21 Best Deals: WFH Gear, Weighted Blankets, and Phones
Now that the holiday craze is over, here are some discounts on a variety of gadgets to help ease you into…
the post-holiday blues can make it tough to get back to your normal daily routine. But upgrading your gear can help make jumping back into things slightly easier. Whether it’s a comfy desk chair for your work-from-home setup, a nimble robot vacuum to keep your home clean, or a pair of sleep earbuds for a restful night—we’ve found a number of great discounts on those gadgets and more.
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WFH and Smartphone Deals
Read our Work From Home Gear and Best Android Phones guides for more recommendations.
If you’re looking to upgrade your desk, this standing desk from Fully is our favorite. The height is adjustable using the motor, with the option to choose between four height presets. The bamboo top is also eco-friendly and super customizable.
We recommend this chair for those who tend to run hot in their seat. Since it’s all-mesh, it’ll help release heat away from your body. But it’s worth noting the mesh isn’t the most comfortable against bare skin, which might be an issue when you’re wearing summer clothes (or no pants!). .
Whether you’re using a MacBook or a Windows PC, this is a great monitor if you want 4K resolution. With the IPS panel, the display is both sharp and vibrant—making it an ideal option for photo editing. It comes with a variety of ports too, including two HDMI 2.0, a DisplayPort, and a USB-C port. It even works in portrait mode and supports VESA mounting.
You’ve likely seen walking pads going viral on TikTok—particularly because it’s a great way to increase your step count and help you get a workout during hectic work days. WIRED’s Arielle Pardes squeezed in 8 miles while simultaneously answering emails, Slack messages, and more. It’s worth looking into if you struggle to make it to the gym Monday through Friday, though this is best paired with a standing desk.
This mouse is great for both gaming and work. It’s lightweight, comfortable, and super responsive. We also like that it has a good wireless range, glides smoothly, and has minimal buttons (aside from a couple of low-profile programmable buttons on your thumb). It dipped lower to $52 during the holidays, but this is still a great deal.
If you value portability over everything else, go for Lewpow’s C2 display. Even with a 15-inch screen, it’s compact. It also has a great built-in kickstand that’s really sturdy. It comes with a variety of connectivity options and built-in speakers as well. The IPS display is the weakest out of all the portable displays we’ve tested, but it does get decently bright.
The Google Pixel 7 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) offers the best value you can get in an Android. It packs notable features like a bright display, a 90-Hz screen refresh rate, a new Tensor G2 chip (that power features like Photo Unblur and audio message transcriptions in Android messages), and Face Unlock. We already thought it was well priced, but this deal makes it that much more affordable. The Pixel 7 Pro has a larger display, a higher refresh rate, and a 5X optical zoom camera, and it is also on sale for $749 ($150 off).
If you’re on T-Mobile, this is a great unlocked Android smartphone (7/10, WIRED Recommends) for not a lot of money. (It won’t work on Verizon and there’s no 5G on AT&T.) You get an AMOLED screen, a rarity at this price, daylong battery life, NFC for making contactless payments via Google Pay, a MicroSD card slot, and a headphone jack. OnePlus is also promising three years of security updates. Just don’t expect much out of the camera.
The Beats Fit Pro (9/10, WIRED Recommends) play nice with both Android and iPhone. They deliver excellent sound and noise cancellation, along with great battery life too. They’re also comfortable to wear—with built-in fins, you can rest assured they’ll stay put in your ears. These buds dip to this price often, but we think this is still a good deal.
Nomad Outlet is having a 30 percent sale on some of our favorite items from the accessory company, including its rugged Lightning to USB-C cable, Base Station wireless chargers, and leather iPhone cases. Look through for anything you need! There are also great AirPods cases and mousepads on sale.
We love Papier’s planners for their beautiful cover designs. You’ll have a variety of layouts to choose from, but the undated Daily Productivity planner is our go-to, which has a box for each day along with sections for notes, priorities, to-do lists, and a habit tracker. There are yearly planners too, with an overview for each month with goals and to-do lists.
Vacuum and Air Purifier Deals
Read our Best Robot Vacuums and Best Air Purifier guides for more.
Shark’s AI Ultra 2-in-1 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is our pick for the best affordable vac-mop combo in our Best Robot Vacuums guide. It vacuums well and does a good job of scrubbing your floors with the included mopping bin and Shark’s proprietary cleaning solution (it’s sold separately, but you can also use water instead) without getting the carpets wet. We also like that instead of cameras, it uses laser navigation to make an accurate map of your home allowing you to assign vacuuming and mopping zone via the connected app.
This cordless vacuum fluctuates in price often, but it’s our favorite high-end option for hard floors. It’s easy to maneuver, lightweight, and has great battery life—in our testing, we were able to clean our hard floors twice with a single charge. Even though it’s best for cleaning recent spills, it’s also capable of wiping away stubborn stains thanks to its Max mode.
This is our favorite air purifier for small rooms. It’s compact—we were easily able to place it in the corner of our bedroom—and it’s effective in spaces up to 361 square feet. It also comes with an air quality monitor that increases the fan speed if it detects particles and turns the machine off when there’s no pollution detected. For spaces under 250 feet, we recommend the Coway Airmega 150 which is also on sale for $144 ($46 off)—make sure to click the coupon button to apply the discount at checkout.
Dyson’s Cyclone V10 Animal (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is a great stick vac for pet owners. With an included motorized brush tool, crevice tool, and dusting brush included, you can vacuum pet hair all over the house—whether it’s on the couch, the floor, or hard-to-reach areas. It dipped lower to $400 last month, but we only ever recommend the V10 if you can find it for $450 or less (which can be rare) so we still think it’s a good deal.
Weighted Blanket and Sleep Tech Deals
Find more picks in our Best Weighted Blankets and Best Sleep Gadgets guides.
We recommend Layla’s weighted blanket for those that want to share with a partner since it comes in a king-sized version (in addition to other sizes). It’s discounted often, but this is a great deal regardless.
Casper’s weighted blanket is made of cool cotton, making it a great choice if you tend to easily get hot when you’re bundled up. You’ll also have the choice between different weight options including 10, 15, and 20 pounds. If you’re not sure which one to get, WIRED reviewer Medea Giordano says the lighter blanket delivers a “comfortably squished feeling” and the heavier one feels like “a Thundershirt for humans.”
If you’re looking for a weighted blanket to match your interior decor, this textured throw comes in a variety of natural colors (we’re fans of the deep alpine color). At 48 inches wide, it’s also one of the larger options in our buying guide.
This is our favorite weighted blanket we’ve tried, yet. It’s heavy (we tested the 20-pounder), but the weight is evenly distributed throughout the blanket—there’s no filling inside, which means it won’t bunch up in one area. The open-knit design also allows for air to circulate, keeping you from feeling hot.
It can be tough to find a nice pair of sleep buds to wear throughout the night. Flare’s Audio Sleeep Pro buds have a soft outer tip that makes it more comfortable to both tuck inside your ears and also put weight on when your head hits the pillow. There’s enough noise reduction to keep from being awoken by nearby sounds (like sirens outside or your roommate rummaging through the fridge late at night) but you’ll still hear loud noises like your alarm clock.
The Muse S is a great device if you have trouble meditating. The headband not only helps guide you, but also measures your movement, breathing, brain activity, and heart rate. WIRED contributor Simon Hill says it wasn’t comfortable to sleep with on, but it did help him relax.
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