Three cheap and helpful tech gadgets

Flying cars are great, but sometimes finding technology that tackles small problems can feel amazing. The New York Times personal tech columnist Brian X. Chen has three inexpensive tech helpers for us to try.

Sometimes the most useful technologies are cheap gizmos combined with human ingenuity. Here are three examples in the $15 to $30 range.

Bluetooth trackers like Tile ($25): These tiny tags are meant to be attached to things that you frequently misplace, like your house keys and wallet, so that you can use your phone to pinpoint them. But with a bit of imagination, Bluetooth trackers can do much more.

I attach a Tile to my obnoxiously thin Apple TV remote, which regularly disappears between couch cushions. I leave a Tile in my checked luggage to help me find it at the airport. And a friend who leaves a Tile in her car was able to track down the thieves who stole it and share that information with law enforcement.

We’ve written extensively about the dangers of allowing third parties to track our location, but privacy experts have not found major concerns with Tile’s practices.

MyQ smart garage door opener ($27): This hub, when installed next to your existing garage door opener and connected to a home internet network, lets anyone control the garage door with a phone app.

I’ve found this gizmo surprisingly useful. Once, when I wasn’t home, my neighbor locked himself out of our building, and I was able to let him in by using the app to remotely open the garage door. It’s also great that my wife and I don’t need separate remote controls when we pull our bicycles out of the garage for a ride.

Internet-connected plugs like TP-Link’s Kasa ($17): I use smart plugs to program a bunch of small tasks. I schedule a grow light for my homegrown vegetables to turn off after 16 hours and program an electric kettle to boil water first thing in the morning for coffee.

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Before we go …

Must we program JavaScript to get a shot? My colleague Kellen Browning reported that many older Americans are at a disadvantage in tackling the maze of websites, Twitter alerts and other tech know-how that are required to register for coronavirus vaccines.
A middle ground on tech regulation may be possible: Kashmir Hill wrote about Massachusetts, where a civil liberties activist and elected officials struck a balance between banning facial recognition technology used by law enforcement and giving the police complete free rein.
The internet never forgets: Liat Kaplan, who wrote a formerly anonymous celebrity blog in the 2010s, has second thoughts about “vengeful public shaming masquerading as social criticism.” Related, from the internet culture writer Ryan Broderick: “We can’t control how much of our lives exist in near-permanence online, but we can learn to decide what’s worth dissecting and what’s not.”
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