Holiday tech deals: lights, headphones, coffee, and a CD revival

Discounted smart lighting brightens holiday prep

The season’s first big win is a $25 price cut on Govee’s full‑color smart string lights. WIRED verified the deal and confirmed a flat 25 percent discount, making the lights cheap enough to drape across a living‑room wall or wrap a backyard tree without guilt.

What matters beyond the savings is how the lights behave in real life. The Govee set plugs into a standard outlet, syncs with a phone app, and lets you schedule sunrise‑like fades or sync to music.¹²³⁴⁵⁶ For anyone who has tried to string cheap LEDs only to wrestle with flicker, the Govee’s stable color palette feels like a genuine upgrade. The discount pushes the product into the reach of renters who can’t afford a permanent lighting overhaul, and the timing lines up with the holiday‑decor rush.

Portable power and kitchen upgrades get price cuts

Two unrelated household upgrades landed on sale this week: BioLite’s Backup fridge‑power unit and Keurig’s new Alta brewer. BioLite’s Backup, designed to keep a freezer humming when the grid drops, still carries a premium price tag, but the review notes it “works”—the device can sustain a small freezer for several hours, enough to protect ice cream during a short outage.⁷ The downside is the cost; the unit isn’t cheap, and the review warns shoppers to weigh the expense against the rarity of a full‑home outage.

Keurig’s Alta brewer, meanwhile, arrived with a fresh cartridge system called AltaRounds. The review calls the coffee maker “multifaceted” and says it forces users to rethink what a Keurig can do. The machine brews both single‑serve pods and a larger batch, and the new rounds promise a richer extraction. The price drop isn’t quantified in the source, but the tone suggests it’s competitive enough to tempt long‑time Keurig owners who have grown weary of the brand’s stale coffee lineup.

Trade‑ins and legacy formats: Xbox buyback and CD comeback

Microsoft has opened a trade‑in program for unused Xbox Series X and S consoles. The push is framed as a way to clear inventory before the holiday rush, but the underlying motive is to funnel users toward the Xbox Game Pass subscription model. The article from Engadget warns potential traders to read the fine print: the credit offered is modest, and the program only accepts consoles in good condition. For owners who keep a dusty console in a closet, the deal feels like a nudge to finally sell rather than let the hardware collect dust.

At the same time, physical media is making an unexpected return. CD sales are climbing, but collectors now face a “modern problem”: many newer devices lack CD drives, and streaming services dominate the audio market. The Engadget piece highlights that while nostalgia fuels the resurgence, the practical barrier of playback hardware limits the trend’s growth. The article stops short of declaring a full‑scale comeback, instead pointing out that the market niche remains small and fragmented.

Price trajectory of flagship phones: iPhone Pro from 2019 to 2026

Engadget’s price comparison shows how the iPhone Pro’s sticker price has evolved over seven years. In 2019, the base Pro started at $999, a figure that set a high bar for premium smartphones. Fast‑forward to 2026, and the same line sits at a comparable price point, despite incremental upgrades in camera hardware, display technology, and processor speed.

The constancy of the price suggests Apple’s confidence in its brand premium, but it also raises questions about value perception. Consumers who bought the 2019 model see little justification for upgrading if the price gap remains unchanged while the performance gains feel incremental. The article does not provide a detailed breakdown of each year’s spec changes, but the headline price stability is enough to spark debate among power users who track Apple’s pricing strategy closely.

What to watch

Keep an eye on three moving parts as the holidays progress. First, watch whether the Govee discount spurs a broader wave of smart‑home lighting sales, which could pressure competitors to match the price. Second, monitor Microsoft’s trade‑in uptake; a surge could signal that more gamers are shifting to subscription gaming, reshaping console revenue models. Finally, track CD sales data in the next quarter; if the niche expands, manufacturers might revive hardware support, turning a collector’s hobby into a modest market segment. The iPhone Pro’s price stability will also be tested when Apple announces its next generation in early 2027, offering a clear data point for premium‑phone pricing trends.