PRICE: Despite any marketing claims to the contrary meal kits cost more than buying groceries. However, they usually cost less than take-out and are healthier. If you want to gauge whether the trade-off is worth it the good news is that much like mattress-in-a-box companies, meal kit companies usually have some running promotions. Most meal kit pricing models offer bulk discounts: The more meals you purchase per week, the lower each serving’s price will be. We go into detail on dietary restrictions and subscription costs below. If you ever want to skip a week or cancel, you can find that information in the account section on your chosen service’s website.
WIRED: Meal kits are convenient; I didn’t have to worry about planning dinner or panic-eating junk food after forgetting to eat a proper meal during the day. Learning to cook with one of these services can instill confidence and impart basic knowledge. If you’re busy, or can’t be bothered, meal kits may be just what you need to get cookin’, and cooking at home is never a bad thing. Meal kits may be right for you if you’re cooking for a small household, if you work nontraditional hours, if you hate figuring out what to make for dinner, if you want to stop ordering out all the time, or if you are trying to develop your cooking skills.
TIRED: Nothing beats learning how to cook the old-fashioned way, so be sure to try that, too. It’s cheaper and you learn more if you pick out fruit yourself or break down a whole chicken for $5. You simply don’t get that experience if everything arrives at your door and the chicken parts come prepackaged. Planning and shopping is an integral part of the art of cooking. Meal kits are also generally more wasteful than traditional home cooking, and often more expensive. Meal kits may be the wrong choice for you if you are on a tight budget, if you’re cooking for a large household, or if you want tighter control over the specific ingredients you’ll be using.
The right-to-repair movement has a catchy name, but before you can worry about the right to repair, you need the ability to repair. If you don’t know how to take your device apart, there’s no sense worrying about whether it’s legal to do so. Without basic repair skills and a helping of innate curiosity, the right to repair is useless.
This is where iFixit’s new Hub Soldering Iron enters the fray. iFixit, a longtime supporter of the right to repair, has thousands of tutorials online to help you actually repair things. Now the company has made a soldering iron to help you roll up your sleeves and get into the physical world of repair.
The Right to Solder
I grew up around soldering. My father built his own tube-powered ham radio gear, but for whatever reason I never actually did any soldering until rather late in my repair life. An electrician friend of mine was appalled that I didn’t solder on a regular basis and gifted me a bare-bones soldering iron, which was all I had for an embarrassingly long time. Later I bought a Pinecil, mostly for the small, portable form factor, but that cheapo soldering iron was all I had for years.
While a cheap soldering iron is better than no soldering iron, I’ve come to think the reason many people are intimidated by soldering, or have problems when they first try it, is due to cheap soldering pens. Cheap tools are the source of many a problem, but with soldering irons the big one is that they don’t get hot enough, which makes the solder stick to the tip rather than flowing nicely where you want it. Cheap irons also lack interchangeable tips, which make soldering easier by fitting exactly where you want them to go.
iFixit, which made its name in the repair world creating guides, tutorials, and more all designed to help consumers be more than consumers, has launched a new store called the Fix Hub. The first product is a portable USB-C soldering iron.
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
iFixit’s new soldering iron is actually several products. The core is the Smart Soldering Iron for $80. It’s powered by USB-C and comes with a beveled, 1.5-mm tip. (There are six tips available, and iFixit plans to have more.) Then there’s the Portable Soldering Station for $250, which includes the iron and a battery pack designed for the iron. The final option is the Complete Toolkit for $300, which includes everything from the soldering station package, plus useful tools like wire strippers, flush cutters, solder, flux, a wire holder, cleaner, and more.
The thing that jumps out at you the most when first opening the kit is the magnetic cap. This is a thing of genius. It not only covers the tip, but you can put it on even when the tip is hot, and it will automatically power down to the idle temperature (which you can set in the app). Every soldering iron should have a cap like this. This feature alone makes iFixit’s soldering iron great for beginners. The cap also has a wire attachment that allows it to be mounted on the battery pack.
There are other user-friendly features, like an LED system that warns you when the iron is hot and motion sensors to detect when you set it down for a while (which cause it to automatically shut off). The motion sensors can also detect if you drop it and will shut it off automatically. I tested all three of these features, and they worked without issue.
Several years ago, at the launch of its V15 Detect Submarine, Dyson finally dipped its toe in the wet-mop game. The clever, water-filled detachable head and super scrubbing bars gave customers one device with which to vacuum and wet-mop hard floors. It was a quick, premium fix, for those people who want to bring Dyson’s signature efficacy and ease of use to the horrible chore of mopping. And now with the new Dyson WashG1, the company has ditched vacuum suction altogether and designed an all-in-one wet mop that slurps up debris and scrubs your floors.
I’ve spent the past few weeks using the Dyson WashG1 and have been impressed by the cleaner’s ability to embarrass me with just how dirty my floors had become, while also gathering up a surprising amount of pet hair and general detritus.
Photograph: Dyson
Dense Fibers
The secret to the mopping suction of the Dyson WashG1 lies in the two highly absorbent microfiber rollers that rotate counter-clockwise to each other. A pump then distributes water from the 27-ounce tank evenly across 26 pulse-modulated (read: squirty) water outlets, soaking each roller. As the rollers spin, they scrub the floor beneath, while the 64,800 filaments-per-square-centimeter of microfiber soak up spills and cling onto any bits of dust, food, pet hair, and Cheerios.
Traditional wet-and-dry vacuums have been able to suck up all manner of stuff for years, but cleaning them is often disgusting, with hair and dirt matted around wet, grubby brush bars. Here, Dyson has done a superb job separating the solids from the dirty water, making cleaning impressively simple. Fill the water tank, press Go, push around your home, and dirty water is extracted from the rollers and pumped into the dirty water tank. A nylon-bristled inner brush removes dirt and debris from the microfiber rollers, depositing it in the removable debris tray.
Photograph: Chris Haslam
It is a significant upgrade in almost every way from the Dyson Submarine.
The pull-out debris tray has a 500-micron mesh to further separate dirty water from the large debris. The result is dirty, but not gritty, water in the tank—which can be simply poured down the sink—and a tray full of dirt that can be tapped into the bin. It’s worth noting too that, once back charging on the supplied upright dock, it will automatically self-clean to be ready for the next job. Dyson recommends you manually clean the rollers after three washes, which involves running everything under the faucet.
Wait a Minute
The Dyson WashG1 cannot entirely replace the need for a traditional vacuum. Maybe if your home has only hard floors and is hermetically sealed, you might get away with it, but for most people, especially those with pets and kids, you’ll still need to vacuum or have a robot do it for you. Dyson claims it can replace your vacuum, but I’m not yet convinced. Combined with even the cheapest Dyson cordless vacuum, you’ll not get much change from $1,000.
It is great at cleaning hard surfaces though, and I was impressed by how little standing water was left after passing the rollers over the kitchen tiles. When I first tried the WashG1, the color of the water in the dirty tank was shameful. I naturally blame it on the two dogs that had stayed the previous week. I was most impressed by the cleaning performance on tiles. While it won’t bring grout back to life, the tiles were noticeably cleaner.
my childhood was spent watching a lot of TV. Drew Barrymore’s films, specifically, played a crucial role in shaping who I am today—from Never Been Kissed and Charlie’s Angels to Ever After and He’s Just Not That Into You, I can discuss her IMDB profile with a grin on my face for hours. So, one would think that when it came to testing an electric kettle from her kitchenware brand, Beautiful, I’d be ecstatic. Unfortunately, I was hesitant.
As WIRED’s resident electric kettle expert, I’ve tested tons of types—all of which vary in size, spout, material, and features. So I know what makes for an excellent option. A majority of our top picks come from well-known brands like KitchenAid, Breville, Cuisinart, and Fellow. So when I unboxed the electric kettle from Beautiful, I sensed that it would likely end up under “honorable mentions”—not because it’s a lesser-known brand but because it’s common for celebrities to slap their name on a mediocre product and expect it to sell because their name is attached to it.
Of course, I gave this electric kettle a fair chance nonetheless. I put it through its paces the same as I do with any other kettle—judging it based on design, temperature control, how quickly it boils, ease of use, and more. And, to my very shocking surprise, I fell in love with it. So much so that it continues to retain the top spot in our guide to Best Electric Kettles.
Dainty and Discreet
Whenever I test an electric kettle, I always start with the aesthetic. This is an appliance meant to be used often, so it’ll likely be left on a countertop for everyone to see. It doesn’t have to look fancy, but it can’t be an eyesore either. And, depending on how much counter space you have, it should be compact too. The Beautiful kettle checks all those boxes and more.
For starters, it comes in great colors, including lavender, cornflower blue, sage green, and thyme green, as well as more muted tones like oyster gray, porcini taupe, and black sesame. I chose the black colorway because it matches my Zwilling toaster. It’s not as cute as the blue or green, but it looks sleek. My only gripe is that the matte finish means fingerprints are easier to see. But it’s easy to wipe off with a microfiber cloth or even a wet paper towel.
Photograph: Walmart
You might be wondering how fingerprints even appear on this kettle, since you’re mainly maneuvering it with the handle. That’s because it’s controlled via a touch-activated display. When you plug it in and turn it on, the display will appear with different controls. There’s the power button; preset options for white, green, and oolong tea; a button to boil water (212 degrees Fahrenheit); and a keep-warm function; along with plus and minus buttons if you want to set it to a specific temperature. Each button is super responsive too—it always works with a light tap.
The best part is that the display appears only when you need it. I didn’t think I would love this feature as much as I do, but if you’re the type who cares a lot about home decor, then it’s ideal. Unlike the traditional knobs, buttons, or dials, which can look clunky, distracting, and obtrusive, it’s a clever way to balance design and function. That way, whether it’s in use or unplugged, it blends in nicely with your interior. The integrated display also means both the kettle and the base have a smaller footprint without separate controls.
At 1.7 liters, it’s a common size for most electric kettles. It can pour up to seven cups of tea, which should be more than enough for families of four or if you live with roommates. And, speaking of other people, this kettle packs one of my favorite features: an insulated, double-walled body. It not only keeps you from accidentally burning yourself but also others around you. That way, you don’t have to constantly warn people to “be careful not to touch the kettle”—which can get very annoying after a while. For added safety, there’s also an auto-shutoff feature.
Photograph: Brenda Stolyar
Photograph: Brenda Stolyar
It boils water quickly as well. According to the company, this kettle can boil a full pot in under seven minutes, but I’ll typically hear it beep after five and a half minutes. The Keep Warm function maintains the water temperature for up to 30 minutes, which is great for someone like me who tends to forget I put the kettle on to boil.
The kettle itself is also really comfortable to use and carry around the kitchen. While it’s heating, the real-time temperature appears on the display, which is convenient if you want to check it at a glance. The handle also allows for a stable grip, even when the kettle is full. The base swivels 360 degrees, which makes it easy to pick up and put down the kettle regardless of the angle it’s placed on your kitchen counter or table.
It’s worth noting that there have been complaints online of some users seeing corrosion on the stainless steel inside the kettle. I haven’t experienced this, but it might mean you’ll have to keep up with maintenance a bit more than you would with other options. You may just need to descale it if you notice mineral deposits inside the kettle or any grainy sediment at the bottom of your mug.
It shouldn’t necessarily be a dealbreaker—especially at its $45 price. Between the touch-activated display, double-walled body, adorable design, quick boil time, preset modes, and more, the Beautiful Kettle packs all the same features that are typically included only in pricier kettles. It’s been at least half a year since I first started using it, and it has yet to be dethroned. I’m truly sorry I ever doubted you, Drew.
Nest’s smart thermostats have been an icon of the smart home since they hit the market in late 2011. Nothing said smart like a device that could learn your habits and make your home operate more efficiently without having to fiddle with settings and automations. In the 13 years since, Nest Learning Thermostats have been easy to identify, with the same thick silver bezel and compact circular screen. This design was radical at a time when most smart thermostats looked like boring, rectangular, beige boxes.
Google’s fourth-generation Nest Learning Thermostat has an entirely new look, transforming what now looks like a basic tech gadget into something of an art piece for your wall. It’s got new smarts too, and includes a temperature sensor to place elsewhere in the home. It’s a refreshing upgrade to a longtime staple, and feels smart without being intrusive or overly complex—an important middle line not all smart devices find.
Slim Setup
Photograph: Nena Farrell
If you’re hoping to pop the fourth-generation Nest Learning Thermostat onto the backing of a previous Nest thermostat, you’re out of luck. The thermostat base for the new model is a different size, so you’ll have to switch out the old base for the new one.
While the third-generation thermostat itself is smaller, its base is a little larger with larger connectors; the new thermostat base is smaller with positively tiny connector buttons. You’d think with the larger 3.9-inch screen that the base would be larger, but it has a smaller footprint on your wall, which is nice. It comes with an optional plate as with previous generations, but the new version is an oval rather than a rectangle. A 3.9-inch screen might not sound that big, but it looks surprisingly large on the wall if you’re used to the smaller Nest thermostats, or even something like my previous thermostat, the square Honeywell T6.
Photograph: Nena Farrell
Installing the Nest is easy; make sure your system is compatible and that you’ve flipped off the relevant breaker to cut power. The Nest app is no longer at play with this model. Google has been gradually transitioning many of its features and capabilities to the Google Home app, and that’s what you’ll use for this new model. Google Home walks you through the steps of removing your old thermostat, labeling the wires, and installing the new thermostat over it.
On light roast coffees in particular, our early xBloom efforts came out a bit acidic and thin when we used the default recipes that came with the app—a sign the coffee was not being extracted well enough.
Was our initial underextracted coffee the result of Philadelphia’s semihard tap water? Perhaps.
Either way, we slowed down the pour by swapping out xBloom’s house filters to thick-papered Kalita filters, and also deviated sharply from the app’s suggested recipes. We increased the pause times on each pour, and ground our beans much finer. Once we finally got it figured out, the results were admirable.
But let’s say you don’t want to try for days or weeks to figure out your ideal formula. The xBloom offers a shortcut in the form of roast-to-order xPods ($13 to $24 for eight) available by mail order, often from some of the hypiest third-wave roasters in coffee. Your compostable pods will arrive with an RFID recipe card, preprogrammed and theoretically optimized to each bean. Just swipe the card, then push the button.
Results will differ by roaster, as in life. A recipe for a single-origin bean from Indian-American coffee roaster Kaveri was dialed in beautifully, leading to a cup brimming with chocolate and citrus. Not so with NBA player Jimmy Butler III’s Bigface coffee brand. That recipe, seemingly left at the machine’s default coarse grind, led to tart and woefully underextracted coffee.
Still Brewing
The pods are also costly, about $1.60 to $3 apiece. This makes this option most attractive to people with less time than money, or companies who’d like an impressive pour-over device in their break room.
The people we expect to be most excited about the xBloom are those who love technology itself. The xBloom Studio is, quite simply, cool. It’s new and interesting, and fun to play with. And once you figure it out, the machine rewards you with delicious coffee.
Photograph: xBloom
For gamers or obsessive optimizers, the xBloom Studio offers endless variables to toggle in the quest for the precisely dialed and repeatable pour-over. It is a robot that will do almost all of the work for you at the push of a button, and never get distracted while crusty-eyed and bleary from the struggle of facing yet another day.
As with any new technology, expect some kinks: The same inputs don’t always lead to the same results. Sometimes the grinder piles up most of the beans on one side of the dripper, and the machine blithely pours water as if this didn’t happen. Other confounding variables include altitude, water hardness, and the freshness of the coffee.
The machine also saw some early glitches after its release in June 2024, including a “waiting” error caused by the device’s overflow protection algorithm; this has mostly been resolved by successive firmware updates. A dripper arm also cracked during brewing and was quickly replaced with an updated version.
Which is all to say, the dream of the always-perfect cup is not yet here. But it’s close enough to be tantalizing.
“Because of additive manufacturing, 3D printing, I think we’re heading toward sort of a generation of makers again and sort of a mass maker society,” Antoniuk says.
Still, large-scale customization platforms like Gantri’s aren’t likely to completely upend the market for upscale goods.
“Luxury industries are always going to exist,” Antoniuk says. “It’s the most stable industry in the world. It never dies. It’s recession- and depression-proof just because of, you know, the wealthy.”
There’s an even bigger picture, though. As nifty as the lamps are, they aren’t really the primary ambition behind Gantri You. The program is also a proof of concept for Yang’s vision of a manufacturing process that enables physical factory production run like software. Yang says this newfangled system has been the goal of the company pretty much all along.
“I think it’s time for Gantri to share our true vision,” Yang says. “It’s not just about making products. This has been the vision from day one.”
The ultimate goal, Yang says, is to treat physical factory production the same way you’d run a software system. Tweak the code, and you can change the dimensions, composition, or visual aspects of each individual part. Turns out, Gantri is an enterprise manufacturing software company making ends meet as a lamp distributor.
Right now Gantri’s production process is still dependent on the same bioplastics it’s been using for years, but Yang says the company is working to incorporate new materials into its additive process. That means it may be possible to go from lamps to tables, couches, and even beyond furniture. Gantri has partnered with other furniture companies, and with lots of finagling, and now an allowance for user input that can tweak all sorts of options, Yang hopes his company’s new manufacturing system can be applied to all sorts of industries.
Antoniuk says that kind of flexibility in both design and customization bodes well for how people think about the stuff they consume. For much of human history, Antoniuk points out, creators were the blacksmiths. People existed in tight-knit communities where they could see how their products were made and were very aware of what went into their consumption—the materials, the handiwork, and the waste. In an era of mass-produced products, people are removed from that process and don’t have any emotional attachment to what it takes to make something. Giving them a hand in that could help remind people of the process.
“People just kind of got removed from thinking, like, I’m actually responsible for this,” Antoniuk says. “There’s a chance that maybe it can all come back a little bit closer to us. It’s a deeply important part of our future, I think, and what it could lead into.”
To make sure the Tally Pro was as useful as I thought, I brought it to Diego Espinoza, retail director at Café Brújula in Oaxaca City, Mexico. The company’s cafés around town feature beans from many small producers, and I learned that recipes and ratios for each type of bean are created by a three-barista team.
I handed the scale to Espinoza, showing him the timer and scale functions, and noted how his eyes widened a bit when I showed him the brew assist function. To start, he pulled out a container of Brújula’s Maestros beans from producer Eva Gonzalez in Santa Cruz Acatepec. He began by grinding the beans on an Estrella hand grinder, a favorite of his even though there’s a pro-level electric grinder on the opposite side of the espresso machine.
Pulling a Chemex carafe down from a shelf, he set the ratio on the Fellow to 1:16 and weighted out 19 grams of grounds, at which point the screen displayed that we’d want 304 grams of water.
“Having the scale and timer readouts right next to each other is very useful,” he noted, before pausing to appreciate how the timer started with the first drop of water. “Normally, you start the timer and start pouring and they’re always a second or two off.”
I watched him get the hang of it and by the third batch of coffee, he was wholly proficient, the scale’s intuitiveness clearly helping him brew.
Together, he and I also figured out how to reverse engineer the machine to brew to a specific volume—like your favorite mug—something you could do with normal scale and a calculator, but was simplified using the Fellow.
“If you have your favorite cup, you can brew to that,” noted Espinosa. “My girlfriend loves using a huge cup.”
Fancy but Functional
Together, we considered how the Tally Pro compares to some of its notable competition. At Café Brújulas’ roastery, they use a Hario scale that combines the weight and time on one screen, but the features function wholly independent of one another, meaning the timer doesn’t start automatically when you begin pouring. The Hario’s scale is also far less sensitive.
“With the Hario, you can’t measure a single bean. The Fellow can,” Espinosa noted with surprise. Yet the Hario or other great kitchen scales cost about a third as much, a ratio that does not work out in the Fellow’s favor. On the other end of the spectrum, Acacia’s Pearl costs $150 and while it doesn’t do the ratio thing, it helps you pour at a specific speed, aka the “flow rate”—something pour-over people appreciate.
Finally, Espinoza and I puzzled out the Fellow target audience for the Tally Pro. While something like the Acacia might be better for baristas who make the same set of drinks over and over, he liked the Tally Pro for people like Brújula’s recipe development team members.
“They are always adjusting. This would save them some time,” he said. “At home, it would be good for someone who likes to have friends over and make different cup sizes of different coffees. It could also be great for people with coffee subscriptions, who are always getting different kinds of beans.”
“If you always have the same coffee with the same recipe, you don’t need this. It’s too much information,” said Espinoza. “This is for coffee explorers.”
Beyond that, I really admired its wonderfully solid build. Even though it might be described as the love child of a record player crossed with a Roomba, it’s somehow still quite good-looking, both simple and understated. The readout doesn’t flutter like lesser scales sometimes do. We both really liked the ratio calculator, something that will always be useful. Plus, the more you use it, the more impressive and useful the intuitiveness becomes. With its scale and timer integration combined with a very pared-down interface, it’s always ready for the next step, meaning making great coffee becomes faster and easier.
I asked Espinoza if he’d buy it for himself, and that seemed to depend on how much spare cash he might have on hand on some theoretical date in the future.
“However,” he countered, “it would make a great gift for me.”
Bidet seats are one of those luxuries you can live without until you realize what you’re missing. My first encounter came at a ramen spot on the West Coast of the US that had imported a high-end Toto washlet from Japan, where they’ve been around for decades. I might have been an early adopter, but bidets are getting more common in the US. Toto’s American sales doubled in the first quarter of 2020 and have grown by double digits every year since. More people are starting to realize that American bathroom habits are … gross. Think about it: When you get something on you that smells foul and is full of germs, do you want to wash it off or smear it off with a piece of paper?
OK, I convinced you. So what should you buy? The WIRED team has swapped out plenty of toilet seats in search of the best bidets. We spent at least one week testing each model—some for far longer—and managed the installations ourselves without the help of a professional plumber. We’ve got budget bidets, bidets with heated seats, and ones that automatically open up, happily inviting you to empty your bowels. We’ve got your bum covered.
Updated August 2024: We’ve updated pricing and added the Alpha UX Pearl to our Honorable Mentions section.
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What Kind of Bidet Should You Buy?
Think of the shape. Most American home toilets come in one of two standard sizes: round or elongated. A round toilet bowl is 16.5 inches long while an elongated bowl is about 18.5. Bidets on this list will fit one but not the other. Measure twice, buy once. All bidets we reviewed are attachments that take the place of the seats on existing toilets, but there are also toilets with built-in bidet seats.
Electric seat or simple sprayer? The bidets on this list are seats that you attach to the top of your toilet and connect to the tank and an AC outlet—except for the Tushy, a sprayer that mounts below your existing seat and taps into your water lines. You must have a shock-blocking GFCI-protected outlet within a few feet of the toilet to use them safely. The Tushy does not require electricity but also doesn’t heat the water, which will be at room temperature. The cheaper electric bidets we’ve used typically start with a quick burst of room-temperature water that quickly gives way to warm water. The best bidets—typically with a price to match—start by spraying warm water and will allow you to control the temperature within a few degrees. Most electric bidets also have fans that will help dry you off, but you’ll probably still want to have a few squares of toilet paper handy for drying.
What’s your budget? You can get an attachment that fits on your current seat and taps into the cold water line filling your toilet for about $100. Some high-end bidet attachments can cost $2,000. The sweet spot tends to be at a price point between $500 and $1,000, where you get a sturdy seat with nice features but without over-the-top extras like voice commands (yes, really) and a backup battery.
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