Stocking Fillers

Technology

Stocking fillers

Little gifts that’ll bring big smiles this Christmas

We’re all watching our money this year, and that means when it comes to Christmas presents we’re perhaps being a little more careful with what we’re buying for the people we care about. But you don’t have to splash the cash to get great tech gifts for family, friends or colleagues. There are stacks of great gifts for every kind of person. If you’re buying for someone who’s mad about music, wireless Bluetooth speakers can be great buys. Amazon’s Echo Dot speaker is a good choice of smart speaker, currently £25.99, and the JBL Go 3 is a fun and very small speaker that’s easy to take anywhere. It’s around £30. We’re also very impressed by the Earfun Air headphones, which are an incredible bargain at £33.95. If you’re buying for kids, Belkin’s Soundform Nano (£29) sounds great, comes in fun colours and has a volume limit to protect their hearing. Phone and tablet accessories can be great gifts too, whether that’s a genuine leather phone case (typically £30 to £60), a Popsocket phone grip (around £11 for the nicest ones) or an AirTag or Tile tracker (£20 to £35) for someone who’s always misplacing their purse or their keys. There are lots of clever gifts for outdoor types too, including self-cleaning water bottles with UV light (around £49), multi-tools to cope with every conceivable kind of task (from £20) and solar lanterns (from around £20). If the person you’re buying for would rather cook in a kitchen than halfway up a mountain, there are some great cooking gadgets for relatively low prices including the Thermapen instant-read thermometer (£39), which has saved many of our meals from over- or under-cooking, and the brilliant Stirr automatic pan stirrer, which you can use to prevent sauces and stews from sticking to the pot while you go and do something more interesting. And for coffee fans there’s the excellent AeroPress coffee maker (£31), which makes delicious coffee incredibly quickly without making it bitter. There’s a mobile version too, so the lucky recipient can get great coffee wherever they may roam. 14

Stirr Automatic Pot Stirrer

The Stirr is a simple solution to a common problem: some things stick to your pots and pans if you don’t constantly stir them, but stirring is often very time consuming and extremely boring. Stirr sits in the pot and uses cooking-grade nylon legs to do the stirring for you. £20-£40, amazon.co.uk

Apple AirTag

Apple’s AirTags and its main rival, Tile trackers, can be attached to keys, put in purses or snuck into schoolbags to make it easy to find them again if they get lost, misplaced or even stolen. The battery lasts for months. £35, Apple.com

Official Samsung Galaxy S22 leather case

Cases don’t just look good: they help protect your pricey phone so you can get a better trade-in price when you replace it. Official leather cases are often quite expensive but that’s not the case with Samsung. From £24, amazon.co.uk

Gerber Truss Multi-Tool

You can spend huge sums of money on multitools such as the famous Leatherman, but brands such as Gerber make excellent alternatives that deliver all the key features for considerably less money. Other brands may be even cheaper. £40, amazon.co.uk

JBL Go 3

This little speaker has excellent go-anywhere energy and it’s not so loud that you’ll get complaints from the recipient’s nearest and dearest. It sounds great for its size, it’s really affordable and the battery life is very good. £34, uk.jbl.com Please mention The Villager and Town Life when responding to adverts