Put a ring on your health and wellness with the Oura Ring 5. Track your daily workouts and recovery while staying screen-free using the Fitbit Air. Or, turn any gathering into a fun karaoke session with the JBL PartyBox On-The-Go 2 Plus. This month, my Latest and Greatest picks from Best Buy Canada focus on feeling good while having fun.
Discover your next favourite tech and check out our featured list.
Oura Ring 5
If you felt the previous Oura Ring 4 was too thick as a smart ring, the new Oura Ring 5 shaves 40% off its frame, measuring 2.28mm thick. Despite the reduced size, it still gets all the same sensors inside, with LEDs that are said to be 4x more powerful than before. Plus, battery life can last for up to a week.
A number of new features are rolling out in the U.S. first. The biggest one is Health Radar, which tracks changes in blood flow and blood vessel behaviour correlated with high blood pressure, focusing specifically on overnight readings.
Note that you need to sign up for the $7.99/month Oura Membership to unlock personalized insights, advanced metrics, and ongoing coaching. First month of the membership is included with purchase.
Fitbit Air
It’s been three years since the last Fitbit device and the new Fitbit Air takes a very different approach: no screen, no built-in GPS, no ECG, and no EDA. You do get an optical heart rate monitor, accelerometer, gyroscope, SpO2 sensor, skin temperature sensor, and a vibration motor for silent alarms.
Expect it to track heart rate, breathing rate, cardio load, sleep stages, and give you a daily readiness score out of 100. Battery life lasts up to seven days, and a five-minute quick charge gets you a full day. Oh, and it’s water resistant up to 50 metres.
The Fitbit Air also represents an overhaul of the Fitbit app to Google Health, turning Gemini into an AI coach. You get a three-month Google Health Premium trial to unlock the AI coach ($12.99/month thereafter), though the core tracking works without paying anything.
Sony 1000X THE COLLEXION
Sony is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its 1000X line of over-ear headphones with these premium 1000X THE COLLEXION headphones. The sound gets a boost from the new 30mm bespoke carbon fibre drivers producing possibly the best audio quality from any pair of Sony wireless headphones to date. You will appreciate it no matter what music you like to listen to. Paired with both the QN3 ANC chip and a V3 co-processor, you also get DSEE Ultimate to upscale compressed audio in real time.
Crafted for comfort, this pair of headphones is made of premium materials and metal accents, with comfortable vegan leather for longer listening sessions. And while that makes them slightly heavier compared to the XM5 and XM6, the headband gets extra padding to offset that. Wider earcups also create a slightly bigger soundstage closer to your ears.
JBL PartyBox On-The-Go 2 Plus
The JBL PartyBox On-The-Go 2 Plus is basically two devices in one. On the one hand, you get a big speaker that can make a gathering feel like a party. On the other, you can use it as a karaoke machine. An AI feature called EasySing strips lead vocals from any track in real time, so you don’t need special karaoke versions. You have the flexibility to dial down vocals to 25%, 50%, or fully remove them. It comes with one wireless EasySing mic with built-in feedback suppression, pitch support, reverb, and noise reduction baked in.
For sound, it has a 5.25-inch woofer and 100W from dual silk-dome tweeters. Throw in a synced light show and you have some flair to go with it. It’s got IPX4 splash resistance, along with a handle and shoulder strap to carry it around. Battery life goes up to 15 hours per charge, and you can replace with a swappable spare (sold separately).
Auracast support lets you chain multiple JBL speakers wirelessly for bigger setups, and the JBL One app handles EQ, lights, and vocal mix remotely.
Dyson Spot+Scrub AI Robot vacuum & mop
The Dyson Spot+Scrub is more of an AI-driven system that blends together vacuuming and mopping together with a base station to handle purging. The robot itself uses a 10.6-inch microfibre roller that spans most of the robot’s width, fed by a hydration system that delivers fresh heated water continuously as it rotates. The concept is to maintain cleaner fibres in contact with the floor. The roller can also extend 1.6 inches outward to reach closer to baseboards.
A green laser and AI camera identify nearly 200 objects and stains, positioning the robot to repeatedly pass through stubborn areas. Average runtime is 140 minutes. While charging, the dock washes the mop roller with 140°F hot water and dries it with 113°F hot air. The bagless dock uses 10 Dyson cyclones and can store up to a few months’ worth of debris.
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I recently got the Avata 360 as my first real drone and it’s amazing. Way better than the tiny toy drones I’d been using up to then. It’s really easy to fly and the 360 camera means I can focus on flying to and around my subject then when I get home I can create the video in the DJI software by picking the angles or telling it to “follow” the subject. It’s such a great and easy to use drone. I’d 100% recommend it for beginners (the license exam is easy as well) but I would say get the Fly More kit. I only have 1 battery and I wish I’d bought the kit with the 3 batteries for extra flying time. 20 minutes sounds like a lot but it’s not. 4 flights over icebergs and the battery was down to less than 25% so I wouldnt risk another flight.