Raising a family is not an easy job, and the women who care for us each and every day deserve to be told how special they are each and every day. While we tend to forget that, Mother’s Day reminds us we need to celebrate the women in our lives, whether they’re our own mothers or our wives and partners helping us raise the young ones.
Mother’s Day 2020 is fast approaching, and there’s a pretty good chance you won’t be able to take her out to her favourite restaurant this year, or even get to a store to shop for something she might like. So we have to get creative, and TechRadar’s Australian team has put together this little list of great tech gift ideas that you can buy online and have delivered in time for May 10.
Whether she’s a whiz in the kitchen, loves to cosy up with a book or entertain at home, we’ve got a gadget or gizmo that’s sure to make her smile from ear to ear.
Top 10 Mother’s Day 2020 gift ideas at a glance
- Bellabeat Leaf Urban
- Amazon Kindle Paperwhite
- Tile Mate
- Google Nest Hub
- Sonos Move
- Dyson Supersonic
- Nespresso Vertuo Plus
- Fitbit Versa 2
- Foreo UFO
- Jabra Elite 75t
You’re probably familiar with fitness wearables that go on the wrist, but did you know there’s a new niche growing that could make the perfect gift for your mum? Smart jewellery. The Bellabeat Leaf Urban is a wellness tracker without a screen or the insistent buzz of notifications. It looks exactly like a beautiful piece of jewellery that can be worn as a necklace, bracelet or brooch – something that will look great with any outfit – and it will track activity, sleep, stress and reproductive health, then present it all through the accompanying smartphone app. As a gift, it straddles the best of both worlds: elegant jewellery that does more than the eye can see.
If you’ve got a mum who’s an avid reader, the Kindle Paperwhite is a gift she’s sure to enjoy. Even on the base 8GB version, this ereader can store thousands of books which she can read on a wonderful 6-inch E Ink display that imitates the look of real paper. It’s waterproof, so mum can relax in the bath or by the pool with her favourite stories, while the built-in light will minimise screen glare when she’s reading in bright sunlight. Font sizes are easily adjusted too, and with a battery life that lasts weeks, she’ll be able to read comfortably for long periods of time.
Read our Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review
Does your mum often find herself searching for her keys before heading out the door? Then you might want to get her a Tile Mate Bluetooth tracker. It’s designed like a keychain and can be attached to a variety of items: her keys, handbag or even the family pet (if it has a habit of hiding away). Clip it to her frequently misplaced items, so next time your mum says “have you seen my…” she can use the companion app to help find it. It has a 200m range and the Tile Mate will ring out when she’s near the lost item.
Smart displays are truly useful and they don’t even need to be connected to other smart devices to make best use of them – and the Google Nest Hub is one of the best you can get your mum. It makes for a great digital photo frame with family memories automatically cycling through chosen albums, or your mum can ask for any specific photo simply by saying “Hey Google, show my pictures from Christmas” and they’ll appear. But it’s not just there to sit and look pretty – this nifty device puts Google Assistant at her fingertips, so she can get hands-free help around the house, including following step-by-step recipes if she loves to cook or make video calls via Google Duo.
Read our Google Nest Hub (formally Google Home Hub) review
Doesn’t the best mum in the world deserve the best Bluetooth speaker money can buy? If that’s what you’re after, the Sonos Move stands head and shoulders above the rest. It sounds incredible, serving up living room-worthy sound from a portable device that can be used both indoors and out. That means it’s the perfect speaker if your mum loves to entertain, or if she just appreciates high-fidelity sound. She won’t have to worry about it getting knocked about at a party either – it’s durable with an IP56 rating and can withstand more than a few spills.
Our mums are beautiful women who deserve to look their best, and this premium tool will give her that fresh-from-the-salon feeling at home. The Dyson Supersonic dries hair without using extreme heat, and has intelligent heat control that works to protect hair from heat damage, helping preserve that natural shine. It comes with a number of attachments to suit various hair types, so whether your mum has thick, curly tresses or super-fine, straight hair, there’s an attachment to help her style it. Time to tame the frizz and flyaways.
Read our Dyson Supersonic review
Spoil mum with her very own coffee machine at home. The Nespresso Vertuo Plus is a pod machine that’s convenient, easy to use and serves up delicious coffee in a variety of fancy flavours. She won’t be grinding coffee beans with this sleek system, just simply pop the pod into place and the machine gets to work with the press of a button, reading the pod’s built-in barcode automatically to tailor its blending technique to fill the order. It’s compact size will save mum from taking up valuable countertop space too. It’s our favourite coffee machine here at TechRadar, and we wouldn’t hesitate to get one for our coffee-loving mums.
Read our Nespresso Vertuo Plus review
Would your mum love the benefits of health and activity tracking without feeling inundated by unnecessary stats? Then the Fitbit Versa 2 is a near-perfect fitness wearable with added smartwatch perks. It’s got the essentials covered such as heart rate, steps and sleep, and if she likes to go for a swim, she can even take this waterproof device for a dip. With Amazon Alexa built-in, it offers your mum a little more than the rest of Fitbit’s range, so she can check in with the weather or start a guided exercise right from her wrist. Moreover, the ‘squircle’ design Fitbit has adopted for the Versa range looks pretty darn good on any wrist, with plenty of bands available to mix and match.
Read our Fitbit Versa 2 review
Beauty salons may be closed, but shouldn’t stop you from pampering your favourite woman with a spa-worthy treatment this Mother’s Day. The Foreo UFO is a smart mask treatment that will give your mum the benefits of LED light therapy, while the pulsations give the feeling of a relaxing facial massage at home. She can download the companion app too, and get tips from beauty professionals about which masks are best for her skin type.
If it’s time for your mum to cut the cord and upgrade to a stylish pair of true wireless earbuds, consider the Jabra Elite 75t. They’re a compact set of ‘buds that come in an easy-to-carry case that stores plenty of backup battery power, and they’ll comfortably get her through the day with up to seven hours of battery life already available on the buds themselves. The sound is a little bass-heavy, but if that’s not your mum’s thing, she can easily customise the sound using the equaliser on Jabra’s smartphone app.
Read our Jabra Elite 75t review
The HP Sprocket is a mobile printer that could fit inside mum’s pocket. The nifty device can connect to multiple smartphones at once, so your mum can print off wallet-sized photos as soon as she snaps them. The images can even be edited before printing via the HP Sprocket app, where your mum will have access to a bunch of filters and stickers. If she doesn’t like any of the existing ones, she can even add her own – now that’s a unique gift.
Make mum’s life brighter with something from the Philips Hue range of smart lights. These intelligent bulbs offer an interesting way for your mum to create the perfect ambiance in her home with lighting. The Philips Hue White Ambiance is an adjustable smart light system that can be set to light temperatures between cool and warm, or adjusted to mimic sunrise or sunset. If she wants something more fun though, the Colour Ambiance will add a pop of colour to any room in the house.
Does your mum fancy herself as an excellent home cook? Then she could really make use of this nifty gadget in the kitchen. It’s a single piece of kit that works as a pressure cooker, a slow cooker and a rice cooker – not to mention a steamer, a sauté pan and a yoghurt maker. That’s filling the job of several different appliances, freeing up valuable space on the kitchen counter. The Instant Pot also comes with a recipe book which your mum can try out, or you can too if you’d like to pamper her with a delicious meal on Mother’s Day.
Read our Instant Pot Duo V2 7-in-1 electric pressure cooker review
Our homes are getting smarter, kitchens included, so why not the garden? Your favourite lady can now set up an indoor herb garden – no green thumb required. All she needs to do is fill the water tank in this ‘smart’ indoor garden box and plant some seeds. Once her little seedlings sprout, she can turn on the LED light and watch her herb garden flourish, only needing a watering every two weeks. A perfect way to make sure there’s a supply of fresh herbs at home.
In more ways than one, vacuuming can really suck, so why not get your mum something that can give her a helping hand? The Ecovacs Deebot 900 is a robot vacuum that will blitz the dirt off hard floors, and do a decent job on carpets too, provided they aren’t high-pile rugs. The app is very easy to use, so your mum can lay out exactly where she wants the little droid to go, and control when its job is done, all without leaving the lounge. It’s one of the best autonomous cleaning solutions you can get right now without having to spend top dollar for some of Ecovacs’ competition.
