Best Mother's Day Tech Upgrade Gifts, Because She Deserves It

I’m a bad son when it comes to gifting. Maybe you’ve also struggled to do more for your mom every Mother’s Day since it was no longer acceptable to offer her your scribbled crayon drawings. Or maybe your wife, the mother of your children, is expecting something more than just a nice dinner this year.

If the mom in your life is in need of some upgraded personal tech—perhaps a smart bird feeder, a stylish fitness tracker, a new and improved laptop, or a nostalgic gaming device—then this list is for you.

If you don’t know what the Bird Buddy is, think of it as a bird feeder with a built-in camera for taking beautiful shots of any visiting birds. The $300 device doesn’t require as much setup as other bird box cams do, and it will automatically send you pictures of the birds to an app on your phone.

I purchased a Bird Buddy for my mom at Christmas time, and she still likes to send me pictures of whatever flighting critters come to perch. Setup takes a bit of effort, especially if your mom’s on the older side and can’t go hanging up birdhouses or creating anti-squirrel poles to avoid the pesky rodents eating all your seed. Still, it works great for folks who have a backyard and wish they could keep abreast of all their winged visitors dropping by for a snack.

The company behind Bird Buddy has put out a new version of their camera feeder specifically for hummingbirds. However, you could do what I did and order an aftermarket glass flower that attaches to one of the screws on the Bird Buddy.

See the Bird Buddy at Best Buy

Is it a little too on the nose to give your wife or mother a ring for Mother’s Day? Yeah, probably, but maybe you jazz it up a little by offering her a fitness ring. We’re still waiting to get our hands on Samsung’s upcoming smart ring or the Amazfit Helio, but thankfully, the Oura Ring is already out on the market. It’s a small titanium band that will help track your sleep cycle, heartbeat, and stress, and it can also track body temperature for use with the birth control app. They start at $299 for silver options, but if you want gold, you’ll have to fork over closer to $449.

The Oura ring has gotten a bit slimmer and more capable over time, and it will be a lot less pronounced than a full smartwatch, even though there are plenty of good candidates in that category. And don’t forget there are already smaller, FitBit-like devices out there. Those are good options if that mother or wife of yours just isn’t all too interested in rings of any kind.

See the Oura Ring at Best Buy

Let’s say your wife works from home, and she tears into her work with such abandon that she lets her coffee or tea marinate until it’s lukewarm or suffers the extreme fate of a cold drink. Sure, she could get an average thermos, but the Ember Mug 2 at $180 really does a good job of keeping the drink warm without having to resort to some sort of insulated topped bottle. Maybe you could call it excessive, but for those exacting coffee drinkers, the mug lets you set a temperature for the drink, and it will keep it at that temperature for over an hour, though exactly how long depends on the size of the mug you get.

For moms on the go, the Travel Mug 2 is also a great, though expensive option. There’s even one that connects with Apple’s Find My app. The most important person in your life keeps forgetting their drink container wherever they go.

See the Ember Mug 2 at Best Buy

It’s not a dig on anyone to say some folks are more forgetful than others. Apple’s AirTags at $30 for one or $100 for a pack of four is a great buy for any iPhone user in your life, but doubly so for the mother or spouse who can’t stop forgetting their most precious items when they go out.

If you don’t want your gift to look like you’re judging their forgetfulness, you could try spicing it up with a small accessory to go with it. Apple already sells a FineWoven key ring holder. Still, if you’re afraid of the company’s micro-twill accessories, you could also go for a Raptic Link & Lock that combines a lock and carabiner with an AirTag holder. This is a great option if the mom in your life is more security-conscious. It won’t work as a full-on bike lock, but for securing other regular items, it could work in a pinch.

See AirTags at Best Buy

Your mom’s favorite TV or monitor might look boring, so why not spice it up? The Nanoleaf 4D smart lighting system hooks up to a 65-inch TV with a camera that monitors what’s happening on screen, changing the backlight depending on what it sees. It can get a little silly, but some of the simpler 2D or 3D effects are fun enough to justify the mere $99 price tag, especially considering similar systems cost much more, like those from Philips Hue.

But if you want something that’s not centered around your mom’s TV, maybe try some other funky smart lights from Nanoleaf or Philips Hue. If your mom loves to decorate for certain holidays, you can show her how to get the lights to show a specific color for Christmas or Easter.

See the Nanoleaf 4D at Best Buy

Se Phillips Hue at Best Buy

Does your mom happen to have a picture-sized 8x8 of you or your siblings? Does your mom happen to be in the market for a new speaker? Do you want to kill two birds with one stone? The Samsung Music Frame is not any smart frame, but it’s a loud and quality $400 speaker hidden inside a 10-inch frame. Your mother or significant other could either hang it on the wall or let it stand up on its own from the mantlepiece, and it does a good job of filling the room, especially if you have other Samsung sound equipment that can connect with Q-Symphony.

See the Samsung Music Frame at Samsung

There are a lot of true wireless headphones out there, but sometimes, the hard part of getting earbuds for your loved ones is that you really don’t know if they will feel comfortable in their ears. Want to avoid that hassle, and you don’t really care about ANC that much? The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds are quite good, though rather expensive, and have a unique design that is both comfortable and eye-catching. At $300, they really are quite a lot to drop on any pair of earbuds without noise canceling. And yet, they’re just the sort of thing if your significant other or mother complains about sticking things in their ears to listen to music.

See the Bose Ultra open Earbuds at Best Buy

Your mom might need a laptop upgrade, and if they do (and they’re used to Apple’s ecosystem), they should really look first at the MacBook Air with M3. It’s light, pretty, capable, and in its most powerful form yet. The only real complaints we’ve had with the latest iteration were that it was simply too damn close to the version with M2 and that it costs too much when you start slapping on upgrades like more RAM and more storage. Considering all that, you can also go for the M2 version, which Apple still sells for slightly less.

See Apple MacBooks at Best Buy

I can already hear you crying out about how your mom doesn’t like games. As my office workers who happen to be moms love to point out, moms can like games. If your mother has any nostalgia for the first era of gaming handhelds, this gift will thrill her. If any leftover Game Boy cartridges are lying about, then the Analogue Pocket will allow your wife to jump into all her old games with a new, fresh coat of paint. At $220, it might be a better option than tracking down an old Game Boy Advance.

The Pocket has been out of stock for ages, but just in time for Mother’s Day, Analogue says they’re doing a restock on May 10 at 11 a.m. PT, 8 a.m. ET. This may be one of your few chances to get one outside of a reseller.

The benefit of the Pocket is that you don’t have to depend on emulation, but if your wife or mother has any know-how, you could go for something like the $60 Miyoo Mini that is totally reliant on emulation.

See the Analogue Pocket at Analogue

Listen, sometimes the best gifts come with the best puns. Gamer gear is often extra glowy “but not as radiant as you.” So maybe your mother or wife would like a mousepad unlike any other, this enormous Firefly V2 from Razer. It comes in stock with RGB lighting that works with Razer Synapse on the PC to create intricate lighting effects.

Yes, it’s a $100 mousepad, but beyond the price, it’s also fairly large, enough that it might take up a huge chunk of your desk. But for your mother or significant other who needs something creative, the Firefly is a unique gift with appeal beyond its gamer roots.

See the razer Firefly V2 Pro at Razer

Let’s say your wife or mother is out and about, and their phone never really keeps as good of a charge as it needs to. Gizmodo has tested quite a few power banks, and while the $88 Satechi Duo 10K Wireless Charger Power Stand won’t charge the phone the fastest, it by far has the most versatility thanks to the built-in stand. It can hit 10W of fast charging with a 10,000 mAh capacity. Better yet, its stand works well for making video calls on the go without worrying about depleting your battery. It still folds up rather slim to fit inside their bag when they’re out and about.

If you want something a little cleaner and magnetic for MagSafe iPhones, maybe consider the Anker Powercore Magnetic 5K, which is a pretty good deal at around $50.

If your mother or wife complains about her tired back, you might have already considered getting her a gift card to a local massage parlor. That’s fine, but maybe you should consider the Shiatsu Neck and Back Massager, which is $50 on Amazon. It looks weird, and it might not be for everyone, but we have used it and found it does a pretty damn good job of taking out the kinks while leaving your arms (mostly) free. She spent a good chunk of her life carrying you around, so perhaps the best you can do is offer her a little modern aid as a kind of thanks.

See the Shiatsu Neck and Back Massager on Amazon