You can add multiple bulbs to a single room to create cooler, more colorful effects. | Image: Govee
Spring cleaning isn’t just about clearing things out. It’s also a chance to refresh your living space, and a simple place to start is smart lighting — specifically, Govee’s Smart A19 LED Light Bulbs. The color-changing bulbs can instantly change the vibe of your home, and now through the end of today, March 31st, you can buy a four-pack from Amazon and Govee for $26.99 ($13 off) as part of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale. That’s just $3 shy of the bundle’s lowest price to date and the cheapest we’ve seen the bulbs go for since Black Friday.
At 800 lumens, each bulb is bright enough for everyday use and offers over 16 million colors, along with adjustable brightness and tones. Govee also currently offers more than 30 preset scenes designed to fit different moods and occasions within the app, so you can quickly shift from brighter, more energizing light while cleaning or working to softer, more relaxed lighting once you’re done. There’s a music sync feature that uses your phone’s microphone to match the lights to whatever you’re playing, too, which is a fun way to set the mood for a party or make cleaning feel a little less like a chore. If you want more control, Govee’s DIY mode even lets you tweak both the colors and brightness to your liking and save your own presets for future use.
Each bulb can connect over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth — no hub required — and is relatively painless to set up. The bulbs are also Matter-compatible and work with major smart home platforms like Alexa and Google Home, which lets you control them with simple voice commands. You can also group multiple bulbs together, set them on a schedule, or set up routines so your lights slowly brighten in the morning or dim at night, whether individually or across multiple bulbs.
Amazon’s October Prime Day is in the rearview mirror, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until Black Friday and Cyber Monday to score a deal. Case in point, Apple’s AirPods Max (USB-C) are still available for $429.99 ($120 off), at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, which is their lowest price since July.
Apple AirPods Max
Apple’s AirPods Max feature exemplary build quality, sound phenomenal, and keep up with the best at noise cancellation.
Apple’s latest over-ear headphones have a USB-C port, but the internal hardware and design are otherwise unchanged since they debuted in late 2020. The headphones received an update in March that added 24-bit, 48Hz lossless audio playback if you connect them to a source using the included USB-C to USB-C cable or a $39 USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable. Streaming services — including Spotify — have introduced lossless audio streaming, so you can take advantage of the feature even if you’re not sitting on a hard drive full of FLACs.
If you primarily use Apple’s gear, the AirPods Max fit neatly into its ecosystem. They’ll pair to your iPhone for the first time just by being near one another—no futzing with the Bluetooth menu necessary—and let you easily move from listening to audio on one device to another. You can use the AirPods Max with non-Apple devices, but they’ll work just like a normal pair of Bluetooth headphones.
The AirPods Max are made from premium materials: aluminum, steel, and fabric, which makes them stand out from the plastic used by Sony and Bose on their high-end headphones. Those materials are heavier however, so keep that in mind if over-ear headphones have felt uncomfortable to wear. That said, our reviewer found the headphones’ comfort to be “top notch.”
The AirPods Max sounded great in our original tests a few years ago, but its competitors have had years to catch up. Still, the headphones have a well-balanced sound, and you shouldn’t hear distortion when listening to music even when the volume is cranked up. Apple’s H1 chip will adjust the headphones’ EQ based on the seal around your ear, so the audio should be consistent. Read our review.
Three more great deals
Dell’s S3225QC is a great general-purpose monitor with additional features gamers can take advantage of, and it’s $599.99 ($200 off) from Dell. The 32-inch QD-OLED 4K display has a 120Hz refresh rate and support for AMD’s FreeSync Premium Pro, so PC gamers with an AMD graphics card will see fewer graphical anomalies when playing fast-paced games. It has one HDMI 2.2 port, so you’ll only be able to connect a single gaming device at a time, but there’s a USB-C port that can carry an audio and video signal when connected to a MacBook or other compatible laptop. If you want a smaller laptop with higher refresh rate, you can grab the Alienware AW2725Q on sale for $699.99 ($200 off) from Dell.
Google’s Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen) is one of the best smart thermostats we’ve tested, and it’s $219.99 ($60 off) at Amazon — a new all-time low. It has sleek design, large screen, and Matter support for compatibility with Apple Home or Amazon Alexa. It doesn’t require a C wire for power like earlier models. The thermostat comes with a room sensor in case one part of your home never gets warm or cool enough. If you allow it to, the thermostat can learn your usage habits and make temperature adjustments automatically instead of always tweaking it manually. Read our review.
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