazon

$199.99 Save $50.00

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Get Deal

$149.99 at Amazon

$199.99 Save $50.00

Garmin Forerunner 165

$199.99 at Amazon

$249.99 Save $50.00

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Get Deal

$199.99 at Amazon

$249.99 Save $50.00

Garmin Vivoactive 5 GPS Smartwatch With AMOLED Display (Black)

$210.78 at Amazon

$299.99 Save $89.21

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$210.78 at Amazon

$299.99 Save $89.21

Garmin Instinct 2X Solar Tactical Edition Rugged GPS Smartwatch

$319.99 at Walmart

$499.99 Save $180.00

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$319.99 at Walmart

$499.99 Save $180.00

Garmin Epix Pro Gen 2 Sapphire Edition 47mm Smartwatch

$529.99 at Amazon

$999.99 Save $470.00

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$529.99 at Amazon

$999.99 Save $470.00

Garmin tactix® 8, Premium Tactical GPS Smartwatch, 47mm (Renewed)

$919.99 at Amazon

$1,026.38 Save $106.39

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$919.99 at Amazon

$1,026.38 Save $106.39

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These Garmin Forerunners are a great deal right now

The Garmin Forerunner 55 is $158, down from $199.99. This is the most basic Garmin running watch you can buy new. Don't be deterred by the word "basic." As my colleague Beth Skwarecki reports, it was good enough for Sabastian Sawe to wear to break the sub-2-hour marathon barrier earlier this year.

The Garmin Forerunner 165 is $196, down from $249.99. This is my favorite entry-level running watch. The music version is also on sale; as always, it runs $50 more than the standard.

The Garmin Vivoactive 5 is $100 off its original price

Garmin's Vivoactive line is probably its most underrated, according to my colleague Beth Skwarecki: "It's solidly good at running and fitness tracking, and convenient for everyday use with a touchscreen for most functions (but still uses physical buttons to start, stop, and lap workouts)." The Vivoactive 5 was originally $299.99 and dropped to $229.99 back when the Vivoactive 6 came out. Right now, it's just $198.

This Garmin Instinct Solar 2X is $180 off

The Garmin Instinct 2X Solar Tactical Watch is one of the brand’s best solar-charged options, and right now it's available for $319.99, down from $499.99. Compared to its predecessor, the Garmin Instinct Solar 2X produces up to 50% more energy from the sun thanks to the Power Glass lens, which is particularly helpful in GPS mode, which can drain the battery quickly. It’s also 0.8 mm thinner and has a built-in LED flashlight, a compass, and an altimeter.

If you're looking for an even more premium tactical watch, a renewed Garmin Tactix 8 is on sale for $919.99, down from $1,030.25. This model is full of dedicated tactical features, like a jumpmaster activity, landmark projection, dual-position GPS format, stealth mode, kill switch, night vision goggle compatibility, rucking activity, and a preloaded applied ballistics solver.

The second-generation Garmin Epix Pro is nearly half off

The Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) Sapphire Edition is marked down 47%, bringing its usual $999.99 price down to $529.99. The reason for such a major discount is that Garmin has since merged the Epix and Fenix product lines, and this model was replaced with the Fenix 8 series, which has since been replaced with the Fenix 9 series. Still, the Epix Pro holds up. It's got you covered for tracking your sleep and blood oxygen levels, measuring your VO2 Max, tracking 30 activities, offering a multi-sport mode, plus extras that most running-specific watches don't have, like golfing features, tides, and fish forecasts.

October Prime Day FAQs

When is Prime Day in October?

October Prime Day is a two-day event that starts Oct. 6 and ends on Oct. 7.

Is Garmin a reliable brand?

Yes, Garmin is one of the best brands when it comes to rugged sports watches and fitness trackers. The Forerunner line especially is a go-to pick for accurate and reliable GPS tracking for runners.

Do Garmin's Prime Day discounts apply to all their product lines, or just select items?

Unfortunately, not all Garmin products are on sale. However, there are many Garmin products on sale, and you can find them all on the Amazon landing page.

What else goes on sale on Prime Day?

Since Prime Big Deal Days happens in the fall, you're likely to see more deals on gaming and indoor gym equipment. Amazon has already announced some of the 35 categories that will be on sale, including beauty, tech, kitchen, fashion, and home. Some brands Amazon has already mentioned are: Shark, Princess Polly, Soundcore by Anker, UGG, Nest New York, Sony, Tarte, Adidas, and Barefoot Dreams.

Amazon's October Prime Day is officially over, but I haven't stopped keeping my eye on all the best deals on home gym equipment that are still active right now. When it comes to building out a home gym, your best strategy for home gym shopping when you don't have a ton of room to work with is to focus on versatility and efficient use of space. That's why I'm keeping a close eye on adjustable dumbbells in particular.

Adjustable dumbbells are a favorite category of mine because they let you go from five-pound to 50-pound weights (or more!) without needing multiple shelves of equipment. Where individual pairs of dumbbells from five to 80 pounds in five-pound increments would cost well over $1,500 (and take up your entire home gym), adjustable dumbbells condense an entire weight rack into a compact, versatile system. Here are the best deals on adjustable dumbbells that you can still snag, at least for the next few hours.

BowFlex Results Series SelectTech 552 5-52.5lb Adjustable Dumbbells (Pair)

$328.99 at Amazon

$399.99 Save $71.00

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$328.99 at Amazon

$399.99 Save $71.00

NordicTrack 55 lb Select-a-Weight Dumbbell Pair

$304.99 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $94.01

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$304.99 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $94.01

FEIERDUN Adjustable Dumbbells, 90lbs Free Weight Set with Connector

$161.49 at Amazon

$219.99 Save $58.50

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$161.49 at Amazon

$219.99 Save $58.50

UNNMIIY Adjustable Dumbbell set,20/30/45/70/90lbs Free Weight(90LBS)

$159.99 at Amazon

$259.99 Save $100.00

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$159.99 at Amazon

$259.99 Save $100.00

Bowflex SelectTech 840 Adjustable Kettlebell (8-40lbs)

$127.49 at Amazon

$149.99 Save $22.50

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$127.49 at Amazon

$149.99 Save $22.50

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My favorite deal right now is this set of Bowflex Results Series 552 dumbbells, $328.98 for a pair, normally $399.99. If you couldn’t guess from the name, they can adjust from five to 52 pounds. The curved design is stylish, but more importantly, it's a seriously space-saving—which is the whole point of going adjustable over a traditional rack of individual weights.

Here are some more adjustable dumbbells that are still active, even after Amazon's October Prime Day sale has officially ended:

• NordicTrack Select-a-Weight Adjustable Dumbbells are $319, normally $399. Each dumbbell in this set can adjust up to 55 pounds, with 2.5, five, and 10-pound increments available.

• Feierdun Adjustable Dumbbells are $169.99 for the 90-pound set, down from $219.99. I'm especially drawn to how this system can configure the weights as fixed barbells, kettlebells, traditional dumbbells, or individual weight plates. Incorporating kettlebell swings and goblet squats without purchasing separate equipment? That's a steal.

• These UNNMIIY adjustable dumbbells are also $169.99 for the 90-pound set, normally $259.99. These can adjust from two to 45 pounds per dumbbell, and they have a five-in-one design so you can use them as dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, and even push-up stands.

• This BowFlex SelectTech 840 Adjustable Kettlebell is $127.49, normally $149.99. With the turn of a dial, you can easily adjust from 8 to 40 pounds.

The bottom line: If you're looking to build strength at home, but you're worried about space constraints, adjustable dumbbells are the way to go.

Amazon's October Prime Day event may officially be over, but I'm still keeping an eye on all the best discounts for major brands like Peloton, PowerBlocks, Therabody, and more. Below are my favorite fitness deals that are still active even after Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days sale has ended.

The best October Prime Day deals on cardio equipment

• The NordicTrack T Series is a foldable treadmill, normally $799, currently on sale for $616. For cardio, your options get trickier in an apartment setting or a home without a ton of extra space, but foldable equipment like this is a nice solution.

• This Sunny Health treadmill is $699.99, normally $899.99. This treadmill comes fully assembled, goes up to 10 mph and a 15% incline, and folds up for storage.

• This YOSUDA PRO magnetic exercise bike is $289.99, normally $329.99. With magnetic resistance, you can count on the bike to be quiet enough for a home gym setup.

• This Chaoke walking pad is on sale for $149.99, down from $229.99. Designed to fit under your desk and be easy to store, this walking pad still gets up to a decent 9% incline at speeds up to 6.2 miles per hour.

NordicTrack T Series Treadmill

$744.90 at Amazon

$799.00 Save $54.10

Get Deal

Get Deal

$744.90 at Amazon

$799.00 Save $54.10

The best October Prime Day deals on adjustable weights

• Bowflex Results Series 552 dumbbells are $328.99 for a pair, normally $429.99. These can adjust from 5 to 52 pounds.

• These UNNMIIY adjustable dumbbells are $169.99 for the 90-pound set, normally $259.99. These can adjust from 2 to 45 pounds per dumbbell, and they have a 5-in-1 design so you can use them as dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, and even push-up stands.

• These FEIERDUN adjustable dumbbells are $269.99 for the 110-pound set, normally $349.99. These have my favorite type of adjustment mechanism: a one-hand rotating dial.

• This BowFlex SelectTech 840 Adjustable Kettlebell is $127.49, normally $149.99. With the turn of a dial, you can easily adjust from 8 to 40 pounds.

• This cast-iron adjustable kettlebell is $47.99, normally $59.99. This kettlebell starts with a 15-pound weighted handle with four non-weighted removable spacer disks, a five-pound bottom plate, and a center pin to support additional weight plates up to 50 pounds.

UNNMIIY Adjustable Dumbbell set,20/30/45/70/90lbs Free Weight(90LBS)

$159.99 at Amazon

$259.99 Save $100.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$159.99 at Amazon

$259.99 Save $100.00

The best October Prime Day deals on home gym staples and accessories

• These resistance bands are $37.97, normally $49.95. A solid pair of resistance bands like these is the perfect addition to home gyms, travel workouts, or hotel rooms.

• This 12-pound weighted vest from Zelus is $27.89, normally $49.99. Other weights are available for various prices, most discounted.

• This 3-in-1 Plyo Jumping Exercise Box is $59.97, normally $69.99. Two sizes are available: 24 x 16 x 20 inches and 30 x 20 x 24 inches.

• The Therabody Prime 6th Gen Deep Tissue Massage Gun is $199.99, normally $329.99. As a marathon runner, it's no hyperbole to say that massage guns utterly transformed my post-workout routine, and TheraBody is a brand name I swear by.

TheraGun Therabody Prime 6th Gen Deep Tissue Massage Gun | Navy

$329.99 at Amazon

Get Deal

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$329.99 at Amazon

October Prime Day FAQ

When is Prime Day in October?

Amazon Prime Day is an annual event held in June or July. Amazon's October Prime Day event, known as Prime Big Deal Days, is a two-day sale that starts Oct. 6 and ends on Oct. 7.

What goes on sale during October Prime Day?

Since Prime Big Deal Days happens in the fall, you're likely to see more deals on gaming and indoor gym equipment. Amazon has already announced some of the 35 categories that will be on sale, including beauty, tech, kitchen, fashion, and home. Some brands Amazon has already mentioned are: Shark, Princess Polly, Soundcore by Anker, UGG, Nest New York, Sony, Tarte, Adidas, and Barefoot Dreams.

Is Prime Day once a year?

Prime Day happens every summer. Prime Big Deal Days (or October Prime Day) happens every October. Amazon's Big Spring Sale happens every spring.

Is Amazon Prime Day worth it?

Yes, we’ve done the math, and it’s worth it for most people.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra

$1,699.99 at Amazon

$2,099.99 Save $400.00

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$1,699.99 at Amazon

$2,099.99 Save $400.00

When closed, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra has a 6.5-inch 1080p display, perfectly usable as a typical smartphone experience. But once opened, you get an eight-inch 120Hz display with a much higher resolution of 2256 by 2504, effectively turning the Z Fold 8 Ultra into a small tablet. It comes with the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip as the Galaxy S26 line, which means performance is on par with Samsung's flagship smartphone lineup. You also get some of the benefits of the S26 Ultra's cameras: The Z Fold 8 Ultra has a 200MP wide lens, a 10MP telephoto lens, and a 50MP ultrawide lens. And since this is a foldable phone, you also get two selfie cameras: One 10MP ultrawide on the inside, and one 10MP side on the outer display.

Amazon's deal on the Z Fold 8 Ultra is great, but it's still expensive. You save $415, but you still need to put down $1,684.99. Alternatively, you could take advantage of Amazon's deal on the Galaxy Z Fold 8. This device is 18% off, down to $1,549.99 from $1,899.99. This is Samsung's "passport-shaped" foldable, with a smaller 5.5-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch 120Hz inner display. It, too, runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, though you miss out a bit on cameras: The Galaxy Z Fold 8 doesn't have a 200MP shooter, but has a 50MP wide and a 50MP ultrawide. It also comes with 10MP selfie cameras on the inner and outer displays.

If you're looking for the most affordable foldable Galaxy phone, you could consider the Galaxy Z Flip 8. As the name implies, the phone flips, not folds, meaning it has a much smaller footprint than Samsung's other devices. With it, you get a 4.1-inch cover display, which opens up to a 6.9-inch 120Hz 1080p inner display. It also runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, but it has the least powerful camera options yet: a 50MP wide lens and a 12MP ultrawide. There's only one 10MP selfie camera on this device. However, the Flip 8 is also Samsung's most affordable. Right now, Amazon has it 19% off, down to $974.99 from $1,199.99.

Samsung makes a lot of devices, but if you want the best of its "traditional" smartphones, your only option is the Galaxy S series, including the current Galaxy S26 series. While these devices can get quite pricey—particularly the S26 Ultra—Amazon has discounted all of the smartphones in the line for the final hours of October Prime Day. You can save up to 32% right now, and the most expensive options have the biggest savings.

Samsung Galaxy S26 (512GB)

$899.99

$1,199.99 Save $300.00

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$899.99

$1,199.99 Save $300.00

Galaxy S26+ (512GB)

$979.99 at Amazon

$1,399.99 Save $420.00

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$979.99 at Amazon

$1,399.99 Save $420.00

Galaxy S26 Ultra (512GB)

$1,089.99 at Amazon

$1,599.99 Save $510.00

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$1,089.99 at Amazon

$1,599.99 Save $510.00

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE

$699.99 at Walmart

$800.00 Save $100.01

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$699.99 at Walmart

$800.00 Save $100.01

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The cheapest of the bunch is the Galaxy S26 FE. This is the "budget" model of the Galaxy S26 line, but still a great phone in its own right. It comes with a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with three rear cameras: a 50MP wide, 12MP ultrawide, and an 8MP telephoto. (You also get a 12MP selfie camera.) It has a 4900mAh battery, runs the Exynos 2500 chip, and 8GB of RAM with either 128GB or 256GB of storage.

Samsung's standard S26 is probably the best balance for most people. It offers a smaller 6.3-inch AMOLED display with three rear cameras: 50MP, a 12MP ultrawide, and a 10MP telephoto lens, with a 12MP selfie camera. Crucially, with the S26 you get the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, which offers better performance than the Exynos 2500. The smaller footprint gets a 4300mAh battery, with 12GB of RAM. While this model does come in 256GB, only the 512GB model is discounted, which is the case for the other phones here. For the S26's features with the FE's larger display, go with the Galaxy S26+. This option comes with a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, with a higher resolution than either of the previous devices. The rest of the features are the same, however, minus the 4900mAh battery.

But for the best Samsung has to offer, choose the Galaxy S26 Ultra. This option comes with Samsung's biggest and best display, a 6.9-inch AMOLED with the same solution as the Galaxy S26+. It has Samsung's best cameras, too: a 200MP wide lens, a 10MP telephoto lens, a 50MP periscope lens, and a 50MP ultrawide. It has a 5000mAh battery and either 12GB or 16GB of RAM—if you opt for the 1TB model.

While the "mini" isn't as affordable as it used to be—the memory crisis has certainly taken its toll—it's now cheaper than ever, even after October Prime Day has ended. If you've been thinking about picking up a Mac mini, now's the time to buy.

Mac mini (M6)

$779.99 at Amazon

$899.00 Save $119.01

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$779.99 at Amazon

$899.00 Save $119.01

Apple's latest Mac mini runs the company's newest M6 chip, with a 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. This processor is so new, in fact, that the company hasn't ported it over to its laptops yet. That means the M6 Mac mini will largely outperform Apple's M5 laptops, like the M5 MacBook Air and M5 MacBook Pro, at a much lower price. Why the discount? Because Apple isn't providing you with a keyboard, trackpad, or display. This is a standalone computer, and it is priced accordingly. It's a great value if you already have those peripherals on hand, but your investment does increase if you need to buy one, two, or three of those items.

Most users will likely connect one or two displays to this Mac mini, but it actually supports up to three. While it doesn't have a webcam, it does come with a built-in speaker, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. For ports, you have three Thunderbolt 4, two USB-C, HDMI, and 2.5Gb Ethernet—though you can upgrade to a model with a 10Gb Ethernet port. All that typically costs you $899. But as we close out October Prime Day, you can spend just $779.99 on this machine, saving around $120. While it's still more expensive than Apple's former Mac mini MSRP, it's the best price yet for the M6, and a great value for what you get.

If you think you'll need something a bit more capable, the upgraded Mac mini models are also on sale right now. The M6 Mac mini with a 512GB SSD currently costs $949.99, down from $1,099 (a $150 savings), while the M6 Pro Mac mini costs $1,149.99, down from $1,299. In short, if you're going to buy a Mac mini today, make sure you buy it from Amazon.

Last month, Apple released two new smartwatches: the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Apple Watch Ultra 4. These wearables offer brand-new features like a heart rate monitor that takes your pulse every five seconds; "Audio Intelligence," which can display a transcript of the last 15 seconds of an in-person conversation; and Apple's new S11 chip, its fastest wearable processor yet.

Despite all these perks, neither the Series 12 nor the Ultra 4 is the best Apple Watch for most people. That title goes to the Apple Watch SE 3, which is currently as cheap as $219, even after October Prime Day.

Apple Watch SE 3 (40mm)

$199.99 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $49.01

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$199.99 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $49.01

The Apple Watch SE 3 doesn't have Apple's latest and greatest features, nor does it have its biggest and best display. It doesn't have to: The SE 3 comes with all the features and options most people expect from an Apple Watch. It is available in two sizes, 44mm or 40mm, both with Always-On OLED displays and brightness up to 1,000 nits. The SE 3 has a heart rate monitor and can track both workouts and your sleep. It supports the Vitals app, which can report on heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, and sleep duration. It can track menstruation cycles and predict both period windows and ovulation estimates.

While it doesn't support Audio Intelligence, it does support Apple Intelligence—including the company's new Siri AI assistant. If the AI-powered Siri is important to you, you'll be able to use it with the SE 3 and your AI-capable iPhone. This watch also supports Emergency SOS, as well as fall and crash detection. That means your watch can call emergency services on your behalf if you become unresponsive after a fall or a collision. If you take the SE 3 swimming, you can dive as deep as 50m before you should worry about water resistance.

This watch doesn't have Apple's newest S11 chip, but it does come with last year's S10 chip, which should be plenty powerful for running watchOS for the foreseeable future. It gets up to 18 hours of screen-on time, and up to 32 hours when in Low Power Mode. You can fast charge the watch up to 80% in 45 minutes with the right charger, or get eight hours of use in as little as 15 minutes of charging.

Really, some of the bigger misses here won't matter to most people. The SE 3 doesn't have an ECG monitor, nor can it detect your blood oxygen levels or send you hypertension alerts. Its screen isn't as bright as the one on the Series 12 (2,000 nits) or Ultra 4 (3,000 nits), nor does it have Emergency SOS via satellite. It doesn't support Precision Finding for iPhone, nor does it have as long a battery life as Apple's other watches (24 hours on the Series 12, and 50 hours on the Ultra 4). But for everything save battery life, most users likely aren't going to be swayed, especially when you consider the price difference. Speaking of which, the SE 3 starts at $219 right now for the 40mm option—a bit higher than its October Prime Day low of $199. If you want the 44m option, you'll spend an extra $30, or $249.

AirPods Pro are Apple's "premium" earbuds, but that definition isn't as clear-cut as it used to be. Active Noise Cancellation used to be a "Pro" feature, but now, Apple's standard AirPods come with it, too. So why spend $249 on the Pros when you can get AirPods with ANC for about half that? Tough question, but even though October Prime Day is done, Amazon is still making it a bit easier to answer, as right now, you can take $70 off the AirPods Pro 3, bringing the price down to $179. That's $10 more than the all-time low of $169 they hit back in June.

AirPods Pro 3

$199.00 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $50.00

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$199.00 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $50.00

The new AirPods 5 may come with Active Noise Cancellation, but it's not quite as good as that on the AirPods Pro 3. According to Apple, the Pros can cancel sound up to three times more effectively than AirPods 5, which makes them the better choice for noisy environments like airplanes. Part of that may be due to the seal created by the Pros' silicone ear tips. While some prefer the one-size-fits-all approach of the AirPods 5, AirPods Pro 3 come with different-sized tips, so you can choose the size that fits your ears best.

Another "Pro" feature is the built-in heart rate sensor. If you don't have a fitness tracker, or just want to leave it at home, you can use your AirPods to keep tabs on your heart rate during workouts. While you shouldn't go swimming with them, the Pros are IP57 rated against dust and water, so working out in the rain shouldn't be a problem.

The Pros are also the only AirPods in Apple's lineup that are FDA-certified hearing aids. As part of that feature, you can take a hearing test with the AirPods Pro to learn more about your personal hearing health. In addition, the Pros come with hearing protection features, which can help block out loud sounds that might otherwise damage your hearing. AirPods Pro 3 also come with Adaptive Audio, which automatically blends Transparency and Active Noise Cancellation based on how loud or quiet your environment is. There's also Conversation Awareness, which automatically lowers the volume of your audio when you start speaking. A few seconds after you stop speaking, your AirPods will bring your audio back up again.

I love my AirPods Max, but I have a hard time recommending them. They sound great, pair seamlessly with my other Apple devices, and offer excellent Active Noise Cancellation, so they're my go-to for long flights and travel days. And yet, I can't in good conscience advise most people to buy them, because of the price. $549 is way too much for any pair of headphones, even if they are my favorite pair I've ever used.

I have good news, however. Even though October Prime Day is over, Amazon is still discounting the latest model of the priciest AirPods. The AirPods Max 2 are now $429, down 22%, or $120, from the $549 list price. According to Keepa, that's the best price since August. While the headphones are still wildly expensive, it's much easier to recommend them at this price point than at their normal MSRP—at least while this deal is still live.

Apple AirPods Max 2 Active Noise Cancellation Wireless Headphones (Midnight)

$429.00 at Amazon

$549.00 Save $120.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$429.00 at Amazon

$549.00 Save $120.00

The AirPods Max 2 aren't expensive for nothing. They come jam-packed with features that make them Apple's best over-the-ear headphones yet. Apple says these AirPods support up to 1.5 times more Active Noise Cancellation than the original AirPods Max, though the benefits also extend to Transparency mode. These are Apple's first AirPods Max to come with Adaptive Audio, which automatically adjusts the loudness of sounds coming in through Transparency mode, as well as Conversation Awareness, which lowers audio when your AirPods detect that you're speaking. (The audio levels rise once the headphones note you've stopped speaking for a length of time.)

While these headphones sound great when used wirelessly, they're worth using with a USB-C cable, too. With it, you can listen to lossless music through a service like Apple Music, which offers more detail than lossy music over a Bluetooth. Apple says you can expect 20 hours of battery life on one charge when using Active Noise Cancellation, and although the company doesn't specify, you can presumably extend that usage with ANC or Transparency mode turned off. You can also get 90 minutes of playback on just five minutes of charging.

Like all AirPods, these headphones work best when you already have other Apple products. That's personally my favorite thing about AirPods in general: You can use your AirPods Max with your iPhone, then play a video on your Mac, and your AirPods will automatically switch to the new audio source. They're also easy to pair with an Apple TV, which makes for a great way to watch movies and shows without bothering others around you.

There's a reason the MacBook Pro is so expensive. Apple saves its most premium features for this product line—mini-LED displays, built-in fans, HDMI and SD ports, and, depending on the model, the most powerful chips. None of these comes cheap, and, after recent RAM-related price hikes, the MacBook Pro now starts at a steep $1,999. That's not the case following October Prime Day, however: Right now, you can take a decent chunk off many MacBook Pro models, and even more if you opt for one of Apple's M5 Pro or M5 Pro Max devices.

You can save $160 on the M5 MacBook Pro

Let's start with the standard M5 MacBook Pro. This uses a similar M5 chip to the one found in the MacBook Air, though the Pro does come with 10 GPU cores (that costs extra on the Air). Other than that, these are the same processors, running the same 16GB of RAM—though the M5 MacBook Pro comes with 1TB of storage standard. You also get most of the hardware perks of the other MacBook Pro devices, without venturing into $2,499 and up territory, including three USB-C ports, the HDMI and SD card ports, a 14.2-inch mini-LED display, and a 12MP FaceTime camera. Typically, that'd cost you $1,999. But on Amazon, you can pick this machine up today for $1,869.

M5 MacBook Pro (14-inch)

$1,599.00 at Best Buy

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,599.00 at Best Buy

Save $155 on the 14-inch M5 Pro MacBook Pro

This is a great price for this MacBook, but it's not the only savings you'll find on MacBook Pros this October Prime Day. If you upgrade to the M5 Pro MacBook Pro, you can save $155 off its retail price, bringing the machine down to $2,345 from $2,499. With this laptop, you get all the perks of the M5 MacBook Pro, but with the M5 Pro chip, which is much more powerful. This chip comes with a 15-core CPU and 16-core GPU, along with 24GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It also supports Wi-Fi 7, while the M5 MacBook Pro only supports Wi-Fi 6E.

M5 Pro MacBook Pro

$2,339.00 at Amazon

$2,499.00 Save $160.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$2,339.00 at Amazon

$2,499.00 Save $160.00

Amazon also has the M5 Pro MacBook Pro with an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU $150 off. But the biggest discounts are on Apple's most expensive 14-inch MacBook Pros. If you're in the market for a souped-up M5 Pro model, or one of Apple's M5 Max configurations, Amazon has huge discounts:

• 14-inch M5 Pro with 48GB of RAM and 1TB SSD: $3,299.99 at Amazon (was $3,599)

• 14-inch M5 Max with 36GB of RAM and 2TB SSD: $3,899 at Amazon (was $4,399)

• 14-inch M5 Max with 48GB of RAM and 2TB SSD: $4,499 at Amazon (was $4,999)

Save $150 on the 16-inch M5 Pro MacBook Pro

Similarly, Amazon has big discounts on the 16-inch version of these MacBook Pros. The best option for most people in this category is going to be the base model 16-inch, which comes with the M5 Pro with an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU, as well as 24GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch (2024, M4 Pro)

$2,499.00 at Amazon

$2,999.00 Save $500.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$2,499.00 at Amazon

$2,999.00 Save $500.00

But as with the 14-inch MacBook Pros, the biggest deals are on the most expensive 16-inch Pros. Here's how much you can save:

• 16-inch M5 Pro with 48GB of RAM and 1TB SSD: $3,299.99 at Amazon (was $3,599)

• 16-inch M5 Max with 36GB of RAM and 2TB SSD: $3,899 at Amazon (was $4,399)

• 16-inch M5 Max with 48GB of RAM and 2TB SSD: $4,499 at Amazon (was $4,999)

October Prime Day FAQ

When is Prime Day in October?

Amazon Prime Day is an annual event held in June or July. Amazon's October Prime Day event, known as Prime Big Deal Days, is a two-day sale that starts Oct. 6 and ends on Oct. 7.

What goes on sale during October Prime Day?

Since Prime Big Deal Days happens in the fall, you're likely to see more deals on gaming and indoor gym equipment. Amazon has already announced some of the 35 categories that will be on sale, including beauty, tech, kitchen, fashion, and home. Some brands Amazon has already mentioned are: Shark, Princess Polly, Soundcore by Anker, UGG, Nest New York, Sony, Tarte, Adidas, and Barefoot Dreams.

Is Prime Day once a year?

Prime Day happens every summer. Prime Big Deal Days (or October Prime Day) happens every October. Amazon's Big Spring Sale happens every spring.

If you bought one of Apple's M5 MacBook Airs at launch, it would have cost you $1,099 for the base model. Then, the memory crisis took its toll, and all of a sudden, that same machine shot up in price by $200 without any new features or changes. The MacBook Air, which for years has started at $999 and jumped to $1,099 with the M5 (while also giving you more storage, at least), now starts at $1,299. If you want more storage, or to upgrade to the 15-inch model, it'll only cost you more.

These prices only push customers towards Apple's less expensive MacBook Neo. That's not necessarily a bad thing: the Neo comes with most of the features that people are looking for in an Apple laptop, at about half the cost of the MacBook Air. But these are not identical machines. Users choosing the Neo over the Air lose out on a bigger, higher-quality display; a processor made for macOS; a backlit keyboard; and MagSafe charging, just to name a few perks. These are all excellent features, but it's tough to justify the additional $600. But what if you could save $200? That makes those perks a bit more worth the upgrade.

M5 MacBook Air (13-inch)

$1,099.00 at Amazon

$1,299.00 Save $200.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,099.00 at Amazon

$1,299.00 Save $200.00

Even though October Prime Day is over, Amazon has an excellent deal on the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air, taking $200 off Apple's new and beefier MSRP, bringing the cost down to...well, the M5's launch price. If you've been kicking yourself for not buying one of these machines between March and June, now's your chance to turn back the clock.

This MacBook Air comes with a 13.6-inch display (Apple calls it the "13-inch" for marketing purposes), with a resolution of 2560 by 1664 and a maximum brightness of 500 nits. You get the M5 chip, which, according to Geekbench, outperforms the MacBook Neo's A18 Pro by nearly 22% in single-core tasks and 134% in multi-core tasks. That extra $400 isn't just going towards an "Apple tax," as you'll notice real-world performance increases for your money. You'll also get a 12MP Center Stage camera for video conferencing and FaceTime calls, Touch ID built into the keyboard, and support for MagSafe charging—though you can also charge using either of the two USB 4 ports.

Importantly, this model comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. That should be plenty for most users, but Amazon is also hosting discounts on both the 1TB model ($1,399 instead of $1,599), as well as the 1TB model with 24GB of RAM ($1,599 instead of $1,799). But again, most people will make do just fine with the base configuration. And for $1,099, it's a fantastic deal.

There's good news and bad news when it comes to laptop deals you'll find after October Prime Day sale. The good news: You'll find no shortage of discounts on these devices right now. The bad news? Most of those deals aren't worth your time. While you might see some massive price cuts on laptops, either the brand isn't reputable, or the machine is actually pretty old. Sure, it may technically be 40% off the original price, but that doesn't mean much when the original retail price is from five years ago.

As such, I've been searching for deals that are actually worth your money; even on sale, a laptop is a big purchase, so I don't want you to buy something that will fail you shortly after it arrives. Here's what I'm still seeing even after October Prime Day is over, including discounts on MacBooks and deals on Windows laptops.

M5 MacBook Air (13-inch)

If you're in the market for a new MacBook Air, you can save quite a bit by buying through Amazon. Let's start with the 13-inch model. Right now, Amazon is taking $200 off all its storage and RAM variants, but for most people, the base 16GB RAM/512GB SSD will be plenty. That means a laptop that retails for $1,299 now only costs $1,099. If you've been thinking about picking up a new MacBook, I personally think this is the way to go.

Apple MacBook Air M5 13.6" Laptop (16GB/512GB, Midnight)

$1,099.00 at Amazon

$1,299.00 Save $200.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,099.00 at Amazon

$1,299.00 Save $200.00

M5 MacBook Air (15-inch)

While Apple wants you to spend $1,499 on the 15-inch M5 MacBook Air, Amazon will take $200 off that price. That's also true if you opt for the model with 24GB RAM, but the 15-inch MacBook Air's base model will be plenty of computer for most people. With it, you get Apple's M5 chip, a 15.3-inch display, 512GB of storage, and 16GB of RAM.

M5 MacBook Air (15-inch)

$1,299.00 at Amazon

$1,499.00 Save $200.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,299.00 at Amazon

$1,499.00 Save $200.00

M5 MacBook Pro

If you're looking for a more "premium" MacBook without spending upwards of than $2,000, the M5 MacBook Pro might be the move. It uses the same M5 chip as the MacBook Air, but comes with the hardware perks of the Pro line, including a 14.2-inch mini-LED display, built-in fans, an HDMI port, and an SD card reader. It offers the best of both MacBook worlds, but at a better price than the Pros: Right now, Amazon will sell you one with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage for $1,839, $160 off the retail price of $1,999.

M5 MacBook Pro (14-inch)

$1,599.00 at Best Buy

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,599.00 at Best Buy

M5 Pro MacBook Pro

If you need more power, you'll find great deals on Apple's Pro MacBooks as well. The cheapest option right now is the M5 Pro with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, which Amazon currently sells for $2,299, but you'll find other M5 Pro models have been discounted. That includes the upgraded M5 Pro with an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU, which Amazon is selling for $2,699, or $500 off its retail price. If you're looking for a larger display, the 16-inch model is currently $2,749, or $250 off, while the upgraded model with 48GB of RAM, an 18-core CPU, and a 20-core GPU is $300 off at $3,299.

M5 Pro MacBook Pro (14-inch)

$2,299.99 at Amazon

$2,499.00 Save $199.01

Get Deal

Get Deal

$2,299.99 at Amazon

$2,499.00 Save $199.01

M5 Max MacBook Pro

If you want the best Apple has to offer, there's M5 Max. These laptops are anything but cheap, even with their October Prime Day discounts, but if you're already looking at these models, any deal will be appreciated. This 14-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro, with 36GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, is 15% off at $3,499, down $600. That's the best deal in this category. Looking at the larger models, this 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro is $3,899, down $500, for 36GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. If you upgrade to the 48GB RAM model, which adds two extra GPU cores to the mix, you'll spend $4,499, also $500 off the list price.

M5 Max MacBook Pro (14-inch)

$3,499.99 at Amazon

$4,099.00 Save $599.01

Get Deal

Get Deal

$3,499.99 at Amazon

$4,099.00 Save $599.01

Microsoft Surface Laptop

If you've been eyeing one of Microsoft's Surface laptops, now might be the time to buy. During the last hours of October Prime Day, Amazon is selling this configuration for $1,399.99, 18% off its list price. This Surface laptop comes with a 13.8-inch LCD touchscreen, Snapdragon X2 Elite processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. You also get two USB-C (USB 4) ports, as well as a battery life that Microsoft claims lasts 20 hours on a single charge.

Microsoft Surface Laptop

$1,574.00 at Amazon

$1,699.99 Save $125.99

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,574.00 at Amazon

$1,699.99 Save $125.99

HP OmniBook Ultra 14

CNET's favorite overall Windows laptop, the HP OmniBook Ultra 14, is currently $500 off—at least, if you buy it through HP. You'll need to apply the discount code "PREMIUM500" at checkout, but it brings the price down from $1,819.99 to $1,319.99. That said, you can choose one of the more powerful configurations and still take $500 off, but this cheapest option comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H chip, 16GB of RAM, a 512BGB SSD, and a 14-inch 3K OLED display.

HP OmniBook Ultra 14

$1,319.99 at HP

$1,819.99 Save $500.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,319.99 at HP

$1,819.99 Save $500.00

Gigabyte Gaming A18

This gaming laptop from Gigabyte is a great pickup. In fact, it's PCMag's choice for the best midrange gaming laptop of 2026. The outlet praises the performance you get for the money, especially with an 18-inch display at 165Hz. It even ekes out some solid battery life, though you typically get the most out of a gaming laptop when it's plugged into power. While this Gigabyte laptop retails for $2,099.99, Amazon currently has it for 13% off that price, or a $263.01 discount.

Gigabyte Gaming A18

$1,836.99 at Amazon

$2,099.99 Save $263.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,836.99 at Amazon

$2,099.99 Save $263.00

October Prime Day FAQ

When is Prime Day in October?

Amazon Prime Day is an annual event held in June or July. Amazon's October Prime Day event, known as Prime Big Deal Days, is a two-day sale that starts Oct. 6 and ends on Oct. 7.

What goes on sale during October Prime Day?

Since Prime Big Deal Days happens in the fall, you're likely to see more deals on gaming and indoor gym equipment. Amazon has already announced some of the 35 categories that will be on sale, including beauty, tech, kitchen, fashion, and home. Some brands Amazon has already mentioned are: Shark, Princess Polly, Soundcore by Anker, UGG, Nest New York, Sony, Tarte, Adidas, and Barefoot Dreams.

Is Prime Day once a year?

Prime Day happens every summer. Prime Big Deal Days (or October Prime Day) happens every October. Amazon's Big Spring Sale happens every spring.

Apple products are infamously expensive, but that doesn't mean those prices never come down. While Apple doesn't typically offer discounts of its own, retailers frequently cut prices MacBooks, AirPods, and iPads, and such is the case with Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days sale. Even though October Prime Day is officially over, these are the best Apple deals you can still take advantage of.

M5 MacBook Air (13-inch)

The MacBook Air has long been the best choice for most people. While many would likely benefit from the simpler, budget MacBook Neo, there are plenty of perks for those who upgrade to the M5 MacBook Air: a bigger, better display; the M5 chip, which is much more powerful than the Neo's A18 Pro chip; Touch ID by default; and MagSafe charging, to name a few. Right now, Amazon has the 13-inch MacBook Air at $1,099, $200 below its newly inflated list price of $1,299.

M5 MacBook Air (13-inch)

$1,099.00 at Amazon

$1,299.00 Save $200.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,099.00 at Amazon

$1,299.00 Save $200.00

M5 MacBook Air (15-inch)

Apple's 15-inch MacBook Air is a good option for users who want more screen real estate without having to pay "Pro" prices. Following recent price hikes, Apple's 512GB model retails for $1,499, but ahead of October Prime Day, you can save $200 on the laptop when buying through Amazon. According to Keepa, this is the 15-inch MacBook Air's best price in at least the last three months. With this MacBook Air, you get a 15.3-inch display, Apple's M5 chip with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, 512GB of storage, 16GB of RAM, and up to 18 hours of battery life (according to Apple).

M5 MacBook Air (15-inch)

$1,299.00 at Amazon

$1,499.00 Save $200.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,299.00 at Amazon

$1,499.00 Save $200.00

M5 Pro MacBook Pro (14-inch)

Apple's "Pro" MacBook Pro line used to start at $1,999. No longer: Apple's MSRP for the M5 Pro MacBook Pro is now $2,499. Expensive, but for many, worth it, since you get a powerful Mac chip with Apple's most feature-filled MacBook design. If you've been eyeing this model, good news: Amazon is currently taking $160 off. For $2,339, you can get a 14.2-inch MacBook Pro with a mini-LED display, the M5 Pro chip with 15-core CPU and 16-core GPU, 24GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. If you're looking for even more power, Amazon has a number of M5 Pro configurations discounted, including the 18-core CPU/20-core GPU model with a 2TB SSD ($2,699, down from $3,199).

M5 Pro MacBook Pro (14-inch)

$2,339.00 at Amazon

$2,499.00 Save $160.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$2,339.00 at Amazon

$2,499.00 Save $160.00

M5 Max MacBook Pro (14-inch)

While the M5 chip in the MacBook Air is more than enough to handle most computing tasks, Apple's M5 Max is on a whole other level. For users who do intense graphics work or AI processing, there are few chips better than the one found in this 14-inch MacBook Pro. Of course, all that power comes at a cost: Apple's MSRP for this particular configuration is $4,099. But right now, Amazon has it discounted by $600. For $3,499, you get a 14.2-inch mini-LED display, the M5 Max chip with an 18-core CPU and 32-core GPU, 36GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD.

M5 Max MacBook Pro (14-inch)

$3,499.99 at Amazon

$4,099.00 Save $599.01

Get Deal

Get Deal

$3,499.99 at Amazon

$4,099.00 Save $599.01

Mac mini

Apple's Mac mini is a favorite among AI agent fans, as well as users who want the best possible value in a powerful Mac. You'll need to provide your own keyboard, mouse, and monitor, but Apple's latest Mac mini is currently 13% off during the last hours of Prime Day, $779.99 instead of $899. It comes with Apple's latest M6 chip, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. You'll find a 14% discount if you upgrade to the 512GB SSD, and an 11% discount on the M6 Pro model with 24GB of RAM.

Mac mini (M6)

$779.99 at Amazon

$899.00 Save $119.01

Get Deal

Get Deal

$779.99 at Amazon

$899.00 Save $119.01

AirPods Max (USB-C)

As much as I love my AirPods Max, I have a hard time recommending them because of the price—$549 is expensive for wireless headphones, and it's tough to ignore other excellent options that cost hundreds of dollars less than Apple's. However, they become easier to recommend when they're on sale. Right now, you can pick up Apple's AirPods Max 2 for $429—still expensive, but a bit more reasonable. These are Apple's latest AirPods Max, with "new" features like Live Translation and Adaptive Audio.

AirPods Max 2

$429.00 at Amazon

$549.00 Save $120.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$429.00 at Amazon

$549.00 Save $120.00

AirPods Pro 3

Apple's third-generation AirPods Pro are excellent, but they're also pricey. For $249, you get Apple's best earbuds, with Active Noise Cancellation, Adaptive Transparency, a built-in heart rate monitor, and interchangeable tips to fit the buds to your ears. While these earbuds are arguably worth their MSRP, they're especially worth it on sale: Right now, you can take $70 off the price of the AirPods Pro 3, as Amazon is currently selling them for $179. Apple also offers cheaper AirPods with similar features, so unless you need the Pros' exclusive perks, you can save even more with the new, full-featured AirPods 5 ($149 for the version with the wireless charging case).

AirPods Pro 3

$199.00 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $50.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$199.00 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $50.00

AirPods 4

If you're looking for a pair of AirPods at the lowest possible price, look at this deal from Best Buy. The retailer has the Apple AirPods 4 for just $79, down from their original list price of $129.99. These are one generation old at this point, and this model doesn't have Active Noise Cancellation, but for the price, this deal is an excellent way to get the AirPods experience.

Apple AirPods 4

$99.00 at Walmart

$200.29 Save $101.29

Get Deal

Get Deal

$99.00 at Walmart

$200.29 Save $101.29

iPad (A16)

Apple's basic iPad—sometimes called iPad (A16)—is the best iPad for most people. Most of us only need an 11-inch tablet with a chip capable of running iPadOS, with 12MP cameras on the front and back of the tablet. While there are iPads with bigger displays, including some with OLEDs, as well as more powerful chips and better cameras, this iPad will generally be more than enough. Right now, Amazon has the 128GB model discounted by 11%, bringing the price from $449 to $399. If you think you might need more storage, Amazon has smaller discounts on the 256GB and 512GB options, as well as on the 128GB and 256GB cellular models.

iPad (A16)

$399.00 at Amazon

$449.00 Save $50.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$399.00 at Amazon

$449.00 Save $50.00

iPad mini (A17 Pro)

Apple's latest iPad mini doesn't have the 17% discount it did during October Prime Day, but you can still save 5% right now. This iPad mini comes with Apple's A17 Pro chip, an 8.3-inch display, 128GB of storage, and 12MP cameras on the front and back of the tablet. 128GB isn't much, though it can go a long way if you mostly keep your files in the cloud. If you think you need more storage, Amazon is taking 5% off the 256GB model.

iPad mini (A17 Pro)

$550.05 at Amazon

$599.00 Save $48.95

Get Deal

Get Deal

$550.05 at Amazon

$599.00 Save $48.95

M5 iPad Pro (11-inch)

Apple's 11-inch iPad Pro is powered by the same M5 chip as the MacBook Air—though it still runs iPadOS. Despite missing perks you get with a laptop, like a built-in keyboard, trackpad, and macOS support, this iPad Pro isn't too far off from the MacBook Air's price tag. Typically, this unit retails for $1,199, but Amazon has it listed at $100 off. Not the biggest discount, but you could apply those savings towards an Apple Pencil Pro—currently 23% off—or take a chunk off of Apple's Magic Keyboard. This model comes with an 11-inch OLED display, the M5 chip, and two 12MP cameras—one on the front and one on the back.

M5 iPad Pro (11-inch)

$1,099.99 at Amazon

$1,199.00 Save $99.01

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,099.99 at Amazon

$1,199.00 Save $99.01

Apple Watch SE 3

The Apple Watch SE 3 is the best Apple Watch for most people. Despite the existence of bigger and "better" Apple Watches, the SE 3 does everything most people want their Apple Watches to do. It tracks your workouts, lets you send and receive texts, keeps tabs on your sleep habits, and checks your heart rate. It may be missing perks like an ECG reader, the latest S11 chip, and Apple's new persistent heart rate monitor, but most of us don't need these extra features. What's more, the SE 3 is currently 20% off on Amazon. You can pick up a new SE 3 for as little as $219 for the 40mm model, or $249 for the 44mm option. You can also save on the 44mm cellular option, which is currently $299.

Apple Watch SE 3

$219.00 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $30.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$219.00 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $30.00

Apple Watch Series 12

The new Series 12 already has a discount, but unfortunately not for the 42mm option. If you're eyeing the larger model, however, you can spend $399 for the 46mm instead of $449—though it does seem the sales are only for some colors. The Series 12 comes with Apple's latest S12 chip, as well as the new heart rate sensor that takes a reading once every five seconds, or 20 times a minute.

Apple Watch Series 12

Buy One Apple Watch, and Get a Second Apple Watch $300 off at T-Mobile

Get Deal

Get Deal

Buy One Apple Watch, and Get a Second Apple Watch $300 off at T-Mobile

AirTags

Apple's AirTags are excellent trackers for anyone in the Apple ecosystem. Once set up, you can place AirTags on or in any of your possessions (bags, bikes, keys, etc.) and track those items through Find My. While AirTags cannot connect to the internet themselves, they communicate with other Find My-enabled devices out and about. Those devices then securely and privately update your AirTags' locations. Right now, Amazon is taking $10 off a pack of four, or $5 off an individual AirTag.

AirTag (Four-pack)

$89.00 at Amazon

$99.00 Save $10.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$89.00 at Amazon

$99.00 Save $10.00

Magic Mouse

People often make fun of Apple's Magic Mouse for its odd charging port location (since it's on the bottom, you can't use the mouse while it's charging) as well as its less-than-ergonomic design. But despite this, it's often the best mouse choice for Mac users, if for no other reason than its easy pairing and compatibility with macOS gestures. If you're looking for a new mouse for your Mac—or even your iPad—you can save 24% on the Magic Mouse at Amazon, bringing the price to $59.99 from $79.

Apple Magic Mouse

$59.99 at Amazon

$79.00 Save $19.01

Get Deal

Get Deal

$59.99 at Amazon

$79.00 Save $19.01

Amazon's October Prime Day sale has wrapped up, but the Sonos Arc Ultra is still selling for $899, down from its usual $1,099. PCMag named it the best soundbar of 2024 and gave it an “outstanding” review. $899 is still a lot to spend on a single soundbar, and anyone shopping on a tighter budget will find more affordable picks in our Fire TV soundbar roundup.

Sonos Arc Ultra

$899.00 at Amazon

$1,099.00 Save $200.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$899.00 at Amazon

$1,099.00 Save $200.00

For those who can make room in their budget, the next thing to plan around is space, since the Arc Ultra measures a little over 46 inches across and weighs about 13 pounds, making it a natural match for a larger TV. Despite all that width, it keeps a low profile at just under three inches tall, so it can sit beneath most screens without blocking the picture, or you can wall-mount it if you would rather keep your TV stand clear. All that size makes room for a 9.1.4-channel layout (a big step up from the original Arc) that gives Dolby Atmos effects more space to spread around and above you. Sonos also added a new Sound Motion driver that it says doubles the original Arc's bass, giving action scenes real weight without a separate subwoofer, though you can still add a Sub 4 later for more rumble.

At the other end of the sound spectrum, voices and dialogue come through clearly even at low volumes, and a Speech Enhancement mode lifts them further. Trueplay tuning then adjusts the sound to your room, with a quick version on Android and iOS and a more detailed one for iPhone owners. The biggest drawback is connectivity, since the Arc Ultra has a single HDMI eARC port with no passthrough, which can leave you short on inputs for a console or streaming box, and no optical port. It also lacks DTS:X support, a letdown for some Blu-ray collectors, and voice control is limited to Alexa or Sonos' own assistant, though Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and AirPlay 2 make streaming music from your phone easy.

Amazon’s October Prime Day event may be over, but the Bose SoundLink Max is still available for $279, down from its usual $399, keeping it at the lowest price we’ve seen so far, according to price trackers. Unlike many speakers in this price range, the SoundLink Max keeps things fairly simple, leaving out wifi, smart assistants, and speakerphone support. That lets Bose focus on what most people buy a portable Bluetooth speaker for in the first place: loud, well-balanced sound, long battery life, and a design that can handle being taken almost anywhere.

Bose SoundLink Max

$279.00 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $120.00

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That practical approach carries over to the design—it has a steel frame that is wrapped in silicone for added durability (though the textured exterior tends to collect dust more easily than smoother finishes), and the woven carry handle makes it easy to grab before heading to the backyard, the beach, or a campsite. I also like that Bose uses physical buttons here instead of fussy touch controls. Inside, three front-facing drivers and dual passive radiators deliver a wide stereo sound with clear vocals and crisp instruments. According to this PCMag review, the mids and highs remain detailed even at higher volumes, though the deepest bass notes lose some impact when the speaker is pushed to its limits. Bose rates the battery life at up to 20 hours, and the IP67 rating means it can survive dust, rain, accidental splashes, and even a brief drop into water.

The companion Bose app adds a little extra flexibility without becoming a requirement. You can adjust bass, mids, and treble, switch between connected devices, and customize the shortcut button to launch Spotify or jump to the auxiliary input. Just don't expect dramatic changes from the equalizer; it is better suited for small tweaks than completely reshaping the speaker’s sound. Bose also does not include a shoulder strap in the box, which feels like an odd omission for a speaker this large. Even so, if you're looking for a rugged Bluetooth speaker that prioritizes sound quality over smart-home features, the SoundLink Max remains one of the stronger options in its class, especially at its current price.

I've read 25 books in the past year, all of them on an e-reader with a screen roughly the size of a credit card. If you think that sounds untenable, I say: Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. Once you're immersed in a book, you'll find it really doesn't matter, and the convenience of being able to slip it into any pocket and forget it's there means you need never be without it. If you're the kind of person who prefers a soothing e-ink screen to the harsh distractions of a smartphone, this is golden.

Right now, the best tiny e-reader I've tried so far, the Xteink X4 Pro, is on its best sale yet in the wake of October Prime Day (aka Prime Big Deal Days). This limited-time deal takes 15% off the usual $99 price, bringing it down to $84.15. This is the cheapest e-reader with a light and a touchscreen that you can buy right now, and it's well worth the money.

Xteink X4 Pro Pocket E-Reader

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The X4 Pro is the newest and best e-reader from Xteink, the Chinese tech startup that turned the e-reading world upside down last year with the launch of the original X4 pocket e-reader. While the X4 Pro is the same size as the basic X4, it adds two big upgrades—a temperature-adjustable front light and a touchscreen—plus a faster processor and more memory. As a result, it costs a bit more, but you can pick one at a $15 discount right now. (Even at full retail, the X4 Pro is $50 cheaper than the entry-level Kindle after its recent price increase).

Now, as much as I love them, these minuscule e-readers aren't for everyone. Some may indeed find the screen too small (though if you've ever read a book on a phone, the experience is similar). Then there's the fact that they can't load your existing libraries of Kindle books; you'll need to source copies of e-books lacking Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. But if you can jump those hurdles, you might just discover it's the weirdest, most lovable piece of tech you've used in years.

As Amazon’s October Prime Day winds down, you can still find the Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar on sale for $844.99 (originally $1,099), its lowest price yet, according to price trackers. It replaces the Smart Ultra Soundbar in Bose’s lineup and sits at the center of the company’s newer Lifestyle Ultra family, with matching speaker and a subwoofer available if you eventually want to build out a larger system. On its own, though, this is a substantial soundbar at 43.3 inches wide and 14.3 pounds, though its 2.6-inch height keeps the profile relatively low.

Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar

$844.99 at Amazon

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Inside are nine drivers arranged in a 5.0.2 configuration, including a center tweeter for dialogue and two upward-firing drivers for Dolby Atmos height effects, and the result is crisp, detailed audio with a convincing sense of space. That said, while the bass is solid, it doesn't quite keep pace with the rest of the sound, with this PCMag review recommending adding a subwoofer. Until then, Bose's app gives you plenty to work with, including a three-band EQ for nudging up the low end and separate level controls for the center, height, and surround channels, so you can bring voices forward or dial in the Atmos effect for your room.

Connectivity covers one HDMI eARC port, Ethernet, a subwoofer output, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 5.3, but there's no passthrough for a second HDMI device and no 3.5mm aux input. It also skips DTS entirely and can't pair with Bose headphones for private listening. Anyone already invested in Bose speakers or planning to build out a full system around it will get the most from this discount, while those wanting deeper bass without buying a subwoofer may be better served by the Sonos Arc Ultra, which is also on sale for $899, though it comes with the same single-HDMI, no-DTS limitations.

People are often unprepared for the amount of work a house requires. It doesn’t matter if it’s a new build or a creaking classic; unless they’ve got the cash to just hire out for every little project, new homeowners are going to need tools. That makes a basic tool set the perfect housewarming gift, and this one from Black+Decker is my go-to when a friend buys their first home. It has everything a DIY newbie needs, and at this price you can buy a couple to have on hand for future gifting needs.

Black+Decker 20V Max Drill & Home Tool Kit

$94.99 at Amazon

$119.00 Save $24.01

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The Black+Decker 20V MAX 68-Piece Kit has everything the new DIYer needs

A basic tool kit like this is a great idea for folks who don’t have a lot of experience doing small repairs and DIY jobs around the house because it has all the basics (including a durable bag to carry it all around in):

• A basic 12oz hammer

• An adjustable wrench

• Needle-nose and slip-joint pliers

• A ratcheting screwdriver with a full set of bits

• One Phillips and one flathead screwdriver

• A utility knife

• A tape measure

Those are the basic hand tools anyone looking to do small jobs around the house needs. They’re basic, but decent quality, so they’ll last a long time. They can also be upgraded one piece at a time as people gain knowledge and skills.

This kit is special because it includes a power drill

What really sets this kit apart from others is that it’s one of the only decent-quality beginner tool sets that includes a power drill (as well as a battery and charger). Sure, Black+Decker is happy to hook newbies into their battery ecosystem, but a power drill is a game-changer when it comes to DIY stuff around the house. The kit includes all the basic drilling, spade, and hole saw bits you might need for basic work (as well as the screwdriver bits listed above), and includes a magnetic bit holder to prevent bit loss.

If you or your gift recipient develop your DIY skills, you’ll definitely wind up replacing most of this kit with better, more capable tools. But for a complete newcomer who has just completed the stress and complexity of buying their first property, this kit gets them set up to tackle basic maintenance right off the bat—and at 20% off, it's a great value.

Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days, the October edition of Prime Day, runs Oct. 6 and 7, and Bluetooth speaker discounts from Soundcore, Ultimate Ears, JBL, and Marshall are live. Prices range from $19.99 for the Select 4 Go to $249 for the Marshall Stanmore III, with plenty of options in between, whether you want something small enough to throw in a backpack or a larger speaker with enough volume for a backyard gathering. For more discounts and the latest offers, check out our extensive Prime Day 2026 coverage.

Save up to nearly $90 on these Anker Soundcore speakers

Soundcore Select 4 Go

$19.99 at Amazon

$34.99 Save $15.00

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Soundcore 2

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Soundcore Boom Go 3i

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Soundcore Boom 2

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Soundcore Boom 2 Plus

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The Soundcore Select 4 Go is $19.99, down from $34.99, and its IP67 rating, floating design, and carrying strap make it easy to take to the beach or clip to a backpack—while the Soundcore 2 is $28.48, down from $44.99, and is better suited to a desk or kitchen, with 12W of output and up to 24 hours of playback.

For outdoor use, the Soundcore Boom Go 3i is $55.99, down from $79.99, and pairs an IP68 rating with 24 hours of playback and a battery that can charge a phone. The Soundcore Boom 2 is $84.99, down from $129.99, and steps up to a built-in subwoofer, up to 80W of output, and a floating body for a backyard or pool, which this in-depth review by PCMag breaks down further.

The Soundcore Motion X600 is $139.99, down from $199.99, and uses five drivers, including one that fires upward, to create spatial audio for listening at home. This PCMag review looks at it more closely. The Soundcore Boom 2 Plus is $161.47, down from $249.99, the largest discount in this group, and its 140W output, 20-hour battery, and floating design suit larger outdoor gatherings, as PCMag's review covers in more detail.

These Ultimate Ears speakers start at under $50

Ultimate Ears Miniroll

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$79.99 Save $20.00

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Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 4

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Ultimate Ears Boom 4

$129.99 at Amazon

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Ultimate Ears Everboom

$149.99 at Amazon

$178.99 Save $29.00

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All four Ultimate Ears speakers here are IP67-rated for dust and water, starting with the Ultimate Ears Miniroll at $47.49, down from $79.99. It's a flat, palm-sized speaker with a silicone strap for handlebars or a bag and 12 hours of battery life, though it doesn't work with the Ultimate Ears app for EQ adjustments—this PCMag review gives a closer look at how it performs for its size. The Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 4 is $56.99, down from $99.99, and adds 360-degree sound, a floating body, 14 hours of playback, and an Outdoor Boost mode for open spaces.

The Ultimate Ears Boom 4 is $99.99, down from $149.99, and keeps the cylindrical shape of earlier Boom models while switching to USB-C charging, with 360-degree sound, a floating design, and 15 hours of battery life. The Ultimate Ears Everboom is $139.99, down from $178.99, and is the most outdoor-focused of the four, with 20 hours of playback, a Bluetooth range of up to 55 meters, an Outdoor Boost button, and a carabiner for clipping it to a bag or tent.

These JBL speakers are up to 30% off

JBL Go 5

$39.95 at Amazon

$54.95 Save $15.00

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JBL Clip 5

$59.95 at Amazon

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JBL Grip

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JBL Flip 5

$89.95 at Amazon

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JBL Charge 6

$149.95 at Amazon

$199.95 Save $50.00

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