Smarter iKettle

Is there a tea lover on your list who can’t stand waiting for water to boil? If so, they would love the Smarter iKettle, right? Maybe not.

This $150 kitchen gadget connects to a smartphone app so you can boil your water right from your phone no matter where you are. If you don’t mind subjecting your gift recipient to potential tech hassles, like having to port scan their network in order to get the kettle online, then this is a great gift to consider.

If you want to pay a similar price for a water boiler that doesn’t need a smartphone app or Wi-Fi connectivity to keep water hot, go with a Zojirushi instead–I have one and I love it, despite the fact that I have to operate it like a technological primitive.

Coravin Model Eleven

If someone on your gift list is tired of wine openers that don’t leave the cork in place, pour pre-measured glasses, and force wine from the bottle using high-pressure argon gas, well, you had better have $1,000 to spend on the Coravin Model Eleven.

As overpriced as it is unnecessary, the Model Eleven is designed to preserve wine after it’s opened. It might do that, but in a roundabout and incredibly costly manner.

Here’s the thing: Wine goes bad when exposed to oxygen, which makes it taste increasingly like vinegar as it sits out. Even re-corking a bottle will trap some oxygen and cause it to lose flavor over time.

You don’t need to give the gift of absurd electronics to help your wine-loving friend preserve their opened stash: Give them some PlatyPreserve wine bags instead. These bags seal out air just like a Ziplock bag and can keep wine fresh for months. A single bag costs $9.95, and you can even get four for $29 and keep a couple for yourself. Then take the extra $950+ dollars and buy other, more useful, gifts.

Neutrogena Skin360

Is someone on your gift list obsessed with the health of their skin? If so, here’s what you shouldn’t give them: The Neutrogena Skin360, which is a smartphone-attachable scanner that reportedly delivers a “derm-grade accurate” scan of their skin health.

Paired with an app that delivers context-free measurements of skin moisture, pores, and fine lines, it’s a $60 device that is essentially a Neutrogena sales funnel once you realize what the app does: Recommends Neutrogena products that will help your skin’s “unique needs.”

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​Snapchat Spectacles

To keep you from giving a tech gift this holiday season that’s destined to collect dust in the back of the closet, we’ve compiled a list of wacky smart devices and other devices that are either overpriced, overcomplicated, or just plain pointless.

There are 10 new items on this year’s list, and 10 that are still bad gifts a year after we first featured them.

Remember Snapchat Spectacles? Even the team here at TechRepublic got in on the hype, but now only a few months later no one remembers why those ugly (let’s be honest) things were a fad.

CNET reported in 2017 that Spectacles were selling very poorly, but that hasn’t stopped Snap Inc. from rolling out a new generation of Spectacles, complete with two new styles.

Whether those new styles, or the second generation of the original Spectacles, will sell remains to be seen. Second-generation Spectacles all got a price bump, with new styles starting at $199.99 and the refreshed originals priced at $149.99. Indications thus far point to mediocre sales, so save your Snapchatting friend or family member (and your wallet) the gift of this spectacle.

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​Amazon Key

Nothing says “happy holidays” like giving your loved ones the gift of strangers entering their homes to drop off packages.

Don’t spend upwards of $200 giving someone you love an Amazon Key: Let Santa stick to coming in and leaving packages unannounced–he doesn’t even need you to leave a key.

SEE: Video: Amazon Key will unlock your heart (and your home)

​Spinali connected jeans

Navigating via smartphone GPS: It’s totally yesterday’s tech, right? That’s what the designers at Spinali think, at least if their connected jeans are any indication.

For $164 (or $175 for a distressed look), you can give the gift of pants with two vibrating sensors in the waistband that go off to help you “navigate through your urban journeys.” The pants (and available shorts and skirt) don’t seem to have any other capabilities, and the smartphone in your pocket is probably just as effective, though minus the cool points.

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​Mimo baby monitor onesie

How quickly does an infant grow? Fast enough to make a smart baby onesie with a list price of $199 a waste of money.

The Mimo is designed to track how well a baby is sleeping, what position it’s lying in, and other nocturnal stats. Because most new parent’s definitely don’t know when their baby isn’t sleeping through the night… .

2018 update: Mimo’s website only lists Babies R Us as a retail partner, and the link Mimo provides is dead. Babies R Us and its parent company Toys R Us are in a flux state, with websites that only indicate they’ve been purchased by investors. Don’t rely on Mimo’s site to send you to a retailer, and don’t go looking for Mimo onesies on Amazon if you want to give a good gift.

​Jagger & Lewis smart dog collar

Ever look at your dog and wonder if he is depressed? The Jagger & Lewis smart collar wants to come to the rescue, for u20ac199 ($227 USD) and provide you with all sorts of data you can’t get from, y’know, looking at your dog.

It tracks movement, sound, and other info to tell you if Fido is sad while you’re away, hopefully so you can quit your job and be home all the time, at least according to your dog’s wishes.

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​JUIaVIE juicer

Remember the Juicero? It was a $400 smart juicer that you definitely didn’t need, and it went bust pretty quickly. That won’t keep a good idea down, though: Enter the JUISIR, or JUIaVIE if you backed it on Indegogo.

JUIaVIE is essentially the same product as the Juicero. It uses absurd amounts of pressure to crush fruit and force juice into a cup, but with one big difference: Juicero’s pouches came to you pre-loaded, and JUIaVIE are empty so you can fill them yourself.

Not to be outdone by the absurdity of the $400 Juicero, JUIaVIE can be snapped up on its website for $599, but wait: Order now and you won’t get it until February 2019!

Get a highly-rated juicer from Amazon instead.

​GeniCan

We have a thing we do in my house: When one of us uses the last of an item, we toss the waste away and add the product to the grocery list we keep on the fridge.

But why do that when we could use the GeniCan? This $149 voice sensor and bar code scanner attaches to your garbage can so you can scan garbage or tell it to add something to your grocery list. Bonus: It also orders things via Amazon Dash.

Save your money and get your loved one a pad of paper with a magnet on it to hang from their fridge.

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

Spire

Mindfulness is all the rage these days, and for good reason: We spend so little time focusing on ourselves and our surroundings that it can be easy to forget to simply be in the present. Giving someone struggling to achieve a state of mindfulness another gadget won’t help.

Spire wants to be your smart device for being more calm and self aware–because nothing says zen like relying on technology to do all the self-awareness for you.

Give the gift of a yoga class or a copy of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations instead–both are more valuable and cheaper than the $99 Spire.

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​Under Armour HOVR shoes

I run, and I do it in a pair of old-fashioned analog shoes. Under Armour thinks I should wear a pair from its HOVR series, which contains sensors that track my run (something my phone and Apple Watch can both do), as well as sensors that can tell me how I should pace myself based on how high I can jump that day.

I’m a firm believer in listening to the cues of your body when it comes to fitness. I know pretty well within the first quarter mile if I’m going to struggle–I don’t need a pair of $110 shoes to do it for me.

If you want to get the runner in your life a good gift, find out if they have a Fitbit or some other smartwatch. It’ll do the same things, likely better, and it won’t wear out after 200 miles.

​Mesay pocket translator

If the Mesay had come out 10 years ago, it would have been revolutionary. Now in the age of Google Translate and other real-time translation apps, it’s redundant.

Mesay would be great if it didn’t have to be connected to the internet for everything but Chinese to English and vice versa, but sadly it does.

Want to help a loved one speak the local language on an overseas trip? Skip the $179 pledge necessary to get a Mesay and help them pay for data or a prepaid phone, then introduce them to Google Translate, instead.

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​The WELT smartbelt

The WELT smartbelt can measure your waistline, tell you if you overeat, track your steps, and tell you how long you’ve been sitting. The question to ask yourself about the WELT, as with all smart fitness devices, is whether your body is capable of telling you what the device is supposed to. The answer is yes, especially when the alternative is a $149 belt.

Tracking steps and knowing how long you’ve been sitting is good to know, but unless you’re a world championship bodybuilder or jockey, having an electronic belt that constantly measures your waistline to see if you’ve overeaten seems a bit excessive. Just use a tape measure and stop eating when you’re full.

Besides, who wants to charge their belt in the evening?

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​Somabar

Is pouring liquor out of a bottle and into a glass too much for you? Can’t pry your eyes away from your smartphone long enough to mix a cocktail? Feel that interacting with analog objects in the kitchen is too old-timey? Somabar is for you.

This booze Keurig uses six refillable cylinders and a smartphone app to mix drinks for you, no physical labor required. It was successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2014, and priced at $429, but Somabar appears to have shifted its focus away from providing alcohol robots for the home: It’s now being marketed as a business product and is priced at a whopping $4,995.

Kolibree smart toothbrush

As a concept, the Kolibree smart toothbrush is actually pretty neat: It can teach children good brushing habits and remind adults to take their time to brush correctly, which is important for long-term oral health.

What’s ridiculous is the price: $129. And replacement heads are $19 for a three pack, so the darn thing never saves you any money over the long term. Save your loved ones the discomfort of a Bluetooth-connected smart toothbrush and just install Brush DJ on their phone.

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator

Samsung has been on a mad tear the last few years releasing a wide array of smart devices. But in the immortal words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, Samsung has been “so preoccupied with whether they could, that they never stopped to wonder if they should.”

The latest over-the-top smart device to come out of the South Korean tech giant is the Family Hub Refrigerator.

Starting at the bargain price of $3,299, the Family Hub fridge is packed with features that are duplicated by your brain. It takes pictures of your food so you always know what’s in the fridge, it can make shopping lists and set appointments on your phone, it can play music, and you can even leave digital sticky notes on its screen.

CNET’s review of the Family Hub is positive, but the fridge is summed up in one quote: “Nobody needs the Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator and its 21.5-inch touchscreen.”

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​Digitsole smart insoles

Digitsole is the maker of that crazy looking smart shoe that was everywhere after CES 2016. Of all its products, only one is actually available for purchase on the website: A Bluetooth-connected insole that tracks your running performance.

I run, and I don’t want this. If anyone I know is reading right now and looking for a running-related gift, this is not it. I don’t want to charge my $114 insoles for three hours, especially if they spend the rest of their time in my athletic shoes.

There’s also a Digitsole model capable of warming your feet, which you can definitely do for less than $228. These disposable warmers come 16 pairs to a pack at just $42–you could buy nearly five and a half boxes, or 88 pairs, for the same price.

​FitBark

You know who needs to work out more? Your dog. One way you can be sure Fido is getting his 5,000 daily steps in is with the FitBark dog activity monitor.

FitBark pairs with your phone (or a home base station) to keep you constantly up to date on the health of your pooch because you need one more thing to induce anxiety when away from home, right?

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​Hoverboards

Another explosive holiday gift, the hoverboard needs to stay where it started: In 2015. They were all the rage in 2015, but if you’re thinking about giving or getting one this year, stop. Stop right now.

Hoverboards have been the subject of some serious restrictions–airlines have banned them, the CPSC has issued recalls of dozens of models, and up until recently UL hadn’t certified the safety of a single one.

If you’re still dead set on giving someone the potentially harmful gift of a hoverboard make sure the model you’re giving isn’t part of the CPSC’s recall efforts.

​Smart water bottles

You know what the world could use more of? Water bottles that cost $45 and glow to remind you to drink.

Alternatively, you could just think to yourself, “am I thirsty?” And, if the answer is yes, you could drink some water from a much cheaper, non-electronic bottle.

​Grillbot

Alton Brown famously hates kitchen devices that just have one use. A robot that only cleans your grill, fits that description to a tee. The Grillbot is an $99 Roomba-like machine that crawls around grill scrubbing as it goes.

Look, I get the Grillbot’s appeal. Cleaning baked-on grease and charred food fragments off your grill is a dirty, tedious job. But spending $129 to replace a $7 dollar grill brush seems like overkill.

SEE: Gift Guides for Techies (TechRepublic Flipboard magazine)

​Weird USB gizmos

tIt can be tempting to give the desk jockey in your life one of the many USB gadgets that can be found on the internet, but they’re best avoided.

tAll of the things these gadgets can do (along with a few that have no real purpose) is done better by independently powered devices that are manufactured with higher standards of quality.

tLet your loved ones save their USB ports for things they actually need them for!

Also see

• Photos: Toys, puzzles, and gear gifts perfect for the office game room (TechRepublic)
• Tech gifts 2018: The top picks (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
• Holiday gifts for co-workers: The top picks (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
• The do’s and don’ts of giving holiday gifts to your co-workers (TechRepublic)
• The etiquette rule book on holiday gifts for your boss (TechRepublic)
• Photos: Best gifts for co-workers under $50 on Amazon (ZDNet)
• CNET’s 2018 holiday gift guide