A central air system is the final boss for home battery backup systems. The AC’s compressor pulls a big surge of current at startup, which trips many battery inverters. EcoFlow says its new TITAN Series flagship, the TITAN 5000 Plus, can start and run a compatible 3-ton central AC unit without extra hardware, using a single 5kWh battery.
All three TITAN models are available to reserve at Early Bird pricing starting today through EcoFlow’s website. Standalone units land in the $2,000 to $3,000 range, and EcoFlow says exact prices arrive November 3. It’s a big step up from portable power stations like the EcoFlow DELTA 3 series we tried last year, with a wall-mounted transfer panel and room for up to 30kWh of storage.
Rooftop solar owners get the most out of this one. Its two charge controllers accept up to 8kW of panels, and PV Boost lifts output from 7.2kW to 10kW while the sun is out. It’s also the model EcoFlow rates to start a 3-ton central air conditioner without a soft starter, and it’s the only TITAN with a 50-amp L14-50 outlet.
How a 5kWh battery puts out 7.2kW
Home batteries typically sell on capacity, the kilowatt-hours that decide how long the lights stay on. Output, the kilowatts that decide what can run at once, tends to scale with it, so a household that needs a well pump and an AC unit running together often ends up paying for more storage than it would use. TITAN separates the two.
The TITAN 5000 and TITAN 5000 Plus each hold about 5kWh and are rated for 7,200 watts of continuous 120/240V output. EcoFlow credits its 40160 lithium iron phosphate cells, which are large cylindrical cells rated at 2C. That means each cell can discharge its full capacity in half an hour, and that headroom is what lets a modest pack swallow a compressor’s startup spike.
On the Plus, a feature EcoFlow calls PV Boost raises output to 10kW while solar panels are feeding the system. Capacity grows in 5kWh steps with stackable TITAN batteries, each about 83 pounds, to a maximum of 30kWh per unit. That ceiling is roughly what the average US home buys from the grid in a day.
A transfer panel that skips the main panel swap
Each TITAN pairs with EcoFlow’s Smart Home Panel 10, a wall-mounted box that sits alongside your existing breaker panel and any rooftop solar you already have. It backs up 10 selected circuits at up to 50 amps. EcoFlow says it flips to battery within 20 milliseconds, though it tells owners of medical equipment to check that device’s own backup requirements.
Installation is where EcoFlow is pushing hardest. The company pre-wires the panel and installs the breakers at the factory, and it claims that cuts on-site labor by up to 80 percent, to about two hours of work. The seven-day install it advertises comes with an asterisk, since EcoFlow counts business days starting after permits are approved and limits the service to certain ZIP codes.
Day to day, EcoFlow’s OASIS 3.0 software charges the batteries when time-of-use rates are low and draws them down during peak pricing. The TITAN 5000 spec sheet lists its grid connection as no-export, so it won’t sell power back to the utility. Any savings come from buying less peak-rate electricity, and EcoFlow’s own savings estimate assumes a 15kWh system, 4kW of solar, and a San Diego rate plan.
TITAN 5000 Plus vs. TITAN 5000 vs. Classic
The Plus and the standard TITAN 5000 share the 7.2kW output and 5kWh battery, and the difference is solar. The Plus takes up to 8kW of panels across two charge controllers, double the standard model’s 4kW, and it adds PV Boost and a 50-amp L14-50 outlet. Both pair with the 240V version of Smart Home Panel 10.
The TITAN 5000 Classic is the budget model, and its limits matter more than its price. It puts out 4kW at 120V only, takes 3.2kW of solar, and pairs with a 120V version of the panel. Central air conditioners, electric dryers, and many well pumps run on 240V, so the Classic is better suited to keeping the fridge, lights, and outlets going.
The bigger TITANs also undercut EcoFlow’s own DELTA Pro Ultra, which pairs the same 7,200-watt output with 6kWh of storage and lists at $5,799 for an inverter and one battery. EcoFlow had that bundle marked down to $4,199 and it sold out as of October 13. The TITAN 5000 gives up about 1kWh of storage and lands in the $3,000 range.
How to reserve an EcoFlow TITAN
EcoFlow is taking reservations now with a $50 coupon that knocks 5 percent off eligible TITAN gear and adds two free 220W portable solar panels during the launch sale. The purchase has to go through by December 31, or EcoFlow refunds the $50. Shipping is free everywhere except Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
Bundles with the Smart Home Panel 10 and professional installation run in the $7,000 range for the TITAN 5000 and TITAN 5000 Plus, and in the $5,000 range for the Classic. EcoFlow says final prices for every configuration, including the add-on batteries, post on November 3.
Think of the standard TITAN 5000 as the Plus with half the solar input. It keeps the 7.2kW of 120/240V output and the 5kWh battery, takes up to 4kW of panels through one charge controller, and adds USB-C and USB-A ports that EcoFlow doesn’t list on the Plus. Its IP20 rating means it belongs indoors or in a garage, not out in the weather.
Households that mostly care about the fridge, the router, and the furnace blower during an outage can drop a price tier here. The Classic puts out 4kW at 120V, takes 3.2kW of solar, and pairs with a 120V version of Smart Home Panel 10, so 240V appliances stay dark. It still expands to 30kWh with the same add-on batteries as its siblings.
People tend to hang onto their Patagonia gear, which can make it tricky to find second-hand. You flip through thrift racks, squint at blurry tag photos on eBay, or check WornWear.com, the separate storefront Patagonia has run its resale business through since 2017. That used shop is moving. As of October 14, Worn Wear’s used inventory lives on Patagonia.com, where secondhand garments and new ones share a cart, a checkout, and sometimes a shipping box.
It’s the same site that runs Patagonia’s end-of-season clearance sales, so used gear now reaches far more shoppers than a standalone resale site ever did. Sam Brown, Patagonia’s head of resale, told PopSci the company is one of the first in the U.S. to sell used and new items together at this scale. Worn Wear sold nearly 160,000 items in fiscal 2026, good for about $13 million in net sales, according to Patagonia.
Tim Davis for Patagonia
How Worn Wear went from pop-up to Patagonia.com
Patagonia has repaired customers’ clothes since the 1970s, but selling used gear took longer to figure out. When the online resale shop opened in 2017, it worked like a pop-up, according to Roos VanDeWeerd, who handles Worn Wear marketing. Inventory took so long to build that the shop would sell out and go quiet until enough trade-ins came back in.
The site now carries around 40,000 items at a time, Roos said. Patagonia also pulled warehousing, shipping, and customer service back from an outside vendor and into its own warehouse in Reno, Nevada. Worn Wear’s team of more than 40 associates processed over 230,000 items last year. Moving the storefront onto Patagonia.com is the last piece of that in-house shift.
Resale is an awkward fit for retail software. Every listing is a one-off with its own size, color, condition, and photos, so Patagonia had to build back-end systems that work differently from the ones behind its new stock. Owning the whole chain lets the company control how buying used feels, from inspection to the box on your porch.
How Patagonia grades Worn Wear gear
Tim Davis for Patagonia
About two-thirds of Worn Wear’s stock comes from customer trade-ins, Brown said, and roughly a third comes from returns and warranty claims. Patagonia employees check every piece for authenticity, condition, function, and cleanliness. Brown called the grading relatively strict. Items that pass get one of three grades (Excellent, Great, or Good), and listings spell out flaws like faint to moderate pilling.
What happens after checkout is the bigger difference from Depop or eBay. Patagonia says used items get the same returns process and Ironclad Guarantee as new ones, so a jacket that disappoints goes back to Patagonia instead of to a seller who stopped answering messages. When we compared Worn Wear to a carmaker’s certified pre-owned program, Roos said that’s how the team describes it internally.
Gear that has been through the program carries a mark on its tag. Older pieces have “WW” written on the label, and Patagonia is moving to a stamp. Brown said the QR codes Patagonia has started putting in new products should make secondhand pieces much easier to identify once they start coming back in about five years.
Worn Wear restocks every Wednesday
Jackets are among the most popular items in the program. Tim Davis for Patagonia
Used gear gets its own Used section on Patagonia.com, with filters for sport, function, gender, and size. The selection is shallow but wide, since a given jacket might exist in a single size and color. It reaches back about 20 years, Brown said, so styles that left the new catalog long ago can turn up whenever someone trades one in.
New listings go live every Wednesday, and the Just Added section has been the most popular part of the shop, according to Roos. Collectors should keep expectations in check. Brown recalled spotting a Rhythm Hoodie in the photo queue in Reno, a piece he estimated trades for about $1,000 on eBay, though Roos stressed that finds like that rarely happen.
Demand isn’t the hard part. Brown said Worn Wear sells pretty much everything it takes in, which makes supply the main limit on growth. The two items that move fastest are Nano Puff jackets and Black Hole duffels, and those are the ones he’d most like people to send in.
How to trade in Patagonia gear for credit
Trade-ins made the jump to Patagonia.com about a year ago. You can bring gear to a U.S. Patagonia store, where Brown said credit comes instantly, or mail it in after an online quiz estimates its value. Patagonia’s trade-in page says most items earn around 20 percent of MSRP, with jackets ranging from $10 to $200 and $7 deducted from mail-in credit for shipping.
Mail-in credit typically shows up 7 to 10 business days after Patagonia receives the box. Items need their size and care tags, and Patagonia won’t take T-shirts, baselayers, shoes, or anything with holes or broken zippers. Rejected pieces come back free or get recycled, your choice. Brown said Patagonia doesn’t send any of the rejected gear it keeps to a landfill.
Thrashed gear has a separate route. Roos said Patagonia employs about 80 repair technicians in Reno, and they’ll go a long way to keep a piece wearable, including patching the same boardshort seam over and over. A fully delaminated shell may be evaluated for a warranty replacement. For gear past saving, Brown said the Reno team finds an end-of-life solution, keeping it out of the waste stream that cheap clothing feeds.
My home runs on Apple’s smart-home platform, but it’s cobbled together like an automated Frankenstein’s monster. The brains live in an Apple TV and a HomePod on a shelf. The cameras, locks, and thermostats came from whoever bothered to support HomeKit. Apple HomeView is the company’s own answer: a $299 smart display with a square 7-inch screen, an A18 chip, and a camera that recognizes up to six people in the house by face.
Three other announcements came with it. A fourth-generation Apple TV 4K moves to an A19 chip at $299; HomePod mini 2 gets an S10 chip and a glowing top at $149; and the new Apple Home Collection puts cameras, a smart lock, and thermostats built by LG and Schneider Electric on Apple’s store shelves in December. Apple now sells something for nearly every spot in the house where smart-home devices usually go.
Product
Starting price
On sale
Apple HomeView
$299
Nov. 13
Apple HomeView (Wall Mounted)
$299, plus mount from $59.95
Nov. 13
Apple TV 4K (4th generation)
$299
Nov. 13
HomePod mini 2
$149
Oct. 30
Apple Home Collection
$39.95 to $399.95
Starting December
Prices are U.S. list.
1. Apple HomeView is a speaker with a square screen on a hinge
The tabletop HomeView sits on a domed speaker base, with the display attached by a stainless steel hinge that tilts it toward whoever’s looking. Overall, it’s giving miniaturized iMac G4. For a more contemporary reference, the face looks like a giant Apple Watch or a real-world embodiment of an iOS widget. The 7-inch Liquid Retina panel runs 1,088 by 1,088 pixels at 220 ppi. That square shape suits photo albums, camera feeds, and widgets better than movies. Brightness drops as low as 0.3 nits, so it shouldn’t light up a dark bedroom at night.
Two full-range drivers sit in the display, while the base holds a down-firing woofer and two force-canceling passive radiators, and the whole setup supports Spatial Audio. The tabletop model weighs 2.1 pounds and needs wired power from the included 30W adapter. It’s a kitchen-counter fixture like a typical smart screen.
HomeView (Wall Mounted) costs the same $299, drops the base, and weighs 286 grams. It uses two drivers tuned for wall placement and hangs from one of three Schneider Home power mounts, all sold separately: a plug-in USB-C wall connector from $59.95, a hardwired AC version from $79.95, and a hardwired Power over Ethernet version for $129.95 that arrives in early 2027. Unlike the tabletop model, it doesn’t come with a USB-C cable or power adapter, and Apple calls for an adapter of at least 20W, so the real price lands well above $299.
The 12MP Center Stage camera is what separates HomeView from a HomePod with a screen bolted on. It recognizes up to six people by face and gives each a personal Home Screen with their own apps and widgets, while shared photo albums and music stay open to everyone, guests included. When nobody’s using it, the screen shows one of Apple’s faces, including Calendar, Weather, a Home Camera face that streams up to nine live feeds, and a Snoopy face whose animations follow the weather, sports, and holidays.
2. HomeView’s Siri AI shows personal info only when your iPhone is nearby
Apple
HomeView ships with Siri AI, the rebuilt Siri that holds a conversation and understands what’s on the screen, as a beta in HomeView software 27.2. Anyone in the house can use it for general questions and music discovery. Personal requests, like checking a calendar or reading a text, require a paired iPhone or iPad that supports Apple Intelligence.
The privacy rules warrant a close read if a camera in the kitchen has kept you away from smart displays. HomeView surfaces personal content from apps like Messages and Calendar when it recognizes an enrolled face and that person’s paired iPhone or iPad is on the same Wi-Fi network and was recently unlocked. Apple’s fine print carves out one exception, for a phone that recently dropped off the home Wi-Fi but stays on cellular in the same location. The A18 handles camera and microphone data inside Secure Exclaves, which Apple says isolate that data from the rest of the system.
As a home controller, HomeView runs cameras, thermostats, lights, locks, and blinds by touch or voice, and it listens for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and sends an alert when one goes off. With a supported iCloud+ plan and compatible cameras, it can identify faces, pets, packages, and vehicles in camera footage. Apple won’t sell HomeView in the European Union because Siri AI isn’t available in iOS there.
3. Apple TV 4K (4th generation) adds an A19 chip and far-field mics at $299
Apple
The new Apple TV 4K listens without the remote. Three far-field microphones with echo cancellation handle hands-free “Hey Siri,” which helps when a movie is playing loud and the remote is somewhere in the couch. Apple rates the A19 chip at up to 50 percent faster CPU performance and up to 2x faster GPU performance than the previous generation, and it adds an AV1 decoder for the efficient video codec more streaming services are adopting.
Pair two HomePod mini 2 or HomePod (2nd generation) speakers up front and two more in back, with each pair made of matching speakers, and Apple TV 4K runs four-speaker surround sound. There’s just one available configuration for the Apple TV, with 128GB of storage, Wi-Fi 7, Gigabit Ethernet, and a Thread radio. The outgoing lineup’s cheaper model left Ethernet and Thread off, so every new unit can serve as a full home hub.
The new Siri Remote charges over USB-C and works with Find My, including Precision Finding with a supported recent iPhone. It also works with Apple TV HD and earlier Apple TV 4K models, and it’s sold separately. You don’t need new hardware for Siri AI, which arrives as a beta on Apple TV 4K models back to the second generation. Searching for something to watch opens a full-screen Siri interface, and questions asked mid-show get answered in a compact overlay on top of what’s playing.
The price has gone up. Apple TV 4K launched at $129 in 2022, and Apple raised that starting price to $199 in June amid a memory chip shortage. The 128GB model with Ethernet, the closer match to the new box, went from $149 to $249 at the same time. At $299, the new model costs about twice as much as the Google TV Streamer, which went to $149.99 on August 31.
4. HomePod mini 2 gets an S10 chip and a top that glows with the music
The original HomePod mini launched at $99 in 2020 and stayed largely the same for six years, aside from new colors and a temperature and humidity sensor Apple switched on with a 2023 software update. HomePod mini 2 moves to Apple’s S10 chip, which runs computational audio that adjusts dynamic range and loudness to the music in real time.
The visible change is Sound Glow. The top of the speaker pulses in time with bass and treble using colors pulled from the album art, and it can play ambient soundscapes like rain. HomePod mini 2 comes in pink, green, blue, white, and midnight, stands 3.3 inches tall, and weighs 335 grams.
Persistent low-latency Wi-Fi 6E, Thread, and an Ultra Wideband chip make HomePod mini 2 a capable home hub, and one or two can serve as the default speaker(s) for a Mac with Wi-Fi 6E or later. Four of them make a surround system with the new Apple TV 4K, with automatic calibration based on where each speaker sits. Apple’s comparison chart lists Spatial Audio and room sensing only for the full-size HomePod (2nd generation), so those stay on the bigger speaker, though you can match a pair of those with a pair of the mini 2 for your home theater.
Siri AI comes to HomePod mini 2 in a future software update rather than at launch, and it will recognize up to six household voices. At $149, HomePod mini 2 costs $50 more than the original did at launch and $20 more than Apple charged for the original after its June price increase.
5. Apple Home Collection brings LG and Schneider cameras, locks, and thermostats to Apple Stores
Apple
LG Electronics and Schneider Electric make the Apple Home Collection hardware, designed in collaboration with Apple, and Apple sells it on apple.com, in the Apple Store app, and in its stores. Every device sets up with one tap on an iPhone and runs in the Home app with no separate app or account, which skips the step where a new doorbell asks you to make yet another login.
Apple Home Collection device
Price
LG Video Doorbell Wired
$249.95
LG Floodlight Cam
$399.95
LG Outdoor Cam Plug-In
$299.95
LG Indoor Cam Plug-In
$199.95
LG Smart Deadbolt Lock
$349.95
LG Smart Thermostat
$199.95
LG Temperature Sensor
$39.95
Schneider Home Smart Thermostat
$199.95
Schneider Home Room Sensor
$39.95
Prices are U.S. list. C-wire power adapters ($24.95) and a Schneider Home trim plate ($14.95) are sold separately.
The LG Smart Deadbolt Lock unlocks over Ultra Wideband as you walk up with an iPhone, supports Matter and the Aliro door-access standard, and keeps working without an internet connection. A PIN pad and a backup key slot cover a dead phone. The LG Video Doorbell Wired pairs a 2.5K front camera with a second, full HD camera on the bottom of the unit, plus a built-in spotlight and chime.
Every device in the Home Collection runs on Thread, and the cameras keep recording to built-in storage if the Wi-Fi drops. Video history requires iCloud+, which keeps 10 days of events. The 50GB plan covers one camera, 200GB covers up to five, and 2TB covers unlimited cameras. Some features also need a home hub, which can be HomeView, a HomePod, a HomePod mini, or an Apple TV 4K.
Apple Home Collection availability begins in December, and select accessories follow in early 2027, though Apple hasn’t said which ones. Apple Retail also offers professional installation from ADT in the U.S. starting this fall, for an extra charge.
6. Where to preorder Apple HomeView, Apple TV 4K, and HomePod mini 2
Apple HomeView, HomeView (Wall Mounted), and Apple TV 4K (4th generation) are $299 apiece; preorders are open now at apple.com and in the Apple Store app, and they arrive November 13. HomePod mini 2 is $149 and reaches stores October 30. The Apple Home Collection doesn’t take preorders yet. Availability begins in December, with select accessories following in early 2027.
Start with the base, which holds a down-firing woofer and two force-canceling passive radiators under the screen. The square 7-inch screen, 12MP Center Stage camera, and A18 chip recognize six people by face and give each one a personal Home Screen. It comes in silver, starlight, rose pink, and space gray, and the $299 Wall Mounted version comes in silver and space gray with mounts sold separately.
Hands-free “Hey Siri” through three far-field microphones is the change you’ll notice first, and the A19 chip is the one you won’t see. Every unit ships with 128GB of storage, Wi-Fi 7, Gigabit Ethernet, and Thread, so there’s no stripped-down model to accidentally buy. The included Siri Remote charges over USB-C and shows up in Find My, which should end the search through the couch cushions.
Watch the top of this one. Sound Glow pulses with the music in colors pulled from the album art, while the S10 chip tunes dynamic range and loudness in real time. It doubles as a Thread and Wi-Fi 6E home hub with a temperature and humidity sensor, and four of them build a surround system around the new Apple TV 4K. Siri AI arrives in a later software update.
My desk drawer contains a small stack of stickers that I have collected over the years. I like all of them, but I lack the commitment required to actually stick them on anything. After all, what if I stick them somewhere now and then find a more perfect place later? I’m working through those commitment issues with some help from the new StickerPix Print + Cut, which makes high-quality stickers from whatever graphic I choose, then cuts out custom shapes without the need for an extra tool or time spent with a pair of scissors.
Cricut built its reputation on cutting machines that turn sheets of vinyl and cardstock into crafts. The StickerPix Print + Cut adds a printer to that formula. It’s a compact dye-sublimation machine that prints a full-color sheet and then cuts your designs into custom-shaped stickers as simply as printing a document. I’ve been using it for the past week, and I’m impressed with the output quality, especially compared to the extremely shallow learning curve.
This product has earned a Popular Science Proven award from our editors. For more information on what that means, read our explainer.
The StickerPix is small enough to live on a desk full time, and it looks nice sitting there. It measures 8 by 11.3 by 4.1 inches and weighs 6.6 pounds. The paper tray stows away when you’re not printing, so it doesn’t jut out into your workspace between jobs. You will need roughly 6 inches to either side of the machine during use, as the paper actually sticks out during the process. Because the machine is so compact and only requires a power cord for connection, I have been storing the printer itself in a drawer and taking it out when it’s time to print.
There’s only a single button on the machine itself, which tells you how much of the experience lives in the software.
Setup took me less than 10 minutes from the moment I opened the box. You drop in the ink cartridge, download and install Cricut’s Design Space software, load paper into the tray, and you’re basically ready to go. The printer connects over Bluetooth, and the software requires an internet connection.
Design Space runs on iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows, so printing from a phone or a computer is easy. I prefer working from my computer because it gives me more control over sizing and placement. The software is friendly to casual users, and it offers tons of backgrounds, layouts, and designs to get users started.
Cricut has also built in a batch of AI-powered creative tools. I overwhelmingly prefer to add my own graphics, so I only dabbled in the actual AI creation tools, and they work as promised. If that’s your thing, you’ll almost certainly feel satisfied with the depth of options. If you’re staunchly anti-AI, you’ll appreciate that you can avoid it entirely if you want. Some of the image library sits behind Cricut Access, a subscription that starts at $9.99 per month, though you can print your own photos and artwork without it.
Printing and cutting
Stan Horaczek
The StickerPix prints like a standard dye-sub photo printer. The sheet moves back and forth through the machine as it lays down each color layer, and you can watch the image build up as it goes. It’s actually fun to watch, which is good if you plan to use this with kids or at events.
Once the print finishes, the machine cuts the shapes. Cutting is Cricut’s specialty, and it shows here. The blade kiss-cuts through the sticker layer and leaves the backing intact, so each sticker peels away cleanly. It did a great job following my designs, even when I didn’t give it any border to work with. I fed it the bird logo for my vintage clothing business and it cut precision shapes every time, even around the pigeon’s toes.
Print quality depends on what you feed it. When I gave it a high-res image, the stickers came out bright and sharp. If you upload lower-res images, the software does what it can to mitigate the lack of resolution or bad quality, but it can only do so much to help. When in doubt, give it the best version of the images you have.
Applying the stickers is simple. Peel them off the sheet and slap them onto a flat surface. The adhesive isn’t particularly thick, so they’ll work much better on a flat, smooth surface than anything with texture. I got one to stick to the back of my textured iPhone case, but it took a bit of careful smoothing to make sure it was fully adhered.
Stan Horaczek
The prints are tougher than I expected. Cricut says the stickers resist water, scratches, and fading, but running one through the dishwasher isn’t something you’re supposed to do. I did it anyway by accident when a mug with one of my stickers on it went through a full cycle, and the sticker came out looking just fine.
Getting them off is a different story. The stickers can be tricky to peel away cleanly, and they tend to leave some white residue behind. That’s common with stickers in general, but it’s worth knowing if you’re making them for kids who might put them on furniture or walls.
You have to buy Cricut’s materials
The StickerPix only works with Cricut’s own materials. Each pack pairs an ink cartridge with a matching number of sheets, so the dye and the paper run out at the same time. The Essential bundle that ships with the machine covers 18 sticker sheets measuring 4 by 7 inches and 18 sheets of 4-by-6-inch glossy photo paper. A replacement Essential pack costs about $25, which works out to roughly 70 cents per sheet with the ink included.
If you just want to print photos, you can buy a package with two cartridges and 72 sheets of photo paper for $37.99. It’s cheaper, obviously, because it doesn’t have to be sticky.
For now, the material choices stop at white glossy sticker sheets and photo paper. I hope Cricut adds foil or metallic sheets so there are more creative options. I’d also like to see larger refill packs for people who want to print in volume. Cricut does sell the machine with a bigger Ultimate Plus bundle for $379, but heavy users will want bulk packs they can reorder on their own.
StickerPix Print + Cut vs. StickerPix Print
Stan Horaczek
Cricut also sells the StickerPix Print for $169. It uses the same dye-sub printing, but it relies on pre-cut sticker sheets, so you’re limited to the shapes Cricut has already punched out. The Print + Cut costs $130 more and adds the blade that cuts whatever outline you design. The two machines use different materials, so you can’t share packs between them.
In my opinion, the custom cutting is worth the upgrade. It’s the feature that makes the stickers feel like your own designs rather than photos dropped into a template.
So, should you buy the Cricut StickerPix Print + Cut?
Cricut’s StickerPix Print + Cut is extremely fun and easy to use. Setup takes minutes, and the cutting is precise enough that I stopped worrying about borders. If you want custom stickers on demand in shapes you designed yourself, this is the one to get.
Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sale ended last week, but Greenworks has kept a big batch of its battery-powered yard tools marked down with some discounts even eclipsing the shopping holiday’s savings. The best of the bunch for most yards is the Greenworks 40V 135 CFM leaf blower at $74.99, its lowest price of 2026 on Amazon’s price chart. The Greenworks 24V brushless drill is down to $49.99, the lowest it has sold for in the past year, and the Greenworks 24V pole saw is at the lowest price camelcamelcamel has on record for it. We checked 52 Greenworks deals on Amazon Monday morning, October 12, from that $49.99 drill to a $529.99 self-propelled mower, and every one is sold by Amazon.
The Greenworks 40V 135 CFM leaf blower on sale for $74.99 is a compact sweeper for porches, decks, patios, and short driveways. Greenworks rates it at 150 mph, and a variable speed dial turns the airflow down when you get close to flower beds. The kit includes a 2.0Ah battery and a charger. It isn’t built for a whole lawn of wet leaves, so bigger yards should look at the 48V and 80V blowers further down.
Greenworks 24V 8-Inch Cordless Pole Saw: $99.99 (was $159.99)
Greenworks 24V 8-Inch Cordless Pole Saw $99.99 (was $159.99)
8-inch pole saw with about 11 feet of reach, 38% off
At $99.99, the Greenworks 24V 8-inch pole saw is at the lowest price camelcamelcamel has recorded for it. Its three-piece aluminum shaft extends to 9 feet, and Greenworks says that works out to about 11 feet of reach from the ground. An automatic oiler keeps the bar and chain lubricated. The included 2.0Ah battery also runs Greenworks’s other 24V tools.
The Greenworks 24V brushless drill/driver sat around $80 for most of 2026, according to Amazon’s price chart, and it’s down to $49.99, its lowest price in the past year. Greenworks lists 310 inch-pounds of torque, two speeds, and an 18-position clutch, which covers furniture assembly, shelves, and pilot holes. A 2.0Ah battery and charger come in the box. For $5 more, the newer Greenworks 24V 400 inch-pound drill adds torque and a battery that charges over USB-C.
Greenworks 3000 PSI Brushless Electric Pressure Washer: $309.99 (was $499.99)
Greenworks 3000 PSI Brushless Electric Pressure Washer $309.99 (was $499.99)
3,000 PSI brushless washer, lowest price in a year
The Greenworks 3000 PSI brushless pressure washer costs $309.99, which is $20 less than it did in September and the lowest price on Amazon’s chart for the past year. Greenworks says an independent lab tested its 3,000 PSI and 2.0 GPM ratings for the Pressure Washer Manufacturers’ Association. It comes with a metal spray gun, a 25-foot kink-resistant hose, and five nozzles. That’s enough to clean a deck, siding, or a driveway before winter.
Best Greenworks leaf blower deals
The 40V 135 CFM blower is covered above. The 48V 600 CFM blower runs on two 24V batteries at once and is at its lowest price since it showed up on Amazon in February. Our guide to the best battery-powered leaf blowers explains how much airflow your yard needs.
Best Greenworks string trimmer and hedge trimmer deals
These run on Greenworks’ 24V, 40V, 60V, 80V, and 82V batteries, so match the voltage to any tools you already own. Our guide to the best weed whackers covers the basics of picking a string trimmer.
The 24V pole saw is covered above. The 24V 10-inch chainsaw is at its lowest price since it showed up on Amazon in February, and it’s sized for storm limbs and small firewood rounds.
Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sale shut off at 2:59am ET this morning, but EcoFlow is keeping the party going by extending its deals. The best of the bunch is the EcoFlow DELTA 3 Max Plus at $1,149, $750 under its $1,899 list price, and EcoFlow says it and its other Amazon markdowns run through Wednesday, October 14. It’s a 2,048Wh station sized for home backup, and at 39% off it’s the deepest cut of the lot. We checked 16 EcoFlow deals on Amazon Thursday afternoon, October 8, from the $149 TRAIL 300 DC to a $5,099 DELTA Pro Ultra solar kit. Four of them are Prime member prices.
EcoFlow DELTA 3 Max Plus Portable Power Station: $1,149 (was $1,899)
EcoFlow DELTA 3 Max Plus Portable Power Station $1,149 (was $1,899)
The EcoFlow DELTA 3 Max Plus on sale for $1,149 is a home-backup station with 2,048Wh of storage and 3,000W of AC output. EcoFlow says it switches to battery in under 10 milliseconds when the power cuts out, so a desktop PC or router plugged into it stays on through the switch. It refills to 80% from a wall outlet in 43 minutes, according to EcoFlow. If 2,048Wh turns out to be too little, the listing says EcoFlow’s extra batteries can take it as high as 10kWh.
EcoFlow DELTA 3 Classic Solar Generator with 220W Solar Panel: $699 (was $1,099)
EcoFlow DELTA 3 Classic Solar Generator with 220W Solar Panel $699 (was $1,099)
A power station is only as good as its last charge once the grid goes down for days, and a solar panel is how you top it back up. This EcoFlow DELTA 3 Classic and 220W solar panel bundle is $699, which is only $200 more than the DELTA 3 Classic by itself costs today. The station holds 1,024Wh with 1,800W of AC output, which EcoFlow says covers a refrigerator or microwave, and the company says the bifacial panel can refill it in 5.8 hours of sun.
EcoFlow RIVER 2 Pro Portable Power Station: $389 (was $429)
EcoFlow RIVER 2 Pro Portable Power Station $389 (was $429)
At 17.2 pounds, according to the listing, the EcoFlow RIVER 2 Pro is light enough to carry by its built-in handle from the car to a campsite. Prime members get it for $389. It stores 768Wh and has 11 outlets, with 800W of AC output for laptops, lights and camera chargers at the same time. EcoFlow says a wall outlet refills it in 70 minutes, and it rates the LFP battery for 3,000 charge cycles before capacity drops to 80%.
EcoFlow TRAIL 300 DC Power Station: $149 (was $199)
EcoFlow TRAIL 300 DC Power Station $149 (was $199)
Check your gear before you buy the EcoFlow TRAIL 300 DC, because it has no AC outlets at all. What it does have is a 288Wh battery for $149, two 140W USB-C ports, two USB-A ports and a 12V car socket, which covers phones, laptops and a 12V electric cooler for a tailgate. It recharges from a car, a solar panel or its own USB-C ports, and EcoFlow says the dual USB-C route reaches 80% in 85 minutes. Bring your own USB-C cable, since the listing says one isn’t included.
Best EcoFlow DELTA power station deals
The DELTA 3 Max Plus is covered above. These are the rest of EcoFlow’s standalone DELTA stations on sale, and our guide to the best portable power stations explains how much capacity you actually need.
The DELTA 3 Classic bundle is covered above. Each of these pairs a power station with one or two EcoFlow panels, and our best solar generators guide covers how panel wattage affects recharge time.
A gas snow blower spends most of the year parked, so the first storm tends to start with stale fuel and a shoulder injury from yanking the cord. The Stihl SFA 120 is the company’s first battery-powered snow thrower. Stihl says it goes on sale November 1 at $699.99 as a bare tool or $899.99 with a battery and charger.
It runs on the same AP batteries as more than 60 Stihl yard tools, and the kit’s battery comes from the new ALLPRO system that won best cordless tool battery system in our 2026 Home of the Future awards. Rubber paddles on a steel auger do the scraping, and a handlebar control swings the chute through 180 degrees without stopping.
Why Stihl went with a rubber auger
Two battery bays, zero pull cords. Stihl Stihl
The SFA 120 is a single-stage machine, so one auger scoops up the snow and throws it through the chute. Stihl’s auger is a steel frame with rubber paddles. Louis Danet, Stihl’s product manager for push mowers and snow equipment, says the rubber absorbs the impacts a driveway hands out, which takes stress off the auger. They also reduce noise compared to the steel competition. And because the rubber paddles are designed to be easily replaced, it cuts down on degraded performance over time without requiring a trip to the repair shop.
Those paddles clear a 22-inch path, an inch wider than the 21-inch swath common on battery single-stages. The extra width means fewer passes on a two-car driveway, but every inch is more snow to lift and throw, and that load lands on the battery. Danet says depth and density swing the work so much that Stihl rates the SFA 120 in driveways cleared rather than minutes.
The scraper bar underneath and the two polymer skid shoes on the sides are replaceable too. Past those, there’s no oil to change, no spark plug, and no carburetor to gum up over the summer. Getting the SFA 120 ready for a storm means unfolding the handlebar and sliding in a battery.
A chute you can aim without stopping
The chute rotates through 180 degrees, and the control sits on the handlebar, so you can move the stream from one side of the driveway to the other without stopping or walking around to the front of the machine. Vertical angle is still set by hand, with a quick-release lever on the chute itself.
Two LED headlights point ahead of the auger for clearing before sunrise. When the season ends, the handlebar folds nearly flat, and Danet says the machine can be tipped up on end to take up less floor space. A tool that runs a handful of times a winter shouldn’t eat a parking spot the other nine months.
Two battery bays that take turns
The brushless motor draws from a single battery at a time from a dual-battery bay. When the first pack runs down, it switches to the second on its own, and a single battery works in either slot. Danet says Stihl skipped drawing from both packs at once because that approach is mostly about peak power for commercial machines, and it adds cost. That’s a running theme with this machine, as it’s meant for the consumer market. It intentionally eschews overkill features and power levels that often cost users money they spend for features they don’t need.
Stihl rates the SFA 120 to clear a 7-car driveway in wet, heavy snow or a 10-car driveway in 2.75 inches of fresh snow. Both figures assume two AP 300.0 P batteries, and the $899.99 kit includes one. A second AP 300.0 P costs $329.99 on Stihl’s site as of early October.
Because of the more reasonable power level, this machine isn’t built for clearing a two-foot wall of snow. Instead, the company recommends a few smaller passes during the storm to keep things running smoothly and easily. That’s a better strategy, even with a gas-powered machine.
Going electric
During a Stihl product demo earlier this year, I watched the company use an extremely cold ALLPRO battery with no issue. That may seem like a pedestrian feat, but temperature can have a profound effect on rechargeable batteries. That’s an obvious challenge for a snow thrower, which only gets used in frigid temps.
Lithium-ion cells slow down in the cold. Ions move more sluggishly through the electrolyte, internal resistance climbs, and the pack can’t push out power as quickly, which shows up as a tool that bogs down or quits early on a charge that read full in the garage. Charging a frozen pack is worse, since lithium can plate onto the anode and permanently cut capacity. Danet says finding a battery that holds up in those temperatures was the number one challenge in developing the SFA 120, and that the fridge test I saw is close to what Stihl runs internally. The company doesn’t publish a minimum operating temperature for the ALLPRO packs, so I’m looking forward to getting real world experience during our review.
If there’s already a Stihl trimmer or blower in the garage, this is the version to get. The bare SFA 120 takes the AP batteries you own, with bays for two, and a single pack works in either slot. You get the same 22-inch rubber-paddle auger, handlebar chute control, and LED headlights, just no battery or charger in the box. One AP 300.0 P battery and an AL 301.1 charger come in the box, about $248 less than buying them separately. The AP 300.0 P is the 333Wh pack from Stihl’s new ALLPRO line, and Stihl’s 7-to-10-car driveway rating assumes you have two of them. We have an SFA 120 coming in for testing once the snow shows up.
Update, 7:35pm ET, Wednesday, Oct. 7: We rechecked every price on Amazon this evening. Several laptop and tablet prices moved, and nine listings came out because they no longer showed a discount.
Prime Big Deal Days ends at 2:59am ET Thursday, which leaves tonight for anything on this list. The Microsoft Surface Laptop (2026) leads the laptops at $1,329.97, $370 under its $1,699.99 list price, and Amazon prices it that way for Prime members only. Apple’s MacBook Air M5 is $1,099 and the iPad mini (A17 Pro) is $499, and neither carries a Prime requirement. Samsung’s 27-inch Odyssey OLED G6 is $384.99 without a Prime badge, and the monitors further down run from a $99.99 Samsung to a $799.99 ultrawide.
Microsoft Surface Laptop (2026): $1,329.97 (was $1,699.99)
Microsoft Surface Laptop (2026) $1,329.97 (was $1,699.99)
A Snapdragon X2 Elite touchscreen laptop, for Prime members
A 13.8-inch touchscreen, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite chip, 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD are what $1,329.97 buys in the 2026 Surface Laptop. That’s $370 off its $1,699.99 list price, and the listing rates the battery for up to 20 hours of video playback. Snapdragon machines run the Arm version of Windows 11, so check that any older software you rely on runs on Arm.
Microsoft Surface Pro (2026): $1,599.99 (was $2,099.99)
Microsoft Surface Pro (2026) $1,599.99 (was $2,099.99)
Microsoft’s Surface Pro (2026) pairs a 13-inch OLED screen with the same Snapdragon X2 Elite chip, plus 16GB of memory and 1TB of storage, according to the listing. At $1,599.99 it’s $500 off its $2,099.99 list price.
OLED pixels switch off completely to create intense black levels, which is the reason to pick the Samsung 27-inch Odyssey OLED G6 (G61SH) over the IPS monitors further down. It’s $384.99, $215 under its list price, and Amazon’s listing flags it as the lowest price in 30 days. Samsung’s listing calls it a QD-OLED panel at QHD (1440p) with a 240Hz refresh rate.
A 32-inch QHD gaming screen for under $200 is a solid deal. The Samsung 32-inch Odyssey G55C fits that description at $189.99, $140 under its list price. Samsung lists a 1000R curve, so the edges of a screen this wide turn back toward your eyes at desk distance. QHD is 2560 x 1440, a real step up in sharpness from a 1080p panel at 32 inches.
Laptop deals
The Lenovo Slim 7i Aura Edition is $999.99 with a 14-inch OLED screen and Intel’s Core Ultra 7 256V, and the Acer Predator Helios Neo 14 is $1,699.99 with an RTX 5070 and 32GB of memory. The MSI Cyborg 17 listing shows a delivery window of Oct. 20 to Nov. 4.
When do the Prime Big Deal Days laptop and monitor deals end?
Prime Big Deal Days ends at 2:59am ET on Thursday, October 8. The Surface Laptop (2026) and most of the other deals here carried an Amazon countdown timer when we checked Wednesday evening, but the Samsung Odyssey OLED G6 listing showed no end time.
Should I buy a laptop now or wait for Black Friday?
The Surface Laptop (2026) is $1,329.97 on Amazon right now, $370 under its $1,699.99 list price, and that Prime member price runs only through the end of Prime Big Deal Days at 2:59am ET Thursday.
Update, 7:35 pm ET, Wednesday, Oct. 7: We rechecked every price on Amazon this evening. The Beats Studio Pro are now $149.95, four listings came out because Amazon no longer shows a buy box for them or only one third-party unit is left, and several prices and Prime labels changed. More deals are in our live Prime Big Deal Days roundup.
The Beats Studio Pro are $149.95 on Amazon until the sale ends at 2:59am ET Thursday. That’s half off their $299.99 list price, and Amazon doesn’t require Prime for it. Sony’s WH-1000XM6 are $378, and the rest of the page runs from $27.95 JBL earbuds to $899 Sonos and Bose soundbars. Many of the deals that started with the sale on October 6 are Prime member prices, and each one is labeled.
The Beats Studio Pro are half off at $149.95, and Amazon sells them directly without a Prime requirement. Beats rates the battery for up to 40 hours with noise canceling off and up to 24 hours with it on, and lists lossless audio over the USB-C port. They pair with iPhones and Android phones alike.
Beats Powerbeats Pro 2: $179.95 (was $249.99)
Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 $179.95 (was $249.99)
Ear-hook workout earbuds with heart rate monitoring
Beats builds the Powerbeats Pro 2 around what it calls secure-fit ear hooks, and at $179.95 the workout earbuds are about $70 off their $249.99 list price. Beats lists noise canceling, heart rate monitoring, and sweat and water resistance, and rates them for up to 45 hours of playback with the charging case. If you’d rather have wingtips than hooks, the Beats Powerbeats Fit are $159.95, about $40 off their $199.99 list price.
Ninety dollars off puts the Bose SoundLink Plus at $179. Bose rates it for up to 20 hours on a charge and lists it as waterproof and dustproof. The bigger Bose SoundLink Max is $279, $120 off.
At $99.99, the Marshall Emberton III is $80 off its $179.99 list price, and the deal doesn’t require Prime. Marshall lists it as a waterproof and dustproof portable speaker with 32-plus hours of playtime. The larger Marshall Middleton is $149.99 for Prime members, and the Marshall Acton III home speaker is $189.99.
Best headphone and earbud deals
Sony’s WH-1000XM6 are $378, $81.99 off their $459.99 list price, and Sony’s listing cites 12 microphones and up to 30 hours of battery. Nothing’s Headphone (1) are $189 for Prime members, and Nothing’s listing cites up to 80 hours of playback. More Soundcore models are in our Anker and Soundcore deals post, and our Apple deals post covers AirPods and Beats.
The Sonos Era 100 SL is $149, $40 off its $189 list price, and the JBL Charge 6 is $149.95 with a built-in power bank, according to JBL’s listing. The JBL Go 4 is $34.95 for Prime members. Our Logitech deals post covers the Ultimate Ears speakers, and the deals under $50 post collects cheaper picks.
The sale ends at 11:59pm PT on Wednesday, October 7, which is 2:59am ET on Thursday. At about 7:35pm ET, Amazon’s countdown on the Skullcandy Crusher Evo at $89.99 showed roughly seven and a half hours left.
Is the Sony WH-1000XM6 on sale for Prime Big Deal Days?
Yes. The Sony WH-1000XM6 are $378, $81.99 under their $459.99 list price.
Amazon shuts off Prime Big Deal Days at 11:59pm PT tonight, or 2:59am ET on Thursday, October 8, so these prices have a few hours left. The picks we’d steer people toward first are things that get used every week: AirPods Pro 3 for $179, a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra that dropped another $30 since our morning check, and robot vacuums from Roborock and iRobot that mop as well as vacuum. We rechecked every deal on this page Wednesday evening. Nearly all of them are holding, and we pulled the handful that sold through or went back up during the day. Many of these prices need Prime, and a free 30-day Prime trial covers what’s left of the sale.
Update, 7:45pm ET, Wednesday, October 7: The sale is in its final hours, and we rechecked every price on this page. The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra dropped to $949.99 and no longer needs Prime, and the Logitech MX Master 3S dropped to $75.99 for Prime members. The Anker SOLIX C2000 Gen 2 and EcoFlow RIVER 2 Pro prices are now open to everyone. We removed the Shark AI Ultra robot vacuum and the Shark Vertex upright, which are now sold only by a third-party seller at higher prices, the Ninja DualZone air fryer and the YETI Rambler mug, whose deals ended, and the Dyson Purifier Hot+Cool, which Amazon no longer has in stock.
Update, 11:30am ET, Wednesday, October 7: This is the last day of the sale. We rechecked every price on this page and added 12 new deals, including a Samsonite Freeform luggage set for $175, the Shark FlexStyle hair styler and Anker’s SOLIX C2000 Gen 2 power station. The Google Pixel 11 Pro dropped to $834, and the Nest Thermostat dropped to $85.49. We removed the KitchenAid bowl-lift mixer, which is out of stock, along with the Fire HD 8 Kids Pro and the Instant Pot Duo, whose deals ended.
Update, 6:45pm ET, Tuesday, October 6: We rechecked every price on this page and added nine new deals, including the Ultimate Ears BOOM 4 speaker and the Logitech MX Master 3S mouse from our Logitech deals post, two YETI coolers, and three Moultrie trail cameras. We removed five deals that ended or are no longer available at their sale price: the Dyson V8, the Blink Mini Pan-Tilt Camera, the Ooni Karu 2, the iRobot Roomba 105X Combo and Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
Update, 2:15pm ET, Tuesday, October 6: We rechecked every price on this page and added 21 new deals, including a new phone section with the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and Google Pixel 11 Pro, Roborock and Dyson vacuums, an Ooni pizza oven, and Nintendo Switch 2 gear. Beats Studio Pro went up to $149.95. We removed three deals that ended, plus a camera that’s now available only from a third-party seller with a few left.
Update, 9:15am ET, Tuesday, October 6: We rechecked every price on this page, and all of them are holding. We added power station and camera sections, more Anker chargers, and links to all of our category deal posts.
Apple AirPods Pro 3: $179 (was $249)
Apple AirPods Pro 3 $179 (was $249)
Noise-canceling earbuds that pair with an iPhone in one tap
If you carry an iPhone, AirPods Pro 3 pair with it in one tap and move between your Apple devices without a trip to Bluetooth settings. Apple builds active noise cancellation into them, so they work as well on a plane as they do on a walk. They’re $70 off, and you don’t need Prime.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra has a privacy display that hides your screen from the people sitting next to you, and Samsung says you can set it to turn on by itself when you type a password or open certain apps. This is the unlocked 256GB model, sold by Amazon, and it’s $450 off at $949.99 whether or not you have Prime.
Microsoft Surface Laptop (2026): $1,329.97 (was $1,699.99)
Microsoft Surface Laptop (2026) $1,329.97 (was $1,699.99)
A thin Snapdragon laptop at its lowest Amazon price
Microsoft’s 13.8-inch Surface Laptop runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite chip, which Microsoft pitches for long battery life and on-device AI features. It dropped to $1,329.97 on Tuesday morning, the lowest price Amazon has charged for it, and it’s still there.
Unlocked Android phones are some of the bigger-ticket deals still running, all sold by Amazon. The Pixel and Galaxy A57 prices need Prime. Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra doesn’t, and it’s $450 off at $949.99 for the 256GB model. Google’s Pixel 11 Pro dropped again to $834, and the Pixel 10 is $599.
Coffee makers are all over this sale. The Keurig K-Express brews a cup from a pod for $59.99 for Prime members, and the Ninja CREAMi turns a frozen pint base into ice cream or gelato.
The Roborock Q10 S5+ is the cheapest self-emptying robot here that also mops, at $249.99 for Prime members. If you’d rather push a vacuum yourself, Dyson’s Cyclone V10 Origin is $329.99. The iRobot Roomba 415X Combo is almost gone, with three left at our Wednesday evening check.
Polaroid’s Now+ instant camera comes with film for 16 photos and connects to Polaroid’s app for manual controls, and it’s $149.99 for Prime members. For video calls and podcasts, the Shure MV7i is a USB-C mic with an audio interface built in. Logitech’s StreamCam is $94.99, down from $169.99, and Moultrie’s Edge 3 cellular trail camera is $66.49. The camera and creator deals post has drones, gimbals and more mics, and our Moultrie trail camera deals post covers the rest of that lineup.
Prime Big Deal Days ends tonight at 11:59pm PT, which is 2:59am ET on Thursday, October 8. A few deals are selling out before then. The iRobot Roomba 415X Combo was down to three left at our Wednesday evening check, and the Nespresso Vertuo Pop+ was down to two, so look at the listing before you count on any price here.
Do you need Prime for Prime Big Deal Days?
For many of the deals, yes. The deals marked “for Prime members” above need a membership, like the Roborock Q10 S5+ at $249.99, while others, like AirPods Pro 3 at $179, are open to everyone. A free 30-day Prime trial covers the sale.
Is Prime Big Deal Days the same as Prime Day?
No. Prime Day is Amazon’s summer sale, and Prime Big Deal Days is its October event, which runs October 6 and 7 this year. Both are built around Prime membership.
Are Amazon devices on sale for Prime Big Deal Days?
I have a pair of Carhartt’s iconic double-knee work pants that are basically indestructible. I love them, but the rigid material isn’t very flexible. Carhartt’s new Steel Series is the company’s attempt to match the stretch offered by athletic wear without giving up abrasion resistance. The six-piece line goes on sale today at Carhartt.com and select retailers, starting at $89.99 for the Relaxed Tapered Steel Buffalo Pant and topping out at $209.99 for the Steel Braddock Jacket.
It’s a forward-looking project for a brand that has spent recent years revisiting its archive, from the Icons Re-Engineered program that modernized the 1954 Detroit jacket to the Crafted Series chore coat in our Father’s Day gift guide. Steel pairs new fabrics with reinforced knees, kick panels, and stretchy pockets to create garments that are even more durable than some existing duck, canvas, or fleece fabrics.
The reinforcement at the back of the legs keeps boots from tearing them up. Stan Horaczek
Steel Series began on ski lifts and in steel shops
Carhartt’s design team makes two to three dozen job-site visits a year, according to Ben Ewy, the company’s vice president of global product design. On those trips, the team kept seeing workers dressed in jogging pants or tactical gear meant for the military. They moved well and wore out fast, while technical (or tactical) gear lasted but restricted how they moved.
Ski lift operators spend long days in cold, punishing conditions and still need to bend and climb. Steel fabricators crouch, kneel on pads, and wear through fabric in predictable spots. Ewy said the project took almost three years, partly because Carhartt engineered the materials from the fiber up, and prototypes went through rounds of wear-testing with Carhartt’s own crew before production.
What’s in the Steel Series fabrics
Carhartt calls the blend in select Steel pieces Ny-co, short for nylon-cotton, but the spec sheet is more mixed than the name. The 9.5-ounce canvas on the Braddock jacket, bib, and pant is 42 percent polyester, 41 percent cotton, 14 percent nylon, and 3 percent elastane. Ewy explained that the cotton keeps the dull finish and coarse texture people expect from Carhartt, while the nylon adds strength. The 3 percent elastane introduces a mechanical stretch that won’t wear out over time.
Ny-co blends aren’t new for Carhartt, but Ewy said this is the most durable version the company has made. The Baltimore and Buffalo pants skip cotton entirely in favor of nylon-elastane weaves, and the Bridgeport sweatshirt is a cotton-polyester fleece. Each piece carries a claim against a Carhartt fabric that already exists.
Steel Series piece
Price
Fabric
Carhartt’s claim
Steel Braddock Jacket
$189.99 to $209.99
9.5-oz poly/cotton/nylon canvas, insulated
4x abrasion resistance, 2x stretch vs. stretch duck
Steel Braddock Bib Overall
$169.99 to $174.99
9.5-oz poly/cotton/nylon canvas
4x abrasion resistance, 2x stretch vs. stretch duck
Relaxed Straight Steel Braddock Pant
$119.99
9.5-oz poly/cotton/nylon canvas
10x abrasion resistance, 3x strength vs. stretch canvas
Relaxed Straight Steel Baltimore Pant
$99.99
8.3-oz nylon/elastane double weave
5x abrasion resistance, 2x strength vs. stretch canvas
Relaxed Tapered Steel Buffalo Pant
$89.99
6.4-oz nylon/elastane
5x abrasion resistance, 2x strength vs. stretch canvas
Steel Bridgeport Sweatshirt
$99.99 to $109.99
10.5-oz cotton/polyester fleece
2x abrasion resistance vs. 10.5-oz fleece
Prices from Carhartt.com on Oct. 6, 2026. Ranges vary by size. Performance claims are Carhartt’s.
Those multipliers come from Carhartt’s internal testing, and the launch materials don’t describe the methods. Carhartt did compare Steel to its own duck, canvas, and fleece rather than to a generic lab sample, so each number describes the gap from gear many Carhartt buyers already own. The Braddock pant, which has the heaviest fabric of the three pants at 9.5 ounces and the highest price, claims the biggest jump at 10x.
Steel’s double knee gets stretch
Ewy traces Carhartt’s double knee back to its B01 work pants, where the reinforcement is a second layer of the same fabric sewn over the knees. Steel changes the overlay itself. “Instead of being the same fabric twice, it’s a whole new material that has stretch and recovery and durability,” Ewy said. The knee panel bends with you instead of adding a stiff second layer.
Those knees double as knee pad pockets. The Braddock and Buffalo pants load pads from the top, the bib’s double knees open at the bottom, and the Baltimore’s double fronts are also pad-compatible. Carhartt engineered its own knee pads to fit these pockets, which is extremely handy if you spend a lot of time getting down on the ground.
The reinforcement continues below the knee. Kick panels at the back of the hem on all three pants cover the spot that drags on the ground and rubs on boot heels. Pocket bottoms are reinforced so tools don’t poke through, and an overlay on the side pockets protects the area where a tape measure or folding knife wears through. On the Braddock Jacket, the pocket fabric stretches to hold more gear. It’s truly capable workwear with tons of features typical track pants don’t offer.
Steel Series price and availability
There is a cost premium that comes with this mix of comfort and durability. The closest existing pant is the Relaxed Straight Rugged Flex Duck Double-Front Dungaree, a 12-ounce cotton duck pant with pad-ready double knees that lists for $74.99 to $79.99 on Carhartt.com. Steel pants run $89.99 to $119.99, so the Braddock pant costs $40 to $45 more than the duck dungaree while using a lighter fabric. The added toughness, however, makes Steel capable of lasting longer, even under gnarly conditions.
Care doesn’t change. Steel meets the same laundry specs as the rest of Carhartt’s workwear, so it’s wash-and-wear. The full line is available starting October 7 at Carhartt.com and select retailers. The jacket and sweatshirt come in regular and tall sizes, the pants run 30 to 44 inches at the waist, and the bib goes up to a 50.
There’s 80-gram polyester insulation under the Braddock Jacket’s canvas shell, which makes it the Steel piece for cold mornings. Carhartt adds its Wind Fighter windproofing and a water-repellent finish, plus a removable hood, adjustable cuffs, and a drop-tail hem that covers your lower back when you bend over. It comes in Black and Field Fatigue, with tall sizes available.
The Braddock Bib Overall uses the same shell and Wind Fighter windproofing as the jacket, so the two work as a set. Its double knees open at the bottom for pads, and the zippered bib pocket is split into compartments. The adjustable leg openings close with what Carhartt calls anti-gunk hook-and-loop, and the suspenders are adjustable elastic.
Ten times the abrasion resistance of stretch canvas is the biggest number in the Steel lineup, and it belongs to this pant. It’s cut from the same 9.5-ounce shell as the jacket and bib, with a four-way stretch gusset and back panel so the seat moves when you squat. Top-loading double knees take pads, and it only comes in black.
If you want the Braddock’s straight cut without the canvas, the Baltimore swaps in an 8.3-ounce nylon-elastane double weave. It keeps the four-way stretch gusset and back panel, pad-compatible double fronts, and reinforced cargo and back pockets. Carhartt rates it at twice the strength and five times the abrasion resistance of stretch canvas, and it comes in Mud Gray or Field Fatigue, which makes it the only Steel pant offered in the latter.
The Buffalo is the only Steel pant with a tapered leg opening, and its 6.4-ounce fabric is the lightest in the line. The fabric is 92 percent nylon and 8 percent elastane, and it still gets top-loading double knees, reinforced kick panels, and reinforced tool pockets. It comes in Black and Mud Gray, and it’s the least expensive way into the Steel Series.
I was wearing a Bridgeport during my interview with Carhartt because I refused to turn on my heat. It’s a 10.5-ounce cotton-polyester fleece with a zip neck, a chest pocket, a three-piece hood, and Carhartt’s Rain Defender water-repellent finish. Carhartt says it’s twice as abrasion-resistant as 10.5-ounce fleece, with reinforced overlays on the sleeves. It comes in Black, Mud Gray, and Field Fatigue.
I stepped outside this morning into the Upstate New York air and it had a distinctly fall feel. Those warm summer mornings are over and hoodie weather is finally here. Right now, Backcountry has a massive hoodie sale happening right now with hundreds of hoodies and jackets up to 40 percent off. But, not all deals are created equal. I read the size run off all 110 product pages worth checking, and 79 hoodies still have four or more sizes in stock at the sale price. Every pick below names the colorway that carries the discount, because the color on sale is frequently not the color in the photo, and where a run has a hole in it I have flagged it.
Columbia Super Terminal Tackle Vent Hoodie $31.50 (was $70)
Four colorways at $31.50 and 18 color and size combinations in stock at that price, the most of any hoodie I checked
The Columbia Super Terminal Tackle Vent Hoodie at $31.50 is meant for fishing (PFG stands for Pro Fishing Gear), but it’s a great all-around outdoor garment. Four colorways sit at that same $31.50, and Dark Stone Currents Fade covers XS through XXL with three to 12 units in every size. Columbia builds it as a fishing shirt, with mesh back and side panels for ventilation, Omni-Wick fabric and UPF 50 sun protection, so it works as a hot-weather shirt now and a light layer once the mornings turn.
The women’s GOREWEAR Fernflow Hooded Windbreaker at $45.50 is the deepest discount in this sale with a complete size run behind it. Tech Beige runs XS through XL with 28 to 50 units in every size. GOREWEAR made it for spring and fall trail rides, so the DWR-treated recycled nylon blocks wind and light rain, the hood is cut to fit under a helmet, and there are two zippered pockets plus reflective detailing. Lab Graphite and Black are $65 in the same XS through XL run if beige is not your color.
No hoodie takes a beating quite like a Dickie’s and this is the classic style. Knit Black carries S through XL with 19 to 44 units per size, and Heather Gray is the same $22 with a lighter run. It’s a midweight cotton-blend fleece with a DWR finish, ribbed cuffs and hem, and a kangaroo pocket with a phone pocket hidden inside it. Sizing stops at XL in both colors.
The men’s Cotopaxi Capa Insulated Hooded Jacket at $112.50 is the one puffy worth interrupting a hoodie list for. Dune is the colorway to click, with S through XXL in stock and nine to 20 units per size. Charcoal shows the same 45 percent tier at $137.50 but is down to one unit each in S and M. The Capa uses PrimaLoft Gold, which keeps insulating when it gets wet, under a recycled 100 percent nylon shell with a DWR coating and a scuba-style hood. That combination handles a damp 40-degree morning better than down at this price does.
Best hoodie deals for men under $50
The Columbia Terminal Tackle Pullover Hoodie at $22.50 is the cheapest men’s hoodie in this sale, and the catch is that L is gone, leaving S, M, XL and XXL at that price. The Columbia Wild Cast Sun Hoodie at $35 has a cleaner spread, with S through XXL in Bright Nectar and three more colorways in the $38.50 to $42 range. The GOREWEAR Everyday Tech Hoodie at $37.50 is the odd one here, since GOREWEAR labels its sizes in US and EU together, so the US medium reads as “US M/EU L” on the page.
The Dickies Heavyweight Logo Sleeve Pullover at $17.50 is the lowest price on any adult hoodie in the sale, with XS through M well stocked in Orange Glow and Coronet Blue, though L is down to a single unit. The North Face Evolution Sketch Logo Half Dome Graphic Hoodie at $29.25 is the pick if you want a name on the chest, with S through XL in White Dune and eight to 25 units per size. The North Face Chabot Hoodie at $48 has the widest run in this section, XS through XXL in the Space colorway.
The Outdoor Research Polartec 200 Hoodie at $69.47 is the standout, a Polartec 200 fleece with 15 to 49 units per size in Dark Navy Heather, while the other two colorways sit at 35 percent off. The North Face Terra Peak Hoodie at $120 is half off a $240 fleece with S through XXL in Smoked Pearl. The two Patagonia Uprisal hoodies, 95 Oval Logo and Trailcheck, are both $57 and run two to eight units per size, so they won’t last.
Only two kids’ hoodies cleared the size check, and both are North Face. The Evolution Box NSE Pullover Graphic Hoodie at $16.44 is 63 percent off, with M, L and XL well stocked in White Dune and S down to three units. The Canyonlands Full-Zip Hoodie at $44 is the better buy if you want it to last more than one growth spurt, since TNF Dark Grey Heather covers XS through XXL with six to 14 units in each size.
I recently found my old iPod Video, and it still works. More importantly, it still has the version of Most Precious Blood’s “So Typical My Heart” with original vocalist Tom Sheehan singing. I’ve been toying with the idea of modding the iPod so it works with wireless headphones. I probably never will, but it’s fun to think about.
That itch has followed the iPod for its entire life. Apple built a sealed music player, and people spent the next two decades prying it open to see what else it could do. PopSci was right there with them with our ever-present willingness to void warranties.
The high-res images of this project are unfortunately gone the way of the 30-pin connector. Popular Science
The best example ran in the July 2011 issue. Vin Marshall built a tube-amp iPod dock that paired Apple’s music player with amplifier tech that peaked half a century earlier. In a tube amp, a small signal applied to the tube’s grid controls a much larger current, and that current drives the speaker. Marshall conceded that solid-state amps beat tubes on cost, size, and reliability, but that’s not the point. People still love tubes for their warm sound and orange-yellow glow, and his build leaned into both.
Popular Science
All in, the project cost about $400. Marshall started with S-5 Electronics’ 16LS amplifier kit, added an off-the-shelf iPod dock, and mounted everything in an aluminum enclosure from Hammond Manufacturing. He didn’t have to design a circuit. Most of the labor went into drilling holes and mounting parts. The finished amp worked with a remote, and while it wasn’t especially loud, it had no trouble filling a living room.
Docking the iPod did more than hold it upright. Apple’s 30-pin connector, which arrived with the third-generation iPod in 2003, carried a line-level audio signal, so the amp got its music before it passed through the iPod’s tiny headphone amplifier. You don’t have to be a snobby audio purist to notice the difference in quality this path provided.
That connector didn’t have much time left. Apple replaced it with Lightning in September 2012, about 15 months after Marshall’s build went online, and a generation of 30-pin docks started its slow migration to thrift store shelves.
Marshall’s project has aged better than the connector. He posted his schematic, bill of materials, and assembly instructions on GitHub, and they’re still up. As of September 2026, TubeDepot still lists the 16LS kit at $349.95, which would eat most of Marshall’s original budget on its own.
Images like this make me want to get my DIY on. Popular Science
Two years earlier, Laura Silver took a more musical route in New music from an old iPod. At an Eyebeam workshop in New York, she installed ipodLinux and pdPod, a port of the open-source audio language Pure Data, and turned an early iPod into a pocket drum kit. She found the iPod at a Lower East Side recycling center, learned the hard way that third-generation models needed FireWire instead of USB to power up, and later turned the empty case into a snack container. Remember FireWire? Good times.
The experts at that workshop told Silver the newer, slimmer iPods were nearly hackproof. That turned out to be half right. Hackers cracked the first iPod touch within about a month of its September 2007 launch, and jailbreaking grew into a hobby of its own.
If you saw this view of your iPod, you were either having fun doing a DIY project or you were sad because you broke your iPod. Popular Science
Apple discontinued the iPod classic in 2014 and the iPod touch, its last iPod, in May 2022. The tinkering didn’t stop. Axios reported that eBay searches for the iPod classic rose 25 percent from January through October 2025 compared with the same stretch of 2024. Modders now replace spinning hard drives with microSD cards through iFlash adapters and install batteries with several times the original capacity. Rockbox, the open-source firmware that has run on iPods for about 20 years, reached version 4.0 in 2025.
That brings me back to my wireless headphones. Moonlit’s Classic Connect 2 kit adds Bluetooth 5.2 and USB-C charging to the fifth- and 5.5-generation iPod Video, and the core install doesn’t require soldering. The company estimates the whole job takes 10 minutes. That puts a lot of pressure on “I probably never will.”
Apple’s first folding phone is real. The iPhone Duo opens from a 5.4-inch outer screen into a 7.6-inch inner one, and it starts at $1,999. It runs the same A20 Pro chip as the new iPhone 18 Pro inside a grade 5 titanium enclosure, and it goes on sale October 23 with preorders opening October 16 at 5 a.m. PT. And there’s a lot more to cover.
The rest of the hardware arrives together on Friday, September 18: the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max at $1,199 and $1,299, Apple Watch Series 12 from $399, Apple Watch Ultra 4 at $799, and AirPods 5 at $129. Apple also rebuilt the Health app around a new Longevity tab and added a way to schedule and pay for a $119 blood panel inside the app. Last September’s event was about thinner phones and better telephoto lenses. This one is about a hinge and a heart rate sensor.
Product
Starting price
Preorder
On sale
iPhone Duo
$1,999
Oct. 16
Oct. 23
iPhone 18 Pro
$1,199
Sept. 12
Sept. 18
iPhone 18 Pro Max
$1,299
Sept. 12
Sept. 18
Apple Watch Series 12
$399
Sept. 9
Sept. 18
Apple Watch Ultra 4
$799
Sept. 9
Sept. 18
AirPods 5
$129
Sept. 9
Sept. 18
Prices are U.S. list.
1. iPhone Duo is Apple’s first foldable, and the crease is the claim to watch
The Folio case has a built-in kickstand. Apple
The iPhone Duo unfolds to a 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR display with a nano-texture finish, folds down to a 5.4-inch outer screen, and both panels run ProMotion and peak at 3,000 nits outdoors. The big question we all have right now is how it will handle the crease at the fold. The nano-texture finish minimizes how visible the crease is, and custom adhesives relieve bend stress in the display layers. A visible or tactile crease remains common on foldables, and it will be very interesting to see how effectively Apple has been able to hide it.
The rest of the durability story is easier to check. The enclosure is grade 5 titanium and the hinge cover is 3D-printed titanium. Ceramic Shield 2 protects the outer display, Ceramic Shield covers the back, and the inner display uses a polymer cover layer with a scratch-resistant coating. The whole phone is rated IP68 to six meters for up to 30 minutes, which is a harder engineering problem on a device with a hinge than on a slab.
During the demos, we saw some pretty slick dynamic screen movements, including its ability to move content away from the fold itself to make it easier to tap. You can make windows bigger in full-screen mode, or run a pair of apps or windows next to each other at the same time. Apple clearly wanted the experience to feel intuitive right from the start.
2. The Duo’s outer screen is a camera accessory
You can get a folding case for the folding phone.
Most folding phones treat the outer display as a shrunken home screen. Apple built four camera features around it instead. Duo Preview turns the outer screen into a live viewfinder facing whoever you’re photographing, so the person being shot can see the frame they’re standing in. Kid Cue plays animations on that same screen to pull a toddler’s eyes toward the lens. Smart Take watches the frame and fires the shutter when it decides everyone is ready. Duo FaceTime lets someone standing next to you join the call on the outer panel.
The camera hardware behind those features is a 48MP Dual Fusion system: a 48MP Fusion Main that also delivers a 2x optical-quality zoom, and a 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide alongside it. A 12MP Center Stage camera handles selfies, and an under-display FaceTime camera sits behind the inner screen. The Fusion Main is the camera that records 4K at 120 fps. Battery is split across two cells, and Apple rates it at up to 31 hours of video playback on the inner display, 44 hours on the outer one, and up to 24 hours of usage on the real-world model Apple now quotes alongside video figures. Getting to 50 percent takes around 20 minutes, which requires a 60W-capable cable and a compatible USB PD adapter. Storage runs 256GB to 2TB, the colors are Night Sky and Star White, and there is no physical SIM tray anywhere in the world.
3. iPhone 18 Pro adds a variable aperture and Apple’s first 2nm chip for $100 more
Apple
Every iPhone camera until now has had a fixed-size aperture (the opening through which the camera actually lets in the light). The iPhone 18 Pro puts six laser-cut blades inside the 48MP Fusion main camera that physically change the size of the opening, with four settings and a developer API that exposes the range to third-party apps. Wide open, it can produce shallower depth of field optically instead of by algorithm, though the difference won’t likely be all that pronounced. Stopped down, it can keep more of a group sharp without portrait mode guessing where the edges are. If you want to put that to work, our iPhone photography guide covers the fundamentals that still apply.
Underneath, A20 Pro is Apple’s first 2nm phone chip. The GPU goes from six cores to seven with up to 40 percent more speed, memory bandwidth climbs 50 percent, and the Neural Engine doubles up into two 16-core engines running at once. Apple moved the memory off the top of the processor and beside it, the arrangement it uses on Mac silicon, which freed room for a vapor chamber with three times the surface area of the one in the iPhone 17 Pro. The payoff Apple quotes is up to 40 percent better sustained performance, which is what determines whether a long 4K export slows down halfway through.
Battery is the other real gain. Apple rates the Pro at up to 36 hours of video playback and the Pro Max at 45, up from 33 and 39 on the 17 Pro, though both figures apply to the eSIM-only models sold in the U.S. and eleven other markets where the SIM tray became battery. The Pro Max also gets a second rating, up to 30 hours of usage, which Apple derives from a model built on real-world data rather than looping video. Both phones start at 256GB and now climb to 2TB. Colors are black, silver, glacier, and a new burgundy. Both cost $100 more than last year’s models.
4. Apple Reference Image works like a “digital negative”
The reference image feature is a clever idea. Apple
Turn on Reference mode and the 18 Pro’s main sensor captures signed sensor data, which the phone hands to Private Cloud Compute to develop into what Apple calls an Apple Reference Image. That file lands in Photos next to the normal shot and can’t be altered. Hold the two side by side and every change between them is visible. Apple is publishing APIs in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS 27 so third-party apps can display reference images too.
Photographers have had a version of this for decades in the raw file, which sits untouched while every adjustment lives somewhere else. What raw never solved is proving the original came out of a camera at all, and that’s the question that matters now that a convincing fake takes a text prompt. Camera makers have been working the same problem from the hardware side, with Leica and Nikon shipping bodies that write content credentials at capture. A reference image doesn’t stop anyone from editing a photo. It makes the editing obvious, which for anyone shooting news, sports, or documentary work is the more useful outcome anyway.
The limits matter before anyone treats this as proof of anything. Reference mode is opt-in, so it does nothing until you switch it on, and it only applies to photos captured in that mode. Apple’s footnotes say China won’t get the feature for regulatory reasons, and that EU buyers of the 18 Pro can view reference images without being able to capture them at launch. Apple also says it will adopt SynthID, the watermarking standard Google built for AI-generated imagery, in a software update later this year. Apple picking up a competitor’s standard rather than writing its own is rare enough to note.
5. Apple Watch Series 12 reads your heart rate every five seconds and turns it into a readiness score
Improved health sensors will let you be neurotic more effectively. Apple
Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399 and its headline change is a new Health Sensing System that samples heart rate every five seconds all day and measures heart rate variability up to 24 times more often than the previous generation, roughly every five minutes. Apple splits HRV into two readings, an overnight Recovery HRV and an all-day overall figure. Apple says its study of more than 1,000 participants, run in July and August of 2026, found this to be the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. That’s the company’s own testing rather than an independent result.
All that sampling feeds a daily readiness score from 0 to 10 that sorts your day into Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, or Go For It, updating as the day goes on. Readiness is the metric many wearable makers have converged on, and the scores rarely agree with one another, so the question is whether Apple’s version, built on the Apple Heart and Movement Study, moves when you’d expect it to. Our Apple Watch comparison is where we’ll sort out which model to buy once we’ve worn one.
Apple
The S11 chip runs it, battery holds at up to 24 hours of everyday use, and outdoor workout time climbs 25 percent to 10 hours. Fifteen minutes on the charger now buys up to 12 hours, a 50 percent improvement, which is enough to top off while you shower and still sleep-track. Aluminum models get Ceramic Shield 2, which Apple rates 60 percent tougher than the Ion-X glass it replaces. Ceramic models return to the lineup in pearl white and night blue alongside aluminum in dark bronze, black, light gold, and space gray, and titanium in radiant gold and natural.
6. Apple Watch Ultra 4 runs 50 hours on a charge and 45 in max workout mode
I regret to inform everyone that I really like this fancy Hermes band that’s made of titanium. Apple
The $799 Apple Watch Ultra 4 is rated for up to 50 hours of normal use, and Low Power Mode stretches that to 84. In workout modes, Extended Workout runs up to 25 hours, a 25 percent gain over the Ultra 3, and Max Extended Workout runs up to 45. Apple says that’s typically enough for a 100-mile race. I will not personally be testing that one. Fifteen minutes on the charger adds up to 18 hours of general battery life.
The case is 3D-printed from 100 percent recycled titanium in natural and black, and the watch carries the same S11 chip and Health Sensing System as Series 12, so the readiness score and five-second heart rate sampling arrive here too. Satellite Emergency SOS, Find My, and Messages carry over. Band options include a new translucent silicone Ocean Band in gray, kelp, and black, and the Hermès collection adds a Grand H titanium bracelet with a built-in extension sized for a wetsuit cuff. If you’re weighing this against a Garmin or a Coros, our best fitness watches guide has the field.
7. AirPods 5 put noise cancellation in the $129 pair
Active noise canceling is now available across the entire AirPods line. Apple
Last year, active noise cancellation on AirPods 4 cost $179. AirPods 5 start at $129 with ANC included, and Apple says the new pair removes up to 50 percent more external noise than the more expensive model it replaces. Apple credits that gain to a multiport acoustic architecture borrowed from AirPods Pro 3 and to improved computational-audio algorithms, with a next-generation Adaptive EQ working on sound quality rather than isolation. These are still open-ear buds with no silicone tip, so the ceiling is lower than a sealed design, and Apple scopes its best-in-class claim specifically to the open-ear category.
Spending $149 instead of $129 gets the Wireless Charging Case, and with it a stem force sensor that responds to a swipe for volume, which Apple says is a first for an open-ear design. That configuration tops up on an Apple Watch puck, any Qi pad, or USB-C, and it’s the one Apple quotes in the release: five hours of playback with ANC on, one hour more than AirPods 4 with ANC, and 22 hours total with the case. Live Translation works across the whole AirPods lineup now, subject to compatibility and regional limits. Apple’s press release doesn’t name the chip, publish an IP rating, or give a battery figure for the $129 model. Apple’s separate specifications fill in all three: an H2 chip, IP57 dust, sweat, and water resistance, and up to four hours of ANC playback with 20 hours from the case on the cheaper pair.
8. The Health app rebuild adds Health Age, at-home movement tests, and $119 lab work
The quietest announcement of the day is the one Apple will still be talking about in five years. A redesigned Health app arriving later in 2026, in U.S. English first, adds a Longevity tab built around Health Age, a figure that compares your VO2 max, resting heart rate, sleep, and HRV against your actual age and can pull in lab values like A1c and LDL. A new Insights tab surfaces summaries across heart, sleep, readiness, fitness, and cycle tracking.
Two additions go further than anything Apple has done in health before. Movement evaluations use the iPhone camera together with an Apple Watch to assess flexibility, strength, balance, and movement mechanics at home, with real-time audio and visual coaching. Apple says the whole thing runs on device and that no video is ever recorded, stored, or shared. Separately, Labs lets you schedule and purchase a blood panel through the Health app, 50 or more biomarkers for $119, drawn at roughly 2,000 Quest Diagnostics locations in the U.S. Booking lab work from inside a phone’s health app is new territory.
Cycle Tracking now supports perimenopause and menopause logging, and it will notify users age 40 and over when cycle deviations suggest perimenopause and flag any bleeding logged after menopause. Apple’s standing warning still applies there, that Cycle Tracking should not be used as a form of birth control. Workout Buddy can run on the watch without an iPhone nearby, though it still needs Wi-Fi or cellular, Bluetooth headphones, and a paired Apple Intelligence iPhone. GymKit expanded so heart rate from AirPods Pro 3 can reach a compatible treadmill or indoor bike by way of your iPhone. The Vitals app carries its own label: for wellness purposes only, not for medical use.
9. Siri AI arrives September 14 in beta, with daily usage caps and a paid tier coming
The rebuilt Siri Apple previewed at WWDC in June ships with iOS 27 and watchOS 27 on Monday, September 14, labeled a beta and available in English first. French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish follow in October. It isn’t available on iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch in the EU at launch, and it isn’t available to anyone under 13. The feature set matches the June demo: personal context across Messages, Mail, and Photos, awareness of what’s on screen, and a Siri mode inside the Camera app.
Apple says features that run on its server-side models, including Siri AI, the new photo editing tools, and Image Playground, are subject to daily usage limits that vary by feature and system demand, and that expanded access to those features will be available for a fee in the future. Apple laid out daily limits and broader access through most iCloud+ plans back in June, so the concept isn’t new, but the fee language is more explicit than anything the company has said before. It still hasn’t put a number on either the limits or the price.
10. Where to preorder everything Apple announced
Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4, and AirPods 5 are up for preorder now and arrive Friday, September 18. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max open for preorder at 5 a.m. PT on Saturday, September 12, and ship September 18 in more than 65 countries, with 20 more following September 25. The iPhone Duo waits until October 16 for preorders and October 23 for delivery. iOS 27 and watchOS 27 land as free updates on September 14, which is when most of the software on this list reaches the hardware you already own.
Apple’s first foldable is also the only phone in the lineup with two screens doing different jobs. The 7.6-inch inner display handles everything a phone normally does, and the 5.4-inch outer one runs Duo Preview, Kid Cue, and Duo FaceTime, all of which exist because someone is standing in front of the camera. Dual batteries are rated for up to 31 hours of video on the inner screen. There’s no telephoto lens and no SIM tray anywhere in the world.
Skipping the Max costs you nothing photographically. The 6.3-inch iPhone 18 Pro gets the variable aperture, Apple Reference Image and its signed sensor data, the Pro controls layer with a live histogram, and the same A20 Pro chip and the vapor chamber with three times the surface area of last year’s. Apple rates the eSIM-only version at 36 hours of video playback, three more than the 17 Pro. Pick this one if 6.9 inches has always been more phone than your pocket wanted.
Battery is the reason to spend the extra $100. The eSIM-only Pro Max is rated at 45 hours of video playback, six more than last year, and it’s the only iPhone 18 Pro model carrying Apple’s real-world usage rating: up to 30 hours. Five minutes on a 60W charger is supposed to return about seven hours of video. Cameras and chip are identical to the 18 Pro, so this is a size and endurance decision rather than a capability one.
This is the cheaper of the two watches carrying Apple’s new Health Sensing System. The Series 12 samples heart rate every five seconds and HRV roughly every five minutes, which is what makes the readiness score possible, and the S11 chip runs the new audio features including Live Rewind and Siri Recap. Sizes are 42mm and 46mm, aluminum cases get Ceramic Shield 2, and a 15-minute charge returns up to 12 hours.
Endurance is what separates the Ultra 4 from the Series 12: 50 hours of normal use and 45 hours in Max Extended Workout mode, along with satellite messaging and a 3D-printed recycled titanium case. The Health Sensing System and readiness scoring are identical to the cheaper watch, though the Ultra adds outdoor and depth capabilities Series 12 doesn’t have, so the $400 buys endurance, ruggedness, and the ability to text without a cell tower. The new Ocean Band comes in translucent gray, kelp, and black.
Noise cancellation used to be the $179 upgrade. Now it’s standard on the $129 pair, and Apple rates it 50 percent stronger than the model it replaces. The $149 Wireless Charging Case version is the one worth the upgrade, since it adds the stem swipe for volume, charges on an Apple Watch puck or any Qi pad, and carries the quoted five hours of ANC playback and 22 hours total. These stay open-ear, so treat the noise cancellation as a commuting improvement rather than a replacement for AirPods Pro.
I have been using my outdoor pizza oven all summer and it has really cut down on my takeout budget and increased my popularity with the neighbors. They put up with my loud death metal as long as I provide them with perfectly cooked Neapolitan pies. Gozney makes some of our favorite pizza ovens, especially if you’re looking for something on the high-end. The company kept its Gen 2 Dome pizza ovens at full price through the spring and summer, and the only sweetener during its May sale was a free accessory thrown in with the oven. That has changed. The End of Summer Sale puts a direct cut on both Gen 2 Domes, the new Arc Lite, and every bundle built around them. In May, those three got a free accessory instead of a price cut while the Arc and Roccbox went $100 off, so this is the first price drop I’ve seen on any of them. The lineup is short, 12 items in the sale collection plus a handful of older Roccbox and Dome parts still marked down, so if you’ve been holding out on a Gozney since it took the pro-grade spot in our best pizza ovens guide, the math finally works.
Gozney Arc Lite Gas Pizza Oven $349.99 (was $399.99)
The first discount on Gozney’s newest and smallest oven
If you have a balcony or a small patio and want the Gozney flame without the Gozney footprint, the Arc Lite is the one to buy. It’s a propane-only oven that cooks a 12-inch pie, and Gozney rates it for 950 degrees with the same side-mounted rolling flame the bigger Arc ovens use. The whole thing is under 17 inches wide and weighs about 26 pounds, so it lives on a table rather than needing its own stand. Gozney launched it this year, held it at $399.99 with a gift-with-purchase during the May sale, and this $50 cut is the first time the price itself has moved.
The Dome XL (Gen 2) is a serious upgrade. It’s the oven for anyone who cooks for a crowd, or who wants to roast a chicken and a tray of vegetables next to the pizza instead of after it. Gozney says the deck is 90 percent bigger than the original Dome and fits three 10-inch pies at once, and the Hybrid Fuel version burns wood, charcoal, or propane depending on the night. The $500 cut applies to the propane model in either color. The natural gas version stays at $2,999.99, so if you’re plumbing it into a house line, the sale doesn’t help you. The oven weighs about 161 pounds, and the matching Dome Gen 2 Series Stand is $100 off at $399.99 if you don’t already have a masonry counter waiting for it.
The legs fold, the burner detaches, and the outside stays cool enough to grab, which makes this perfect for taking to a tailgate party or cookout. The Roccbox Essentials Bundle adds the cover, the mantel that gives you a shelf in front of the mouth, and the placement peel, which is everything you need to start cooking and nothing you’d skip. I added up the four pieces at Gozney’s own sale prices and got $497.96, so the bundle is the one place in this sale where the package saves you money beyond the oven discount. Most of the other bundles are the sale price of the oven plus full price on the extras.
Gozney pizza oven deals
The standard Dome (Gen 2) drops under $2,000 for the first time I’ve seen, with the same propane-only catch as the XL. The Roccbox isn’t in the sale collection, but it’s still $100 off on its product page, and it’s the better pick than the Arc Lite if you plan to move the oven more than you plan to look at it. The Arc, Arc XL, and Tread sit this one out at full price.
Every Dome bundle here is the discounted oven plus the stand at its $399.99 sale price, with the Essentials versions adding a Pro Placement Peel at full price. You aren’t saving extra by bundling, but you are getting one pallet delivery instead of two, and the stand is the piece most people end up buying anyway since the oven needs a surface rated for its weight.
All three Arc Lite bundles carry the same $50 oven discount with the cover and peels at regular price. The Basic Bundle is the sensible one, since the cover is the accessory you’ll actually miss, and you can pick peels that fit how you cook rather than the pair Gozney chose.
These aren’t part of the End of Summer collection, but Gozney still has its older Roccbox and original Dome accessories at half off. If you already own a Roccbox, the peel at $42.99 is the buy, and the mantel turns the front of the oven into a landing pad for the pie you just pulled.
Shopping holidays are great for deals, but they can also be a trap. An item may say it’s “half-off” only to use a nonsense retail price as a starting point. Best Buy has a ton of deals as part of its Labor Day sale, but we’ve narrowed it down to the ones that will actually save you money. One thing to know about the math: Best Buy anchors most of these discounts to a “Comp. Value,” a comparable price from other stores, rather than to a price Best Buy itself charged last month. Some of those anchors are generous. I checked every pick below against Amazon and the manufacturer, cut the ones where the sale price was ordinary, and kept the ones where the number is real. The whole 50 percent off or more sale runs through September 7.
Sony WH-1000XM5 Noise Canceling Headphones $198.00 (was $398.00)
Matches the lowest price we tracked at Amazon this week
The Sony WH-1000XM5 costs $198 here, and $198 is also the floor on Amazon’s 12-month price chart when I checked it for our Amazon Labor Day roundup on September 1. Best Buy hasn’t undercut Amazon, but it has matched the lowest number either store has posted for these in a year. The XM5 is still the pair I recommend to anyone who flies more than a couple of times a year. Sony rates the battery at 30 hours with noise canceling on, and the cancellation handles engine drone better than anything else at this price. Sony’s own list is $398, so the 50 percent here is the rare case where Best Buy’s math is conservative.
TCL 55-inch QM5K QD-Mini LED 4K TV $349.99 (was $699.99)
A 2025 Mini LED set for the price of an entry-level 4K TV
The TCL 55-inch QM5K at $349.99 is a quantum-dot Mini LED panel with Google TV, which puts it a full tier above the edge-lit 4K sets that usually live at this price. It’s a 60Hz panel, so a serious console gamer should spend up for the 144Hz QM6K, but for movies and sports the Mini LED backlight is the thing you notice. Amazon doesn’t carry the QM5K, and the closest sibling there, the 55-inch QM6K, sat at $497.99 when I looked. Best Buy also has the 65-inch QM5K for $449.99 if the room can take it.
Tineco Floor One S3 Extreme Wet-Dry Vacuum $169.99 (was $429.99)
The Tineco Floor One S3 Extreme vacuums and mops hard floors in one pass, then rinses its own roller in the dock, and Tineco’s iLoop sensor bumps the suction and water flow when it detects a bigger mess. This is a previous-generation model, which is why the discount is so deep, and Tineco’s newer S6 and S9 lines start around $349 and $599 at Amazon. At $169.99, the S3 Extreme does the same core job on tile and sealed wood. I’d skip it for a house that’s mostly carpet, since it’s a hard-floor tool.
HP 14-inch Chromebook (Celeron N4500, 4GB, 64GB) $179.00 (was $399.00)
Sixty dollars less than a renewed one costs on Amazon
The HP 14-inch Chromebook at $179 has an Intel Celeron N4500, 4GB of memory, and 64GB of storage, which is modest by any measure and fine for a kid’s school work or a kitchen-counter machine that mostly runs Google Docs, Zoom, and streaming. Amazon’s only listing for this exact model when I checked was a renewed unit at $182.98, so new for $179 is the better buy. The $399 anchor Best Buy shows is high for a machine like this, but $179 for a new 14-inch Chromebook is the cheapest I’d go before the build quality gets sketchy.
Segway Max G2 Electric Scooter $699.99 (was $1,399.99)
Half off the scooter Segway still sells for $1,000 elsewhere
The Segway Max G2 at $699.99 is the same price Amazon has on it, but the $1,399.99 Best Buy uses as its anchor is real. That was the launch price, and Segway’s own listing on Amazon still shows a $999.99 strikethrough. Segway rates the G2 for up to 43 miles of range and 22 mph, with Apple Find My built in, and that range number is what made it the commuter scooter to beat when it came out. The 2026 G3 is faster, but it also costs $1,200. For a five-mile commute, the G2 is the smarter buy.
Best Labor Day TV deals at Best Buy
TVs are the deepest category in this sale, and the Hisense 58-inch QD50 at $199.99 is the cheapest 4K set in the sale from a brand I’d trust, and it’s sized right for a dorm or a garage. The LG 77-inch B5 OLED at $1,499.99 is the one to look at if you want an OLED at that size, since Amazon’s cheapest 77-inch LG OLED when I checked was the step-up C5 at $1,879.95. The 2026 Hisense S7 CanvasTV sells for about the same $1,000 everywhere, so treat that one as a good price rather than a Best Buy exclusive.
Best Labor Day headphone and soundbar deals at Best Buy
The Sony HT-A5000 at $499.99 is still a 5.1.2-channel Atmos bar with built-in up-firing drivers, and it’s $500 under its own list. Sony has since moved on to the Bravia Theater Bar 8 as its flagship, and Amazon’s only listing for the A5000 was a third-party bundle at $555.55. The JBL Tune 245NC earbuds are a Best Buy-specific SKU that Amazon doesn’t stock, and $49.95 for noise-canceling buds with JBL’s tuning is a solid stocking-stuffer price four months early.
Best Labor Day monitor, keyboard, and PC accessory deals at Best Buy
The Acer Nitro 31.5-inch curved WQHD monitor at $199.99 is a Best Buy exclusive, and I found no Amazon listing to compare it against, but 1440p at 180Hz for under $200 is a strong number for a first gaming monitor. The Razer Basilisk V3 at $34.98 matches Amazon exactly, and it’s still the wired mouse I recommend for anyone who wants a thumb rest and doesn’t want to charge a mouse.
Best Labor Day vacuum, kitchen, and smart home deals at Best Buy
The Blink Wired Floodlight Camera at $44.99 is the biggest gap between Best Buy and Amazon I found in the whole sale. Amazon sells the same camera for $99.99. The Shark Matrix Plus robot vacuum and mop at $299.99 matches Amazon’s price, and both stores anchor it to the same $699.99 list. One honest note on the Dreame L10s Ultra: it’s $279.99 here, Amazon has it for a dollar less, and Amazon’s list price on it is $299.90. Best Buy’s $799.99 anchor is the launch price from 2022. It’s a good robot vacuum at $280, but it isn’t 65 percent off anything you could have bought last month.
Rad Power Bikes sells the Radster Trail through its own site and a short list of retailers, and Best Buy has the large frame in copper red for $999, which is $1,200 under the $2,199 Rad launched it at. Rad rates it for up to 65 miles of range and 28 mph in Class 3 mode. Only the large size is at this price, so check the frame chart before you buy.
REI runs two big sales a year and the Labor Day event is where the co-op clears summer stock before winter inventory needs the shelf space. That means tents, sleeping pads, camp chairs, and trail shoes get cut hardest just in time to enjoy the tail end of warm weather. The Labor Day sale runs through September 7, and REI members who spend $50 or more also earn a $30 single-use promo card during the same window. I went through roughly 2,500 discounted items and pulled the size runs on every pair of shoes below, because a 50 percent markdown on a shoe that only exists in a men’s 9.5 isn’t a deal, it’s a leftover.
The NEMO Stargaze Evo-X at $99.99 hangs the seat from a frame so the whole chair swings and reclines without you doing anything, which is a different experience from sitting in a folding quad chair, and it usually costs $179.95. All five colorways are live at this price. NEMO rates it to 300 pounds and it packs into its own carry bag.
You won’t typically find current-generation HOKA Clifton 10 under $100 while it’s still the model on the store shelves. The men’s version has 30 sizes live and the women’s Clifton 10 has 34, so this is a real size run rather than a picked-over one. Both are $99.83, down from $155.
Hydro Flask Wide-Mouth 32 fl. oz. Water Bottle with Flex Cap $30.73 (was $44.95)
The standard 32-ounce Hydro Flask, in the two colors REI marked down
Hydro Flask discounts are usually colorway-specific, and this one is no exception. The 32-ounce Wide-Mouth with the Flex Cap is $30.73 instead of $44.95, but only two colors are still live at that price, so pick before you deliberate. This is the plain vacuum-insulated bottle with the loop lid, not a straw or tumbler variant.
The Garmin inReach Messenger is my wife’s go-to choice when venturing into a world without cellphone reception. It’s the stripped-down inReach, so you get two-way messaging, location sharing, and an SOS button routed to Garmin’s response center, without the maps and navigation of a Mini 2. Garmin rates the battery at up to 28 days in 10-minute tracking mode. A satellite subscription is required and sold separately, which is the part people forget to budget for.
Mountain Hardwear Mineral King 3 Tent with Footprint $239.99 (was $400.00)
A three-person tent with the footprint already in the box, $160 off
Tent footprints are the accessory everyone skips and then buys separately at full price, so the Mountain Hardwear Mineral King 3 including one at $239.99 does better than the $160 off suggests. It’s a freestanding three-person with two doors and two vestibules, which is the layout worth paying for if two people plus gear is the actual load. The two-person version is $209.99 if you never carry a third body.
Best REI Labor Day tent deals
Tents are the deepest cut in this sale. The Mountain Hardwear Mineral King 2 at $209.99 is 40 percent off with the footprint in the box, and the Coleman Skydome 4-Person at $142.49 is the least expensive tent here that sleeps four under a full rain fly.
Sleeping pads discount more reliably than bags do, and this year is no different. The Therm-a-Rest Z Lite Sol starts at $37.39, and the REI Co-op Magma 15 starting at $299.19 is the least expensive 15-degree down bag I turned up in the sale.
Best camp stove, coffee, and water filter deals under $125
This is the section where the prices are low enough that you buy the thing you’ve been meaning to replace. The MSR PocketRocket 2 at $44.89 is the canister stove I’d hand a first-time backpacker, and the Platypus QuickDraw at $29.89 is the cheapest hollow-fiber filter here.
Camp furniture is the category people wait on sales for, and the Coleman Broadband Mesh Quad Chair at $26.59 is the cheap one that will outlast three seasons of tailgates. The Rumpl Backcountry Puffy Blanket at $89.83 is the one I’d add if you already own chairs.
Hiking footwear held its size runs better than road shoes did here. The Merrell Moab 3 at $104.73 is the default recommendation for a reason and it’s discounted in both men’s and women’s, while the Arc’teryx Kopec Mid GTX at $139.93 is the closest thing to a bargain Arc’teryx ever gets.
Every road shoe in this section is under $120, and the Nike Pegasus 41 at $71.83 is the cheapest daily trainer I found from a major brand, though it’s down to sizes 9.5 through 11. The Brooks Ghost 17 at $110.83 has the deepest size run of anything here, wides included.
Bags are where the cheap end of this sale is strongest. The Herschel Heritage Pack at $44.83 is half off a $90 daypack, and the Osprey Arcane Tote Pack is $70.73 against a $120 list, though it’s down to black and one orange.
Two things here are worth more than their discounts suggest. The Garmin Varia RTL515 at $149.99 is a taillight that also warns you about cars closing from behind, and the Smith Session MIPS at $119.93 is a $200 helmet, though only two colorways are still at that price.
Complete bikes are where the dollar savings get silly, and REI is one of the few places that discounts them at all. The Co-op Cycles CTY 1.1 at $518.93 is the least expensive adult bike here, and it was the only one of the six I stock-checked with every frame size from XS through XL still available. The Salsa Moraine CUES 10 e-MTB is $1,499.07 off, the largest dollar discount I turned up in the whole event, but it’s down to large and extra-large. Frame sizes thin out fast on the expensive ones, so check yours before you get attached.
Best camp lighting, power bank, and outdoor tech deals
BioLite has more discounted gear in this sale than any other electronics brand REI carries. The BioLite Range 400 headlamp at $44.89 is the one most people should buy, and the Black Diamond Apollo at $45.87 is the steepest lighting cut here, down from $69.95.
Climbing shoes discount in a narrow band, so the interesting picks are at the ends. The La Sportiva Tarantulace at $74.19 is the beginner shoe worth owning, and the La Sportiva Solution at $164.19 is the aggressive one people usually pay $219 for.
Best jacket, fleece, and outdoor clothing deals from $16
Base layers took the deepest apparel cuts, which is REI clearing last winter before this winter arrives. The REI Co-op Midweight Base Layer Half-Zip at $19.83 is down from $59.95, though it’s picked over to XS, small, and medium, and the Mountain Hardwear Stretchdown Hoody at $174.83 is half off a $350 jacket.
If you buy one thing out of all of this, make it the NEMO Stargaze Evo-X at $99.99, because $80 off is a lot for a chair you’ll open on every single trip. The Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL3 at $383.87 is the biggest dollar cut left on a backpacking tent, and the HOKA Clifton 10 at $99.83 is the pick with the size run to actually fit you. Everything above runs through September 7, and prices on the thinnest-stocked items will move before then.
Labor Day is when retailers clear out what didn’t sell over the summer, so the shape of Amazon’s version is predictable: coolers, grills, back-to-school monitors, and a wall of air fryers. The Labor Day sale covers most of the store, and the deals inside it rotate every few days, which means a price that was good last week has often gone back up without the sale badge coming off. I ran Amazon’s own 12-month price chart on everything in the cards below and cut several products that turned out to be wearing a red sale badge over a price they hadn’t moved off in a month.
Sony WH-1000XM5 Noise Canceling Headphones $198.00 (was $278.00)
The lowest price Amazon has charged for these in a year
The Sony WH-1000XM5 at $198 is the best deal in this sale by the only measure I trust, which is where a price sits against its own history. Amazon’s 12-month chart puts these between $230 and $398 for the entire year, and $198 is the lowest point on it. The XM5 is the pair I’d hand someone who flies more than twice a year, with 30 hours of rated battery and cancellation that holds up against jet engine noise. Amazon is the seller of record here, which is worth checking on Sony gear because the third-party listings on this model swing by $80. The drop is only a day old, so confirm the number on the page before you buy.
Ninja Flip Toaster Oven and Air Fryer SP151 $149.94 (was $249.99)
Back at the floor it only touches a few times a year
The Ninja Flip SP151 at $149.94 is the countertop appliance I’d buy out of this sale, because it replaces two others. It’s a toaster oven that flips up against the wall when you’re done with it, which solves the actual problem with toaster ovens. Ninja rates it at 1800 watts and it fits a nine-inch pizza or four slices of bread. The 12-month chart shows it spends most of the year between $188 and $248 and drops to roughly this price a handful of times, so the window tends to be short.
Coleman Pro Heavy-Duty 45qt Hard Cooler $149.99 (was $199.99)
Fifty dollars came off this one in the last two weeks
The Coleman Pro Heavy-Duty 45qt held $199.99 for most of the summer and dropped to $149.99 in the back half of August, so this is a cut that actually arrived with the holiday rather than carrying over from July. Coleman rates it for four days of ice retention and 74 cans, which puts it in rotomolded territory without the rotomolded weight. It has touched roughly $130 twice in the past year, so this isn’t the floor. Buying a cooler in September is how you get one at a discount at all, because the next real markdown is eight months out.
Shark Cordless Pet Stick Vacuum IY143H $179.99 (was $299.99)
The Shark Cordless Pet IY143H at $179.99 is the pick for anyone whose floor problem is hair rather than grit. It sat near $290 through most of August and came down about a week ago. Shark rates the runtime at 40 minutes and the brushroll cleans itself as it goes, which is the feature that matters in a pet house, since the alternative is cutting hair off a roller with scissors every few weeks. The wand detaches into a handheld for stairs and car seats. This is a 2026 release, so Amazon’s chart only goes back a few months on it.
Hisense 85-Inch U7 Mini-LED 4K Google TV $1,398.00 (was $2,499.99)
The lowest this 85-inch Mini LED has been in a month
The Hisense 85-inch U7 at $1,398 was the only TV whose price chart I checked that showed a real drop rather than a stale anchor, which is why it’s here instead of one of the cheaper sets. It ran around $1,500 through early August, spiked to $2,499.99 mid-month, and came back down below where it started. Hisense specs it at 165Hz native with variable refresh rate and a 2.1.2-channel speaker array, so it covers a console and a movie night without a soundbar. Nothing else in this sale pairs Mini LED with an 85-inch panel under $1,500. Check your wall before you order, because 85 inches is wider than most people picture.
Best Amazon Labor Day TV deals
Most of the TV discounts in this sale are anchored to list prices the sets never actually sold at, so I’ve kept this list to the ones whose price moved. The Hisense 55-inch E6 at $297.97 is the cheapest set here I’d put in a living room, and the Samsung 43-inch QN70H at $497.99 is the small Neo QLED for a room where a 65-inch would be absurd.
Best Amazon Labor Day headphone and soundbar deals
Soundbars turn up discounted in every one of these events, because they’re the accessory nobody buys with the TV and everybody buys three months later. The Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus at $149.99 is the cheapest way into a real subwoofer here, and the Soundcore Q20i at $39.97 is the noise-canceling pair I’d buy for a kid rather than risk a $400 set.
Vacuums are the deepest category in this sale, and the robot end of it has more discounted models than anything else here. The Dyson V8 at $299.99 is the cordless stick most people picture when they picture a cordless stick, and the Shark Navigator AV2110S at $269.97 is the cheapest robot here that empties itself into a base.
Air fryers are the category where a permanent price most often shows up wearing a sale badge, so I ran the chart on the pick I’d actually buy. The Ninja Air Fryer Pro AF141 at $89.99 came down from $128.49 in August and sits at its 12-month floor, and the Cosori TurboBlaze at the same price is the one to take instead if you want a ceramic basket with no PFAS coating.
The coffee category is small here, and the four machines in it are spread across every way you might make a cup. The Philips 2300 Series at $499.99 is the only fully automatic bean-to-cup machine I found discounted, and the Chefman CraftBrew at $79.99 is the cheap way to find out whether you actually want to pull shots before spending five hundred dollars on it.
Best Amazon Labor Day Echo and smart home deals from $20
Amazon puts its own hardware on sale during most of the events it runs, so treat these as the baseline rather than the bargain. The Amazon Smart Plug at $19.99 is the cheapest useful thing in this entire post, and the Echo Dot at $54.99 is the one to start with if you don’t have a speaker yet.
Best Amazon Labor Day cooler and grill deals from $35
This is the section that actually belongs to Labor Day, because coolers get discounted now and then vanish from sale pricing until spring. The Traeger Woodridge at $799 is the only pellet grill discounted here, and the Igloo Tag Along Too at $35 is the one to throw in a trunk and stop thinking about.
Best Amazon Labor Day cordless drill and tool deals
Tool deals are where battery platforms lock you in, so buy the kit that matches whatever batteries are already in your garage. The DEWALT 20V MAX XR drill kit at $199 includes a 5Ah POWERSTACK battery, which is most of the value in the box, and the Greenworks 24V brushless hammer drill at $53.82 is at the lowest point on its 12-month chart.
Air purifier pricing follows wildfire smoke and ragweed, which is why early September is a good time to buy one. The Blueair Blue Pure 211i Max at $262.99 is rated for 3,235 square feet and is the only unit here I’d trust in an open-plan main floor, and the Blue Pure 511i Max at $99.99 handles a bedroom for a third of the money.
These prices carried over from the Garmin sale we covered on August 21 rather than dropping for the holiday, so nothing here is new. The vívoactive 5 at $181.97 is the cheapest AMOLED Garmin here, and the Forerunner 265 at $349.99 is the one to buy if you’re following a structured training plan.
Back-to-school pricing is doing the work in this category, and the discounted laptops didn’t survive a look at their configurations, so monitors are what’s left. The Samsung 27-inch Odyssey G5 (G51F) at $149.99 is the cheapest 1440p panel worth owning here, and the Philips 241V8LB at $74.99 is the one for a second screen you only open spreadsheets on.
Best Amazon Labor Day power bank and power station deals from $24
Anker runs a discount on something in this lineup almost constantly, so the useful question is which model rather than whether to wait. The Anker SOLIX S2000 at $649.99 is the one worth planning around, since 2,010Wh of LiFePO4 covers a fridge through a long outage, though its chart only goes back to a $699.99 launch rather than the $1,199 list Amazon shows.
If you only buy one thing out of all of this, make it the Sony WH-1000XM5 at $198, which is the lowest Amazon has charged for it in twelve months. The Ninja Flip SP151 at $149.94 is back at a floor it hits a few times a year, and the Coleman Pro 45qt cooler at $149.99 is the cut that arrived with the holiday rather than carrying over from midsummer. Prices in a sale like this move every few days, so check the number on the page before you commit.
Editors’ Note: Welcome to a new series called An Apple a Day, where we’ll share pieces of Apple content from our archives daily from now through late September. In addition to PCMag, this series will include pieces from our sibling sites CNET, Lifehacker, Mashable, and PCMag.
About two years before Apple released the Apple Watch, I got a chance to try the Pebble smartwatch. It had enormous hype behind it, especially among gadget nerds. Its 2012 Kickstarter campaign raised $10.3 million, making it the most-funded project in the site’s history at that point and pulling smartwatches into the mainstream conversation.
It also felt like something you’d order from SkyMall, and it looked dated the moment it arrived. Here’s a look at the Pebble Time, which came out in 2015. It was clever, but it did not look cool.
Pebble
Back then, the wearables market split roughly in two. On one side were smartwatches, a fledgling category built to relay notifications from a phone to your wrist. On the other were dedicated fitness trackers, where Fitbit dominated even after recalling the Fitbit Force, its first wrist-worn tracker with an OLED screen, over roughly 9,900 reports of skin irritation and 250 reports of blistering. Apple looked poised to repeat a familiar strategy: arrive fashionably late, then reshape the category.
Today’s Apple Watch sells itself on health and fitness, but the original also made an aggressive pitch as a luxury fashion accessory. Design chief Jony Ive championed Apple Watch Edition, which housed the same core technology in cases of 18-karat yellow or rose gold and topped out at $17,000. Apple added its Hermès collaboration later in 2015.
The original PopSci piece asks three questions worth revisiting. Would the Apple Watch increase or decrease the amount of time we spend staring at screens? Could Apple impose its will on a market that already had established competitors? And, most pressing of all: “Why do I need such a thing?”
Apple
I wear an Apple Watch every day now, with most of its health-tracking features turned off. It catches specific notifications when I’m away from my other devices, and it triggers my camera when I’m making content. Once in a while I even use it to check the time. But I wear it everywhere.
You can still spend nearly $2,000 on an Apple Watch Hermès, though you don’t need to spend anything close to that for an Apple Watch to work as a fashion accessory. The slick, rounded-square silhouette landed well enough in 2015 that wearing one is now acceptable just about everywhere. I recently watched a guy read notes off his Apple Watch during a best man’s speech at a wedding. I had no idea which model it was, but I recognized the shape. And I knew it wasn’t a Pebble.
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