The Matic Is a Whole Different Kind of Robot Vacuum

A couple of days before I started reporting this story, I ordered a cat scratcher from Amazon. When it arrived, I immediately felt guilty. The scratcher was made entirely of cardboard. It came inside its own cardboard mailing box. And that box had been stuck inside another, much larger cardboard box and surrounded by bubble…

NANCY: Fun fact, the Banana Boat face sunscreen and the Banana Boat body sunscreen is the exact same sunscreen, right, Caira? CAIRA: Mm-hmm. But they will charge you extra. If you don’t look at the label and you buy the face sunscreen, they will charge you extra for that, so look at it. CHRISTINE: That’s…

Marki Williams/NYT Wirecutter In years of hands-on testing to find the best microwaves, writer Rachel Wharton has become somewhat of a master microwaver. “I can make anything, in any microwave, come out less dry, less soggy, and more evenly cooked — and without splatter to clean up afterwards,” she says. Her seven tips, including starting…

Whether you spend your summer in a pool, on a lake, at the beach, or running through a sprinkler, your everyday tech devices are probably nearby—putting them at risk of an accidental soaking. Fortunately, most of today’s smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, earbuds, and portable speakers are pretty water resistant. “In this day and age, the majority…

Photo: Michael Murtaugh If you’re jaded about the recycling industrial complex—and perhaps rightfully so—you might feel unmotivated to spend your time, energy, and possibly money on battery recycling. But you have several good reasons to do so. For one, it’s safer than just dumping them in the trash. Improperly disposing of batteries can cause fires…

Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter Runner-up This well-constructed brewer makes a mellower coffee than the OXO Good Grips. But its many parts can be cumbersome to assemble and store. The Filtron Cold Water Coffee Concentrate Brewer consistently produced great-tasting coffee concentrate in our tests, with most tasters ranking its brew first or second. This brewer is not…