12 High Tech Gadgets That Will Help You Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions
Updated: Mar. 30, 2022
The latest technology makes staying on track way easier! These are the amazingly innovative gadgets that will get you to goal.
Quit your fattening (and expensive) Starbucks habit
Those yummy coffeehouse drinks might taste amazing, but they aren’t exactly wallet- or waistline-friendly—one coffee you should never order at Starbucks contains over 400 calories! To kick the habit of buying boutique coffee, try making yours at home with a little help from your phone. The Smarter Coffee machine connects with your smartphone so you can brew remotely—it can even know when you come through the door to start up a fresh pot, or you can set a wake-up time so it’s ready when you come downstairs. The price tag ($241) is actually cheaper than just a few months of $4 Starbucks drinks. If you’re trying to quit coffee altogether, try the iKettle instead.
Get a new hobby
One of the technology trends you can expect to see dominate in 2018 is cooler cameras. If you’re looking for a new hobby or outlet for your creative passion, try taking your photography skills to higher heights—literally. The Sharper Image’s Drone Lunar 14.4 inch with HD camera and virtual-reality smartphone viewer will give you a birds-eye view of your surroundings, and leave you with awesome videos. Try it in a park or other natural setting for shots to rival any nature program! Or, capture your environment in the round with the Sharper Image Wi-Fi 960P Dual Leans 360 Digital VR Camera (available only in stores at TJX Companies), which can also be controlled from your smartphone.
Sleep better
Among the New Year’s resolutions health experts wish you’d really make is getting more—and better—sleep. These sleep aids can help you do that. The Memory Foam Pillow with Cool Touch Cover from Sharper Image (available only in stores at TJX Companies) helps avoid the “wrong side of the pillow” feeling by keeping you from overheating, and it molds to your body to keep you comfy through the night. The Sharper Image Digital Tranquility Sound Soother uses sound to help calm your body and improve sleep, a technique recommended by the National Sleep Foundation. Choose from 12 recordings including ocean surf, thunderstorm, summer night, and more.
Get organized
A virtual assistant can save you gobs of time, but hiring an actual person isn’t within most people’s reach. Enter Alexa, an intelligent home assistant that can help you get your life in order. The technology works with Amazon’s next generation of Echo Plus speaker and smart home hub. Get ready more easily in the morning by asking Alexa the weather or what your commute looks like. You can sync your calendar and she can help you manage it by sending reminders about upcoming appointments and adding tasks to to-do lists. Stay up-to-date with news headlines, have her keep your grocery list, and even make calls.
Read more
Your brain needs you to read every single day, but it’s often something we skip in favor of scrolling through Facebook, streaming movies, or watching TV. Renew your love of reading a good old-fashioned book with new high tech gadgets like the Kindle Oasis. Called the best e-reader on the market, the device has a large, seven-inch screen and high-resolution display that adjusts to light with no glare. It’s light to hold and even waterproof, so you can take it in the bath or on that much-needed winter vacation to the Caribbean. This device makes it that much easier to make time to read. These are the books that will completely change your life.
Exercise more
Biking is one of the best and most enjoyable ways to lose weight, but who wants to bike outside during the winter? And spin class at the gym requires you to be on their schedule—you may be more likely to enjoy spinning on your own time with a Peloton bike. Take live or on-demand classes with the 22-inch touchscreen, and track your progress with ride metrics. Pick the type of music you enjoy for a personalized, private workout that’ll help you stick to your goals. But make sure you aren’t making these spinning mistakes.
Improve your workout
You shouldn’t just resolve to exercise more—you’ll want to exercise better. One of the ways you can improve your workout is to get a personal trainer, but now you don’t have to join a gym or hire someone to do it. The first AI (artificial intelligence) trainer, Vi is a wearable device that helps set your goals, tracks your progress, and motivates you during your workout. With great quality sound and a realistic voice, Vi can help guide your exercise for maximum benefits. No matter what your fitness level, Vi uses biometric data to learn more about you and adapts to your current needs. Plus, you can use it to enjoy music and even make phone calls. Check out these other ways to improve your workouts.
Get outside more
Your dog is helping you live longer—especially if you resolve to get outside and walk him more often. You’ll be benefiting not just your pet, but yourself as well: Besides getting exercise, being outdoors in nature helps your overall well being. But, you want your pet to be protected from getting lost while in the fresh air. The Bluetooth-enabled ID tag Pawscout can make sure Spot doesn’t run off at the dog park, hiking trail, or even in your own neighborhood. With this peace of mind, you might be more likely to step outside with your pet more often—or get yourself a pooch, if you don’t already have one, if only for the amazing health benefits of dog ownership.
Eat better
There are many foods with gluten that will surprise you, so if you’re looking to eat less gluten for health reasons, try the gluten detector Nima. Just add a bit of food to a test capsule and insert it into the sensor—according to its website, the device is 99 percent accurate at detecting gluten down to 20 parts per million. The product was built by experts from MIT, Stanford, and others, and lists doctors from Columbia University and Mass General as advisers. For those with celiac disease, using it when out and about can also help you keep resolutions to spend more time with friends. These are the gluten-free foods nutritionists love.
Lose weight
Hopefully all this adjusting your diet and exercising will help you shed pounds—and you can manage your weight loss with the help of cool tech gadgets like a smart scale. The Fitbit Aria 2 calculates not just your weight, but your body fat percentage, BMI, and lean body mass. It gets to know you over time to track and chart trends in your weight, and syncs with data from your smartphone fitness apps. Plus, Aria will keep data from multiple members of your family separate (and private). Its thin design and polished glass surface will make a sleek addition to any bathroom. Need more help reaching your goals? Find out the real key to weight loss, according to science.
Take care of your health
Your Fitbit isn’t just for working out—find out the surprising things your fitness tracker knows about you when you use it to manage your health. The Fitbit Flex 2 tracks your activity 24/7, so it can read your activity level throughout the day (not just when you’re working out), monitor your sleep patterns, and is even waterproof. It even helps remind you to take breaks during your workday, with gentle reminders to move if you’ve been sitting at the computer for too long—your heart will thank you! You can also use the results to get a baseline idea of how healthy you are to come up with a plan to improve your health habits.
Never be late again
If you hate waking up in the morning, you’re using the wrong alarm clock. For those who aren’t “morning people,” hitting the snooze button a bunch of times is ruining your sleep—and probably making you frequently late to work. Looking to make a change that will help you feel more refreshed and even be more productive throughout the day? A new type of alarm clock will help you wake up better by using gradual light that mimics the sunrise to reset your circadian rhythms, as opposing to a blaring, annoying beep. The Philips Somneo Sleep and Wake-Up Light (notice the absence of the word “alarm”) increases light from red to orange to yellow to wake you gently. You can also select natural sounds of the morning that gradually get louder, for a multi-sensory experience.
Here are some inspiring New Year’s resolutions you’ll truly want to keep.
Originally Published: December 18, 2017
