Ask HN: What are the best tech gifts this season? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are the best tech gifts this season?

27 pointsadamsiwiec18 comments

My mom grew up in a time before computers and never really acclimated to technology. The things that frustrate her the least are her Amazon Echo and Chromebook.

The echo is used as a glorified speaker: I set it up with their Prime account and it plays all the music she could ever want through voice commands. For some reason she finds it hard to use Siri on her phone, but something about the blue light on the Echo makes it really obvious what's going on. Also, the small things make her happy like asking about the weather or the news.

The Chromebook is nice because it's super hard to mess up - you just install an adblocker and you're good to go. For someone who only uses the computer to surf the web, it's perfect. The best part is I don't have to play tech support anymore :)

I don't think I'd get either of those things for myself, but I'd definitely recommend them for your non-technical family members.

This Christmas, we're getting my girlfriend's mother (mid-60s, not tech illiterate but never worked professionally with tech) the smaller iPad Pro. Target had them on sale for $200 off (Black Friday deal, available online). She has a first-gen Mini right now, and it's her primary internet device. It works really well for her, but it's slow these days and can't run any ad-blocker, since it's not a 64-bit chip :(

Context needed! For me, it'd be a Samsung 960 Pro [1]. Or perhaps an Arduino starter kit [2] or an excellent introductory DIY speaker kit [3].

For a more mainstream audience, I dunno, you can't go wrong with a giftcard to Amazon.

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/10754/samsung-960-pro-ssd-revi...

[2] https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoStarterKit

[3] https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/diy-overnightsens... and/or http://www.parts-express.com/overnight-sensations-mt-speaker...

A thousand bucks for the https://holidayhole.com/

Didn't know this existed thanks for the link!

this is my optimal gift tbh

If you subscribe to the notion that a gift should be something that will bring the recipient joy, but that the recipient wouldn't buy for themselves, I'd say VR headsets, drones, and 3D printers.

If it's an Apple household with a pair of speakers somewhere, an Airplay target (Raspberry Pi or otherwise) is also pretty nice.

Drones are particularly good on the "bringing joy" front, and you can get very fun ones for a lot less than a VR headset.

If you have the cash available, a Vive plus a computer powerful enough to run it is an incredible gift. But if your budget's a bit lower than that, a Hubsan x4 and a spare pack of rotors will cost about $50 and provide days of fun for a very wide range of people.

It's one of those gifts that tends to spread through families - I know more than one which started buying a cheap quadcopter for the youngest generation, and ended up with the oldest generation and all the ones in the middle being equally enthusiastic (and often buying their own).

They're also a lot of fun for a group, which is something that can't necessarily be said of a VR headset most of the time.

Two games that would delight any programmer from Zachtronics:

TIS-100 http://store.steampowered.com/app/370360/ SHENZHEN I/O http://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/

TIS-100 is not very long, but then it's not very expensive.

FYI: TIS-100 is included in the "pay-what-you-want" part of the current Humble Staff Picks bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/nicks-staff-picks-bundle

For kids that are a little older try snap circuits or Lego Mind Storm.

This makes me pine for the days of KNEX tbh

You're in luck! It looks like KNEX is still a thing!

Now I wanna build an RC car out of them...

Drones have been pretty popular in my family, lately.

For the youngsters: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13057791

How about a VR device? I think it can be a great gift.

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