All the Gear We Loved in March
All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
GoPro01GoPro Hero
There's a new GoPro in the world, and man is it cheap. There’s a reason for that: It’s been simplified and abridged to make it easier to use. While it doesn't have all of the advanced features of the $399 Hero6 or the $299 Hero5, the new Hero, available globally for $199, does have many of them, making it an excellent budget choice for those eager to start playing with action cameras. Read the full story here.
Allbirds02Step Aside, Wool Runners: Allbirds' New Shoes Are Made from Trees
Allbirds, the shoemaker famous for its wool runners, has a new shoe made from a new material: eucalyptus fiber. Yes, shoes made from wood pulp. The novelty is reflected in the names of the shoes in the new collection. There's the Tree Runner, modeled after a jogging shoe, and a new spin on the low-profile boat shoe, the Tree Skipper. Both are available on the Allbirds website for $95 in men's and women's sizes. Read the full story.
Garmin Fenix 5S
You’ll have trouble getting lost with the Garmin Fenix 5S. Despite its lack of topographic maps, it’s got top-notch navigation to help you stay on track. When you finish your trail, you can trust the numbers reading your step counter and heart rate monitor. While it doesn’t have a touchscreen, it’s easy to use with instructions engraved in the stainless steel bezel. It also has a robust battery life, living up to its promised 14 hours of use in GPS mode. At $699, it’s also painfully expensive, especially if you spring for the Sapphire version, which comes with a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal lens and Wi-Fi connectivity for an extra $650. But we don't care. This is still one of our favorite multisport watches, ever. Read the full review.
When's the last time you felt your music pluck you out of this world and into the front row of your own personal concert hall? These headphones can do that. With their built-in amplifier and crystal sound, Blue's Sadie headphones have the uncanny ability to take an old track and bust it open again, exposing its raw melodies and emotion to new air. They're comfortable with a customizable snug fit, although its unique design might scare some away. The built-in amp requires frequent recharging, which can be annoying, and at $400, they ain’t cheap. Still, these Blue Sadies are some of the finest headphones your ears may ever know. Read the full review.
LEGO05Sustainable LEGOs
Three years ago, Lego pumped $155 million into a new Sustainable Materials Center, which set more than 100 employees on the task of Lego using fully sustainable materials in its products by 2030. This month, the company showed off the first brick-based fruits of those efforts: About 25 different Lego shapes, many of them plants, will now be made from sugarcane-based polyethylene rather than oil-based plastic. It's an important milestone, but a relatively small one. No one knows better than Lego itself. Read the full story.
This 23.2-pound, aluminum-framed German bike is as easy to put together as a piece of Ikea furniture. Once assembled, you’ll find yourself face-to-handlebar with a sleek bike that is at once retro and modern. But the real beauty lies in riding it. It’s got tight and nimble steering, and paired with a carbon Gates belt drive, the system greatly reduces buildup grit that can easily gunk up a conventional chain and derailleur, not to mention smear your clothes. It doesn’t come with braze-ons or eyelets for racks, and it lacks motion-sensing lights, but with Shimano Alfine 11-speed internal-gear hub and Shimano Deore disc brakes, Urban is one smooth ride. You could likely find cheaper options with comparable components, but for getting around in smooth style, Urban 8.0 is a good choice. Available on Canyon's US website for $1,999. Read the full review.
Getty Images07Facebook Lite Slims Down Your Social Experience
If you’ve ever wanted to go on a social media diet, here's your chance. The slimmed-down version of Facebook, Facebook Lite, is now available to Android users in North America, Australia, and Western Europe for the first time. The Lite app takes you back in time 10 years ago when your friends were represented by small square avatars instead of big round ones. The buttons for liking and commenting are tiny and straightforward, omitting the jiggly animations you encounter on Facebook today. It cuts back on data, too—you can tell by the way it only downloads new photos and posts when you request them. Even if you don’t need to cut back data, you might like a break from the bubbly, overly kawaii look of Facebook's mobile app and give Lite a shot. Read the full story.
Sure, they’re kind of bland-looking and clamp your neck too tightly. But with impressive audio quality and 25 hours of battery life, it’s easy to forgive some of the smaller issues that come with Sennheiser HD 4.4 BT headphones. At first glance, everything about these over-ear headphones looks sterile and cold. But looks aside, this set has clean sound and some serious bass. If you run out of juice, plug in the 3.5mm audio cable that’s included for wired play, or fold them to use later. Their controls may be a bit confusing, and they don’t have fancy amenities like noise cancelling, but You’d be hard-pressed to find better wireless headphones for $100 or less. Did I mention they come with a two-year warranty? Read the full review.
It’s indisputable that the new cordless vacuum from Dyson has improved upon its predecessors. It’s light and easy to handle. It has a more powerful motor and an efficient battery, lasting an hour and charging in less than four. The bin is larger than the preceding V8, saving you some trips to the trashcan (although when you do finally dump it, it’s a pain to clean). The fluffy roller head can get dirty too quickly, too. Still, if you can stomach the price, which ranges from $500 to $700, depending on which model you buy, you’ll get what you pay for. And this thing kicks ass. Read the full review.
Tecnica Forge Boots gives “the perfect fit” a whole new meaning. Tecnica heats the insoles to 180 degrees Fahrenheit and literally molds them to your feet. Despite the uncomfortable process, you come out with a pair of boots that fit like a dream. Not only that, the overlap cuff means no tongue to pinch, slide, or chafe. They’ve got thin, durable Kevlar laces, which run through self-locking Kevlar loops on the lower half of the lacing system, and once they’re tied, they’ll never come undone. It has three separate EVA layers for maximum cushioning; comfortable to walk on, but pretty stiff over uneven ground. Of course, the only way to get a pair is by molding your foot in person with Tecnica dealers. But if you have a hard-to-fit foot and are in the market for some rugged footwear, the Forge would be a great choice. $250 for the nubuck upper and $270 for the synthetic. Read the review here.
Apple11Apple Adds Pencil Support to Cheapest iPads, Debuts New Education Software
To compete with Chromebooks and cheap laptops in the classroom, Apple has refreshed its lowest cost iPad, adding Pencil support and other software features designed especially for use in schools. They look just like the previous 9.7-inch iPads but have upgraded guts that improve performance and battery life. The new version also makes it easier for users to run augmented reality apps. The devices will be available to regular consumers for $329 with a special $299 price for buyers in the K-12 education market; the Pencil is still sold separately. Read the full story.
hotlittlepotato12Outline
A virtual private network helps you hide from some forms of surveillance, but it leaves you vulnerable to a different spy: Whoever controls the VPN server you're routing all your traffic through. To help solve that quagmire, Jigsaw, the Alphabet-owned Google sibling that serves as a human rights-focused tech incubator, will now offer VPN software that you can easily set up on your own server—or at least, one you set up yourself, and control in the cloud. And unlike older homebrew VPN code, Jigsaw says it's focused on making the setup and hosting of that server simple enough that even small, less savvy organizations or even individual users can do it in minutes. Outline will run on Windows and Android to start and Apple operating systems in the coming weeks. It isn't quite a privacy panacea, but it might just change the nature of the VPN game. Read the story here.
If you're looking to smarten up your kitchen, the ThermoWorks Smoke and the Smoke Gateway are two of the most practical pieces of gear you can buy. The $99 two-probe Smoke thermometer comes with an easy-to-read base station and a radio-frequency remote. The $89 Smoke Gateway accessory is like a "Wi-Fi bridge,” giving you a visual of the time-temperature graph of what's going on inside your oven or grill without opening the door. you can understand the heat. Put these two to good use and you'll get more out of your appliances become a better, more consistent cook. Read the full review.
Prevent Biometrics14This Smart Mouthguard Can Monitor Concussions
Tired: using helmet-mounted sensors to gauge the impact of head injuries in contact sports like football. Wired: this new sensor-packed mouthguard. The device, made by Prevent Biometrics, can accurately measure head impacts to within 5 percent of the impact's true value, unlike other monitors previously tested by the NFL. It could change how athletes and coaches deal with concussions by collecting more accurate data on head injuries. Read the full story here.
Getty Images15Petzbe
Petzbe, a new social media app, has a strict “No Humans Allowed” policy. No, really—the only #selfies you'll find here are of cats and dogs. Download the app for free on iOS and make an account for Fluffy before roaming a world of photogenic pets. Before long, you might begin to wonder if the world would be better off if humans were always disguised as their pets. But we already knew that. Read the full story.
Few headsets sound as good as the new SteelSeries Arctis Pro. It's got high-end components and a comfortable fit that blocks out exterior noise, the headset utilizes a small audio-control box that the headphones plug into. The box combines a digital-to-analog converter and an amplifier, two pieces of tech that improve the sound of the headphones by adding depth, clarity, and drama. The ear cup fabric can feel scratchy, but it’s otherwise adjustable and comfortable. There’s no RGB lighting options on wireless version, and you’ll need to get up and adjust chatmix on the GameDAC which can be a pain. But If any gaming headset is worth a $250 investment, it's this one. Read the full review.
