The best tech gifts for Mother's Day

With more and more devices and gadgets becoming ‘smart’, a smart assistant makes a great gift for Mother’s Day or any other event. Entry level products like the Echo Dot 3 or Google Home Mini are affordable too at under £50/$50.

The Echo Dot 3 costs £49.99 while the Home Mini costs £49 from retailers like Currys, AO, and Argos.

You can see our round up of the best smart speakers right here.

If the special woman in your life is a book worm, an eReader may be the best gift money can afford. It’s a portable alternative to carrying around a physical copy – plus you can literally carry thousands of books in a single device.

We’ve rounded up some of the best eReaders here, though the clear leader in this area is Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite (2018), which is no surprise considering Amazon started off as an online book retailer.

The newest Paperwhite starts at £119.99 – which gets you the model with 8GB storage. You can pair it with Bluetooth to listen to audio books on Audible too.

Of course, there’s the entry level Kindle too for £59.99 (though currently on sale for £49.99 at the time of writing). Plus, an upgraded Kindle with a built-in light will be releasing soon as well for £69.99.

Bundle the Kindle with a case for an even more impressive gift – see the best cases here.

Readly is the Netflix of magazines. For a monthly fee of £7.99/US$9.99 you get unlimited access to over 3,000 magazines (including ours).You can download magazines to read later when you’re offline and also share the account with up to five people. Browse all magazine categories here.

Readly offers gift cards as well. You can buy gift subscriptions for one month up to a year. See all options here.

Okay, one last fitness tracker! We couldn’t leave the Bellabeat Leaf out as it’s perhaps the only gadget on this list that is most catered to women.

Co-founder Urška Sršen, named Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2016, specifically had women’s health in mind when she began the company with Sandro Mur. Outside of activity tracking and sleep monitoring, the Bellabeat Leaf offers personalised insights to manage stress, and when paired with the app, tracks the wearer’s menstrual cycles and fertility.

It’s versatile enough to be clipped onto clothing or worn as a necklace or bracelet.

If the person you’re buying a gift for someone who is more interested in smashing personal bests and records in the gaming sense, a PlayStation Plus membership may be more welcome. 

A 12-month PlayStation Plus membership grants additional discounts and up to 24 free game downloads. You could get a membership directly from PlayStation, but to avoid the complication of setting up payment on behalf of someone else’s account, you could turn to Amazon instead.

There you can find the 12-month subscription option, as we well as shorter subscriptions for 6 months (£37.99 – UK only), 3 months (£19.99/US$24.99), or 1 month (US$9.99 – US only). 

If she prefers Xbox, you can also find Xbox Live Gold memberships, which similarly gets members discounts and free games every month. You can buy a subscription for 12-month (£39.99/US$59.99, 6-month (£29.99/US$39.90) and 3-month terms (£14.99/US$24.99).

For the musically inclined, this smart guitar from Zivix is sure to send waves of gratitude blasting through the air.

The jamstik+ is the world’s first smart guitar and was funded through a Kickstarter campaign, where it raised $813,803. You can now find it in Amazon’s Launchpad category, which promotes devices and products from innovative startups. The jamstik+, which is essentially a MIDI controller, connects via Bluetooth to iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and Mac) and is portable enough for you play anywhere.

What’s “smart” about this guitar is that it can sense the player’s finger movements and placement and translate it on to the device screen in real time. This grants immediate feedback on how accurately you’re playing.

The jamstick+ also includes an app to teach the fledgling guitarist, which is great if the person you’re buying for has always pined to be a guitar hero.

The One4All gift card is a great option if you’re not totally sure what to buy. It’s accepted across 130 stores across the UK including many High Street retailers like Argos, Primark, H&M, and Boots to name a few. Like giving someone cash as a gift, the One4All can’t be topped up, so once it’s used up it’s used up.

You can also customize what the card looks like depending on the occasion you’re buying for. 

Know a lady with long luscious locks who laments hair damage? The Dyson Supersonic may be just what she needs. Sure, it’s pricey for what it is, but it’s also lighter, quieter, faster, and smarter. In fact, we loved this hair dryer so much we gave it 4.5 stars out of 5.

The Dyson Supersonic features a heat-control system that communicates the temperature to the microprocessor 20 times a second, to ensure that the airflow is never too hot to damage the hair. 

With a motor that spins 110,000 times a minute, Dyson has engineered a hair dryer that cuts down both on on dry time, and decibels (Dyson says it reaches an “inaudible frequency” to human ears). As a result of the speed, the dryer needs less heat to dry hair, causing less damage.

The motor is also in the handle, which balances out the weight compared to the traditional dryer design. This makes for a more ergonomic drying experience. If you’re willing to spend a little more, this gift is sure to make the recipient and her hair happy.

GHD has quickly become a coveted brand for hair styling. It has a diverse range of heat styling products, from straighteners, to dryers to crimpers. You can see all its products on its site.

The Gold Professional is the brand’s mid-range staightener (though it’s still £139/$199) with a minimalist set-up. You won’t find any dials or screens because it only heats up to one temperature: 185 degrees Celcius. This is the optimal temperature for any hair type which means your hair stays protected and healthy. You can read our full review here.

The GHD Platinum+ straightener is a higher range option, at £175/$249. There’s also the GHD Air Hair Dryer at £99/$199. You can find the best GHD deals of the month right here.

Okay, we lied. One more fitness tracker: the Fitbit Versa. It’s the latest from Fitbit and is aimed towards women (though men can use it as well). 

Apart from the physical look, which is designed for narrower wrists, the Versa – like the Bellabeat Leaf –  tracks menstrual health, and more uniquely, offers educational content about fertility and reproductive health for younger users through the Fitbit app.

It’s available in Aluminum Black (with a black band), Rose Gold (with a peach band), and Silver Aluminum (with a grey band). There are also the Special Edition versions, which cost £219.99/$199.95 in Graphite Aluminum (with a charcoal band) and Rose Gold Aluminum (with a lavender band).

You can see our full review here.