For me, Mother’s Day gifting is not all about digital technology or flowers and chocolates consumed in minutes, but in lasting smart technology mom can appreciate. After reading through our Mother’s Day Gift Guide, check out a few more favourite gift suggestions, including something digital, something analog and, above all, products that will make mom’s life better.
Viewsonic Portable Smart Projector
The Viewsonic M2E portable LED projector ($699) offers a combination of simplicity, smarts, size and weight. It can bring big screen cinema in any room in a small portable package with gorgeous carry case.
- LED-based with native 1080p (1,920×1,080) resolution
- Easy set-up and use with single USB Type-C connector and advanced instant auto focus and auto V keystone for perfect rectangular images
- 125% Rec.709 colour space for impressive image quality and proprietary Cinema SuperColor+ technology
- Built-in Harman Kardon speakers, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for flexible connectivity
- 2 pounds for portability
- Connectors include: HDMI 2.0/HDCP 1.4, MicroSD and Audio-out
A complete menu onscreen, accessible with the included remote control enables you to set additional features. It has a photo tripod thread in the bottom and can even be used upside down.
SCOTTeVest
Moms need pockets, too! Being able to carry a lot of things with you hisn’t just a “guy thing.” After all, that’s what purses are for, right? The modern tech savvy mom can occasionally ditch that and don a SCOTTeVest for easily carrying her phone, wallet, extra jewelry, snack, water, iPad or tablet chargers, phone, batteries and more. Designed to where you can easily reach all your stuff from the inside and out in a non-clutter look thanks to the clever equal weight and size distribution of items on vest or sleeved designs. Prices range from $100- $250 US with lot’s of Mother’s Day specials l
Ampere Hypercube Wireless Charging Station
Mom will love the Ampere HyperCube Wireless Charging Station and Sleep Aid, which is available for US$220. It is an evolutionary multi-device wireless charger with two a soft colour-changing LED wakeup light and a display screen featuring touch light, sleep sound, sleep timer, snooze, light alarm, sound alarm controls and a small speaker. The three 10W wireless panel chargers for simultaneous charging of Qi-enabled phones, earphones, watches, toothbrushes and more are supplemented by an additional USB-C PD port. Ampere’s includes unique 60W charger and 2m USB-C cable easily accommodating the HyperCube’s power needs. The palm sized cube folds to a half its volume. The cube’s bottom accommodates the optional PD Power Cube for portability away from power outlets. Nice.
Roomba i3+ Robot Vacuum
The iRobot Roomba i3+ Roomba i3+ Robot Vacuum Cleaner with Clean Base® | iRobot® relieves mom and her team of vacuuming chores including emptying the charger base large dust bag every two months. The autonomous i3 which also sells without the fancy dust disposal base, maps your floor including bathrooms and obstacle with day/night sensors, remembers to avoid sudden drops like stairs, and remembers its routes for repeat cleaning commands. It senses dirtier spots repeating passes and tries even harder in spot clean mode. If the i3 needs more time than its 90-minute battery to finish a deep clean, it returns to its base to recharge and heads back out to finish the job. It can be commanded by manual buttons, the iRobot app and Alexa and Google Voice Command starting with 25 verbal commands and expanding to more scenarios like multiple “named” Roombas and the Braava jet m6 mopper. See my recent i3+ hands on review and WiFi HiFi editor Christine’s review of the Braava jet m6.
Samsung S21 Ultra 5G Smartphone with Case & S Pen
A super phone for a super mom with a huge analog advantage…hand-writing. The S21 Ultra 5G ($1,650 outright) combines Samsung’s camera technology, power, screen size, and S Pen capability for quickly scribbling notes onscreen. It should be noted unlike the Galaxy Note series with a built-in S Pen storage slot, the S21 Ultra does not come with an S Pen or internal storage slot. But affordable cases with storable pencil-size S Pens for under $100 are available from Samsung and third parties.
The S21 Ultra has Samsung’s toughest Gorilla Glass, sharpest resolution screen and automatic battery saving adaptive 10Hz to 120Hz display for less stressful viewing too. The 25% brighter 1,500 nits of peak brightness screen helps reading messages in outside sunlight. It shoots 8K video from which you can easily grab individual still 33MP size frames. Never miss a shot and have an eye-popping video to boot. The 108MP still camera challenges professional digital cameras and the 10X optical zoom (yes) lens translates to nothing but the best for mom…even kids sport photography. Basically, mom will be getting the best Samsung mobile technologies in one phone.
Here’s a summary of what mom will be able to do with the mighty S Pen: sweeping gestures, AR Doodle, App Quick Launch, Unlock Phone, handwrite live messages, Voice Read Text, hover message lists for more detail, glance other apps, smart select – event videos, quickly scribble notes on unlocked phone, translate or pronounce text, magnify, write on screen shots, slice Fruit Ninja with S Pen like a real sword, accurately select text, magnify thumbnail photos , works great in Google Gboard, realistic drawing and colour mixing, calligraphy, sign documents, use as OCR tool in Bixby Vision and more! Need I say more?
Samsung SmartTag
Help busy mom find her stuff with the Galaxy SmartTag ($40). This includes pets and kids! Whether it’s around the house, yard or far away in securely in the Galaxy Find Network. The network is based on other users phones in the area your tag is lost.
Fitbit Premium and the Fitbit Sense Watch
If mom uses a Fitbit wearable and she hasn’t yet subscribed to Fitbit Premium, consider upgrading her for $106.99 annually. She’ll get access to guided workouts, meditations, advanced health insights, and sleep tracking, along with other tools to help her reach her fitness goals. She will literally quadruple the value of her device.
For the most detailed workout results with a holistic approach to physical and mental well-being with measured stress levels or many vital body functions when sleeping consider the very polished Fitbit Sense timepiece $330. All the following functions are only found in the Sense.
- An electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor measures palm perspiration for stress analysis
- Compatible ECG to measure Arrhythmia (uneven hear beat)
- Skin temperature, breathing and heart rate as well as resting heart during sleep
- SpO2 levels during your entire sleep
Although the Sense launched in Canada last November, it took several months for Canadian authorities to approve the Sense’s ECG capabilities this year. For me, with relevant heart and sleeping concerns the Sense ECG is invaluable in measuring irregular heart beats and is acceptable by my family physician and cardiologist.
The Sense of course measures all workout parameters of more affordable, smaller and fashionable Fitbit models but the additional sensors excellent notifications and healthy dose of useful on-screen apps make the Sense unique.
Solar Table Lights
Add a splash of colour on your deck with solar table lights ($44) from Free-Light Hand-crafted by glass artisans with mesmerizing hues from Night Time Blue Sparkle, Night Time Apple Green and White Time Sparkle, the solar powered lights will outlast the longest outdoor night events.
Epson EcoTank ET-2760 Cartridge-Free Supertank Printer
Any mom cooped up with kids during the pandemic needs to be a supermom. Armed with the Epson EcoTank ET-2760 All-in-One colour printer ($380) she can print as many home projects as the kids need and then some. Ink costs? It comes with a four ink bottle set (enough to print for two years) equivalent to 80 traditional pricier cartridges…a 90% savings on ink costs. It has all the goodies like two-sided printing, wireless and mobile printing, copy, scan and voice activation. Unlike most consumer printers the ET-2760 has up to high 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi print resolution for sharper prints. To get more from the ET-2760 check out Epson’s Connect Creative Print App for personalized printing from Apple iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches and Android phones and tablets including colouring book projects and printing from social sites.