Upgrade Your Life: Gadgets under $25
We love our gadgets, and they can be outrageously expensive. But this week on Upgrade Your Life, Yahoo! News' Becky Worley shows off some surprisingly useful tech gear ... for under $25. Bottle Cap Tripod $9.75Don't you just hate when your shaking hand makes your photos turn out all fuzzy? Or that the photographer never gets to be in the pictures? The Bottle Cap Tripod is the perfect fix. It's a rubber cap that you screw into the tripod mount built into almost all cameras, then you push it onto the top of a full half-liter water bottle, and you've got a portable platform for picture-taking! It's also tiny and easy to throw into a small camera bag.
iWatchz Q Collection Wrist Strap for iPod Nano $24.95
Ever wanted to wear your 6th-generation (square) iPod Nano as a wristwatch? Just slide it onto the iWatchz Wrist Strap, and it snaps into place using the iPod's own clip. The iWatchz' flexible silicone wristband comes in eight different colors, to match the iPod Nano's shades. And it lets you get to your iPod's control buttons, earphone jack and charging connector even while it's plugged in. Can you say Dick Tracy watch? This is a great gift for any gadget-hound who already has a Nano.
Aerobie Aero Press $21.72
The Aero Press makes great espresso-strength coffee in under a minute! Just pour in hot water and coffee grounds, mix, then press it all through the filter you can vary the strength of your coffee by mixing or pressing it longer. It creates a vacuum seal to really pressure the water through the coffee, so it's a much stronger taste than the traditional French press coffee. Cleanup is also really easy, since the grounds and the filter are compacted into a cookie-like wad, and the Press' parts are all made of dishwasher-safe plastic. A pack of 350 replacement filters sells for just $5.
Oster Electric Wine Bottle Opener $17
Opening a wine bottle is hard work, but the Oster electric wine opener makes it dead simple no twisting required. Place it onto the top of the wine bottle, press a button, and in 10 seconds the cork is extracted; absolutely no human effort required. The Oster Electric Wine Bottle Opener can open 30 bottles on a single charge, and it has a rechargeable battery.
Car Power Inverter $19.99
This simple, plug-in adapter is one of the cheapest ways to turn your car's cigarette lighter into an AC outlet, the same as you'd find in your house. And for a few dollars more you can get ...
The PowerCup $26.91
It's a little over $25, but the PowerCup Mobile Inverter has two AC outlets, plus a USB port for recharging gadgets that you'd normally plug into your computer. So you can charge your laptop, your phone, and your Bluetooth headset ... all from your car's cigarette lighter, using the same plugs you use in the wall outlets in your house. Plus, the PowerCup's quirky design (it looks just like a white coffee cup) fits in a generously-sized cupholder. Just don't accidentally try to take a sip from it.
WAGAN Tech Easy Quick Jumper $19.99
Staying with the car's cigarette lighter, remember when jumping your car's battery meant popping the hood and attaching those cables to it? With the Easy Quick Jumper, you don't need to open the hood; you don't even need to know what your car's battery looks like. Just plug each end into the cigarette lighters in the car with the dead battery and the car belonging to the person who's helping out, and wait 5 to 10 minutes. It's especially handy for newer cars, that don't have accessible battery connections.
Grill Daddy BBQ Brush Cleaner $14.98
As Seen On TV! It may be an infomercial product, but it does what it says on the label. Just heat your barbecue grill up and add water to the Grill Daddy, and it steam-cleans your grill with two sets of stainless steel bristles; a row of smaller, narrower bristles on top help the Grill Daddy reach hard-to-clean areas. You can even clean your grill before cooking on it, to get rid of black char marks on food.
Original article by Jared Spurbeck, published on Apr 12, 2011.
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