Off travelling in the near future? Then you’ll want to check out my top 10 travel gadgets for 2017. From cameras to headphones, I’ve picked my favourites!
10. Bluesmart One Suitcase
What better place to start than the thing everyone needs when off on holiday, your suitcase! Here we have the Bluesmart One. The suitcase comes with a built in location tracker so you can find out where it is anywhere in the world, a battery charger for connecting up to six devices, a digital scale for checking the weight of your baggage and remote locking functionality! How cool is that!? Available direct from Blesmart or through Amazon for £299/$449.
9. Noke Smart Padlock
So maybe the Bluesmart One Suitcase is a little bit out of your price range, the next best option may be a smart padlock! Noke have created a Bluetooth padlock that can be managed on your smartphone (no more remembering codes!) and let you share access with friends and family. The padlock is waterproof and will run off a single CR2032 for up to a year! Pick one up for as little as £59/$64.
8. Eye-fi SD Card
Eye-fi cards are great idea. Simply use your Eye-fi card like any other SD card in your camera but instead of having to remove it and insert it into your laptop or computer, it connects to your smartphone (or computer depending on model) and synchronises all of its photos automatically. Available in sizes ranging from 8GB to 32GB you should have more than enough space for a few days photos! Available from Amazon and stores from £30/$30.
7. Portable Bluetooth Speaker
A good quality travel speaker is always a must for those spontaneous beach parties or for just chilling by the pool. There are so many different brands of speakers these days its often best to pop into a store and listen to them yourself before deciding. If however you’re in a rush and want to get one as soon as possible, we like the cool features provided by the Amazon Tap. It has great reviews, lasts for 9 hours of playback and comes with built in Alexa functionality so you can control your music with your voice!
6. Kindle Paperwhite
Not many things are quite as relaxing as reading a book whilst lying by the pool and no e-reader comes as close to perfect as the Kindle Paperwhite. Other models are available but the Paperwhite comes in at a great price point with almost top specs. Combine that with Amazons Kindle book store offering great subscriptions and prices for individual items and you’re on to a winner. You can pick up the Kindle Paperwhite directly from Amazon for £109/$119.
5. Power Bank
A power bank will keep you going on those long hikes in the mountains and relaxing boat trips when you’re away from standard power sources. Although not strictly an IoTs device, a power bank can come in awfully handy if you get into a sticky situation. We’d recommend one like this 15000mAh power bank with solar charger so theres never a chance you’ll get stuck for power and a bargain at only £18/$20!
4. Tile – Item Finder
With so many little things like keys and passports, you may want to attach a tile so you never lose them! Simply attach a tile to the thing you want to track and you can then see its last know location, play a sound to help you locate it or mark it as lost to receive an alert when its found. Tile even features a button that will play a sound on your smartphone (even in silent mode) in case you have lost that! Available for £19/$24 for a single tile up to £139/$299 for a pack of 12.
3. Smart Watch
With either an Apple Watch or Android Wear watch you can speed up those little tasks like looking for boarding passes and reading a SMS by using your wrist. There are lots of options around but we like both the Apple Watch (if you happen to have an iPhone) and the Samsung Gear S3 if you have anything else. The Gear S3 starts at £249/$249 whilst the Apple Watch Series 2 starts at £369/$369.
2. Mighty Spotify Music Player
One of the most important things to keep you going whilst travelling is your music collection. It’s not always convenient to carry a large iPod or have a high end phone with a large amount of storage, that’s why we’ve picked Mighty as the music player of choice. Mighty is a small device, similar in size to an iPod shuffle. The main difference is that it uses your Spotify account as the source of music instead of your personal collection. This allows you to update the music over the internet any time you like using the app for you smartphone. Mighty is available to pre-order from Indiegogo for $79.
1. Smartphone
Whether its Android or iPhone, your smartphone has all the tools you need to keep you company on your travels. Often used for taking those quick pics when you don’t have your main shooter to hand and useful for keeping in touch with family and friends. We find them ideal entertaining ourselves on those long, cross country bus journeys and pretty much every other gadget we’ve listed here works with a smartphone in some way or another (so they’re basically essential!). If you can, avoid low end devices as from experience it’ll always come back to bite you further down the line. We’re fans of the Samsung S7 Edge and iPhone 7 but the mid range devices from Samsung, Apple, Motorola etc. are all good options for those on a budget.