Our son recently convinced us to upgrade from a Roku streaming device to an AppleTV 4K device ($130), particularly since we are an Apple systems family. This small box is a huge and surprising improvement. It was insanely easy to transfer all streaming accounts using my iPhone, which I can also use as a remote. It easily pairs with Airpods for private sound, instead of the old wired earphones we had. But the best thing is how Siri is incorporated. You can ask, “what did they say” while watching a video and it will back up and repeat the last bit of dialog. Or I can audibly ask it to run “For All Mankind” and it will search and find it among all the streams we subscribe to. No typing to find out where a particular show can be watched. That alone is worth the price of admission, but there are a lot of other cool smart features as well, like displaying photos from my phone. — KK

An Arduino is a small easy-to-program device that lets you add interactivity to your projects. Because Arduino is open source, you can buy inexpensive clones. My favorite is the Keyestudio Plus. An Arduino Uno is about $25, and this clone is half the price. The best thing about Keyestudio Plus is that it has a USB-C jack instead of the bulky USB-A jack found on the Uno. It has a lot of other useful features like additional pins for power and a switch to change the voltage from 5V to 3.3V. Here’s a photo of one next to an Arduino Uno. (If you want to learn how to use an Arduino, I have a class on Skillshare you can take using this link for a one-month free trial). — MF