Retail
170 Best Prime Day Deals of 2025, Vetted by Our Amazon Experts
Amazon Prime Day is here, and the deals are dropping like the bass at a Skrillex show. This year, Amazon has expanded the event to four days, with most of the best Prime Day deals launching in the early hours of Tuesday morning and sitting on the metaphorical shelf through 11:59 pm PT on Friday, July 11. There are tens of thousands of products on sale this week, but comparatively few deserve your time and money. The WIRED Reviews team spends weeks prepping for Prime Day and will be working in shifts for 20 hours a day throughout the event to keep our coverage updated--all so you can score real savings on products we've tested and approved. If you're looking for up-to-the-minute coverage of lightning deals, this year's trending products, and fast sellers, along with what will surely be increasingly unhinged commentary, check out our Amazon Prime Day liveblog, which will run from 5 am to midnight daily. How Does WIRED Spot Deals? We start searching for the best Prime Day deals weeks ...
Ikea's Dirigera smart hub just got a big Matter boost
It's been more than a year since Ikea's smart hub got a Matter update, but up until now, the Dirigea hub could only act as a bridge between Ikea devices and existing Matter networks. That's about to change thanks to a just-released firmware update. Dirigea firmware update 2.805.6 gives the Dirigea hub Matter controller capabilities, meaning it can now discover and take charge of Matter devices, including those from third-party manufacturers. The firmware update was confirmed by an Ikea rep on Reddit. Previously, the Dirigera hub could only expose Ikea devices to other Matter controllers, such as the Apple HomePod mini, the Amazon Echo, and the Google Nest Hub.
61 Best Early Amazon Prime Day Deals on Products We've Tested (2025)
Amazon Prime Day 2025 is fast approaching, and the sale is already underway on some items. To help you find the best early Prime Day deals, we've scoured Amazon for deals on the tech we love. As always, every deal we recommend here is on a product our reviewers have personally tested and approved--you won't find any shoddy dupes or mystery brands here. This year Prime Day runs for four days, July 8-11, rather than the usual two. That means there's twice as long to suffer save. Be sure to read our explainer on all the Amazon Prime perks you should be taking advantage of. Updated Thursday, July 3, 2025: We've add deals on Amazon's Kindle Essentials Bundle, Echo Spot, an Arlo security cam, two Tapo cams, the Jackery Explorer 300 power station, the Glimpse Sleep Mask, Brooklinen's organic sheets, and more. If you're looking to get a new Kindle and want a case, then snag this handy essentials kit while it's on sale for Prime Day. It includes the latest basic Kindle, a fabric cover, and a power adapter (which is also handy since Kindles only come with a charging cord, no adapter). The bundle only comes with a black Kindle, but you can choose from a couple of cover colors.
Great deals on robotic pool cleaners ahead of Prime Day 2025
Few maintenance tasks are as tedious and time-consuming as cleaning your swimming pool. The good news is that robots can now perform that job, leaving you more leisure time to actually swim in your pool. We've spotted some great deals ahead of Amazon's Prime Day sale next week, and we'll add more as they become available. The recently reviewed Airrobo PC10 is a mid-range robotic pool cleaner that did a very good job on our test pool, and Amazon has knocked 42% off its list price, taking it down to 350. While we haven't had an opportunity to review the Wybot C1 robotic pool cleaner, we have obtained good results with some of the company's other products.
Robot lawn mower deals ahead of Prime Day 2025
Achieving that perfectly manicured lawn is a whole lot less time-consuming now that a robot can do the job for you. And over the long term, a robot lawn mower will cost less than hiring a landscaper--and it won't expect a tip every week. Top-of-the-line models cost a pretty penny, but they can climb slopes and handle very large yards (we're talking acres of grass). While early robot lawn mowers required you to lay down a boundary wire to prevent them from wandering out of your yard, each of mowers listed here use advanced navigation technology that eliminates the need for any wires. The good news is that we've already spotted some great deals on robot lawn mowers ahead of Amazon's Prime Day sale, and we expect there will be more when the sale actually gets underway on July 8.
88m pollution-tracking satellite backed by Jeff Bezos missing in space
Google said when it was launched it hoped its project would "fill gaps between existing tools". The company was using its artificial intelligence tools to process the data and generate a global methane map. But after just a year in orbit, in what was meant to be a five-year programme, communication was lost with MethaneSat. The team at EDF suspect that the satellite has lost power and said in a statement "that it is likely not recoverable." It went on to say that some of the software could be re-used but said it was too early to comment on whether a new satellite would be launched.
Joint Matching and Pricing for Crowd-shipping with In-store Customers
Dehghan, Arash, Cevik, Mucahit, Bodur, Merve, Ghaddar, Bissan
This paper examines the use of in-store customers as delivery couriers in a centralized crowd-shipping system, targeting the growing need for efficient last-mile delivery in urban areas. We consider a brick-and-mortar retail setting where shoppers are offered compensation to deliver time-sensitive online orders. To manage this process, we propose a Markov Decision Process (MDP) model that captures key uncertainties, including the stochastic arrival of orders and crowd-shippers, and the probabilistic acceptance of delivery offers. Our solution approach integrates Neural Approximate Dynamic Programming (NeurADP) for adaptive order-to-shopper assignment with a Deep Double Q-Network (DDQN) for dynamic pricing. This joint optimization strategy enables multi-drop routing and accounts for offer acceptance uncertainty, aligning more closely with real-world operations. Experimental results demonstrate that the integrated NeurADP + DDQN policy achieves notable improvements in delivery cost efficiency, with up to 6.7\% savings over NeurADP with fixed pricing and approximately 18\% over myopic baselines. We also show that allowing flexible delivery delays and enabling multi-destination routing further reduces operational costs by 8\% and 17\%, respectively. These findings underscore the advantages of dynamic, forward-looking policies in crowd-shipping systems and offer practical guidance for urban logistics operators.
Robot-run store VenHub is changing the future of shopping
You walk up to a robot-run convenience store, place your order on an app, and robotic arms quickly grab your items and deliver them to a secure window, all without any human employees. That's exactly what's happening at VenHub, a fully autonomous, AI-powered smart store that just opened at the LAX/Metro Transit Center in Los Angeles. Even if you haven't seen one in person yet, VenHub's cutting-edge tech is set to shake up how people shop all across the country. Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts, and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide -- free when you join.
38 Best Early Amazon Prime Day Deals On Products We've Tested (2025)
Amazon Prime Day 2025 is fast approaching, and the sale is already underway on some items. To help you find the best early Prime Day deals, we've scoured Amazon for deals on the tech we love. As always, every deal we recommend here is on a product our reviewers have personally tested and approved--you won't find any shoddy dupes or mystery brands here. This year Prime Day runs for four days, July 8-11, rather than the usual two. That means there's twice as long to suffer save. Be sure to read our explainer on all the Amazon Prime perks you should be taking advantage of.
Less than 48 hours left: Our exclusive Babbel deal is ending!
If you've ever dreamed of confidently ordering street food in Mexico City or chatting with a bartender in Rome without pulling out Google Translate (or sounding like a complete tourist), your moment is now--but not for much longer. Our best-selling Babbel deal has been a PopSci reader favorite, but our exclusive coupon code, which saves you an additional 40 on lifetime access, is expiring in less than 48 hours! The good news is that you still have time to take advantage of it: Use code LEARN40 at checkout to drop the price from 169.99 to 129.99 through June 30 at 11:59 p.m. PT. This is amazing savings from the usual Babbel lifetime subscription value of 599. Here's the best part: speaking a new language doesn't just make you look smart.