Black Friday and the official start of the holiday season is upon us. iTechGear is dedicated to helping everyone find the best gifts for their loved ones, whether technology-based or an excellent gift idea. Each week between now and December 22, 2023, we’ll publish our editor’s picks to help you find the perfect gifts!  This week, Chris has pulled his five top Black Friday picks.  They won’t be all technology-based, but they will be things people who love tech can use.

 

Microsoft Audio Dock – $48.61 on Amazon for a limited time.
Functioning as a small docking station (only four ports – 1 HDMI, 2 USB-C, 1 USB-A), The Microsoft Audio Dock is a Microsoft Teams-certified device that functions as a speaker, a microphone, and a minimal docking station (supports two external monitors – 1 via HDMI, one via USB-C). It has a dedicated and permanently attached USB-C power cable to charge your PC. Press the Teams button, and Teams will start and connect your audio sources automatically (no constant fiddling with Settings when you bounce between locations and different docks). Usually priced at $250, this is a steal at its current price of $49. I don’t need this at all, but at this price, it seems like an excellent buy that’s hard to resist, even for me!

 

AeroBand AeroGuitar – $459/$599 directly from AeroBand
I’ve waited for this to ship from Kickstarter for at least 18 months. AeroBand took a few steps backward during the project – for all the right reasons – and returned to the drawing board at least once or twice after receiving feedback from early adopters. From everything I’ve seen and heard, the result is a much better instrument and something that you could perform with in a live setting. This is NOT a toy. It’s a real guitar that does almost everything except bend strings. It was supposed to ship over a YEAR ago, but I stuck with it and didn’t demand a refund. My AeroGuitar will arrive the week of 11/27/2023.

This is an entirely new and different way to learn and play guitar. AeroGuitar is a fully MIDI-compatible instrument that works with a native iPad or iPhone app. Its MIDI connection also works with apps like GarageBand and Logic Pro to record tracks directly to your computing device of choice. With the correct security settings, its iPad app will also run on your Mac.

The strings are between the two “pickups” on the guitar body. The neck is fully detachable and has pain-free nylon strings. The concept of “action” on this guitar (the distance between the bottom of the lines on the top of the neck and the force required to press the strings to the neck) is non-existent. You only need to cover the strings to create your chord/sound. The AeroGuitar can play standard chords, bar chords, hammers, lead, rhythm, and classical styles and has an easy chord mode that allows beginners to play full songs.

There’s so much more here that allows it to function as an actual performance instrument that they’re impossible to list here comprehensively. You need to visit the device’s home page to find out more! It’s also available on Amazon.

 

Ōura Ring – $269-$319 directly from Ōura Ring
If you’re interested in your health and learning how your previous night’s sleep affects it, you must look at Ōura Ring seriously. I believe in wearables to monitor your health. Ōura allows you to monitor sleep, your body temperature, your active and resting heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, active calorie burn, total calorie burn, step count, time in bed, sleep time, and sleep efficiency rate (among other important metrics, like stress levels).

When charted over weeks and months, you’ll see how your in/activity affects your heart health, sleep, and readiness (ability to attack the day). When you change any of these metrics/ outcomes, you can watch its effect on those outcomes. The app automatically charts them daily. The information you can gain is life-altering – in a good way. It also tracks and helps you manage famine health as well. The data integrates with Apple Health.

I did an unboxing of the Ōura Ring a little while ago and reviewed the whole purchasing process. I love this product, and despite having several smartwatches, if I didn’t have one already, I’d seriously look at getting one now.

 

Anker USB C to USB-A Charger Cables – $8.54 6ft, $9.99 3ft, $14.99 10ft
With the iPhone 15 Series now supporting USB-C instead of Lightning, EVERYBODY can use a reliable USB-C cable. Anker makes some GREAT products, and we love them here at iTechGear. These are braided, have solid, rubberized connectors, and will work with Android and iOS/iPadOS devices.

 

Framework Laptop 16″ – DIY starting at $1399, Prebuilt starting at $1699
This is by far one of the BEST Windows/Linux laptops I have ever seen in my entire life. The best thing about today’s laptops is that they offer desktop power in a mobile or portable form factor. The worst thing about today’s laptops is that because they are thinner and thinner with every generation, most, if not all, of the components are not upgradeable. With technology changing so quickly, this is a huge problem as many laptops are outdated shortly after they’re ordered and delivered.

With Framework Laptops, this isn’t the case. You can upgrade nearly every component used in the laptop, not just the RAM or SSD. You can easily upgrade the motherboard and processor, graphics adapter, display, keyboard, etc., by swapping out modules, parts, and components.

 

Important Links!

• Subscribe to our Newsletter!
• Subscribe to our podcast!
• Subscribe to our Weekly Podcast on
  • Apple Podcasts
  • Spotify
  • Pandora