Mother's Day 2020 gift ideas: 18 gadgets and gizmos for tech-savvy Aussie mums
Raising a family is not an easy job, and the women who care for us each and every day deserve to be told how special they are each and every day. While we tend to forget to do that, Mother’s Day reminds us we need to celebrate the women in our lives, whether they’re our own mothers or our wives and partners helping us raise the young ones.
Mother’s Day 2020 is fast approaching (with under two weeks to go), and there’s a pretty good chance you won’t be able to take her out to her favourite restaurant this year, or even get to a store to shop for something she might like. So we have to get creative, and TechRadar’s Australian team has put together this little list of great tech gift ideas that you can buy online and have delivered in time for May 10. But you will need to get a wriggle on as delivery supply chains are under strain with more people shopping online.
Whether she’s a whiz in the kitchen, loves to cosy up with a book or entertain at home, we’ve got a gadget or gizmo that’s sure to make her smile from ear to ear.
When is Mother's Day 2020?
Mother's Day in Australia is traditionally observed on the second Sunday of May each year, meaning this year it's on May 10, 2020.
It's a day to celebrate the women who look after us, be they our own mothers, stepmothers, guardians or caregivers. The could start with breakfast in bed and move on to a family day out at the park, beach or zoo. But with social distancing still a major concern in Australia, this year's pampering might need to be homebound.
However, you can make the mum in your life feel really special by getting her something nice that tells her how much you appreciate everything she does for you. If you're planning on shopping online, we've got some excellent Mother's Day gift ideas right here, but you will need to hurry if you'd like to have the present delivered on time for May 10.
Top 10 Mother's Day 2020 gift ideas at a glance
- Bellabeat Leaf Urban
- Amazon Kindle Paperwhite
- Tile Mate
- Google Nest Hub
- Sonos Move
- Dyson Supersonic
- Nespresso Vertuo Plus
- Fitbit Versa 2
- Foreo UFO
- Fujifilm Instax Mini 9
You’re probably familiar with fitness wearables that go on the wrist, but did you know there’s a new niche growing that could make the perfect gift for your mum? Smart jewellery. The Bellabeat Leaf Urban is a wellness tracker without a screen or the insistent buzz of notifications. It looks exactly like a beautiful piece of jewellery that can be worn as a necklace, bracelet or brooch – something that will look great with any outfit – and it will track activity, sleep, stress and reproductive health, then present it all through the accompanying smartphone app. As a gift, it straddles the best of both worlds: elegant jewellery that does more than the eye can see.
If you’ve got a mum who’s an avid reader, the Kindle Paperwhite is a gift she’s sure to enjoy. Even on the base 8GB version, this ereader can store thousands of books which she can read on a wonderful 6-inch E Ink display that imitates the look of real paper. It’s waterproof, so mum can relax in the bath or by the pool with her favourite stories, while the built-in light will minimise screen glare when she’s reading in bright sunlight. Font sizes are easily adjusted too, and with a battery life that lasts weeks, she’ll be able to read comfortably for long periods of time.
Read our Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review
Does your mum often find herself searching for her keys before heading out the door? Then you might want to get her a Tile Mate Bluetooth tracker. It’s designed like a keychain and can be attached to a variety of items: her keys, handbag or even the family pet (if it has a habit of hiding away). Clip it to her frequently misplaced items, so next time your mum says “have you seen my…” she can use the companion app to help find it. It has a 200m range and the Tile Mate will ring out when she’s near the lost item.
Smart displays are truly useful and they don’t even need to be connected to other smart devices to make best use of them – and the Google Nest Hub is one of the best you can get your mum. It makes for a great digital photo frame with family memories automatically cycling through chosen albums, or your mum can ask for any specific photo simply by saying “Hey Google, show my pictures from Christmas” and they’ll appear. But it’s not just there to sit and look pretty – this nifty device puts Google Assistant at her fingertips, so she can get hands-free help around the house, including following step-by-step recipes if she loves to cook or make video calls via Google Duo.
Read our Google Nest Hub (formally Google Home Hub) review
Doesn’t the best mum in the world deserve the best Bluetooth speaker money can buy? If that’s what you’re after, the Sonos Move stands head and shoulders above the rest. It sounds incredible, serving up living room-worthy sound from a portable device that can be used both indoors and out. That means it’s the perfect speaker if your mum loves to entertain, or if she just appreciates high-fidelity sound. She won’t have to worry about it getting knocked about at a party either – it’s durable with an IP56 rating and can withstand more than a few spills.
Our mums are beautiful women who deserve to look their best, and this premium tool will give her that fresh-from-the-salon feeling at home. The Dyson Supersonic dries hair without using extreme heat, and has intelligent heat control that works to protect hair from heat damage, helping preserve that natural shine. It comes with a number of attachments to suit various hair types, so whether your mum has thick, curly tresses or super-fine, straight hair, there’s an attachment to help her style it. Time to tame the frizz and flyaways.
Read our Dyson Supersonic review
Spoil mum with her very own coffee machine at home. The Nespresso Vertuo Plus is a pod machine that’s convenient, easy to use and serves up delicious coffee in a variety of fancy flavours. She won’t be grinding coffee beans with this sleek system, just simply pop the pod into place and the machine gets to work with the press of a button, reading the pod’s built-in barcode automatically to tailor its blending technique to fill the order. It’s compact size will save mum from taking up valuable countertop space too. It’s our favourite coffee machine here at TechRadar, and we wouldn’t hesitate to get one for our coffee-loving mums.
Read our Nespresso Vertuo Plus review
Would your mum love the benefits of health and activity tracking without feeling inundated by unnecessary stats? Then the Fitbit Versa 2 is a near-perfect fitness wearable with added smartwatch perks. It’s got the essentials covered such as heart rate, steps and sleep, and if she likes to go for a swim, she can even take this waterproof device for a dip. With Amazon Alexa built-in, it offers your mum a little more than the rest of Fitbit’s range, so she can check in with the weather or start a guided exercise right from her wrist. Moreover, the ‘squircle’ design Fitbit has adopted for the Versa range looks pretty darn good on any wrist, with plenty of bands available to mix and match.
Read our Fitbit Versa 2 review
Beauty salons may be closed, but shouldn't stop you from pampering your favourite woman with a spa-worthy treatment this Mother’s Day. The Foreo UFO is a smart mask treatment that will give your mum the benefits of LED light therapy, while the pulsations give the feeling of a relaxing facial massage at home. She can download the companion app too, and get tips from beauty professionals about which masks are best for her skin type.
Some of our mums probably remember the heydays of instant cameras when Polaroid was the buzzword. And they're making a comeback, with Fujifilm leading the way with affordable, beautiful-looking, fun snappers. The latest instant camera from Fujifilm is the Instax Mini 11, and it takes what was already a great camera in the Instax Mini 9 and improves on the feature set. Unfortunately, the spread of the Covid-19 virus has stalled the supply of the latest Instax, but we wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Instax Mini 9 for mum this Mother's Day. Gift her to joy of capturing happy memories no matter where she is and watching them come to life instantly. Moreover, getting the Instax Mini film is also easy enough and it's the most affordable instant film you can buy.
If it’s time for your mum to cut the cord and upgrade to a stylish pair of true wireless earbuds, consider the Jabra Elite 75t. They’re a compact set of ‘buds that come in an easy-to-carry case that stores plenty of backup battery power, and they’ll comfortably get her through the day with up to seven hours of battery life already available on the buds themselves. The sound is a little bass-heavy, but if that’s not your mum’s thing, she can easily customise the sound using the equaliser on Jabra’s smartphone app.
Read our Jabra Elite 75t review
The original Sprocket has long been a great gift in our eyes, but HP has an updated model available in the Sprocket Studio. This nifty device instantly prints out high-quality 4x6-inch photos from a connected smartphone, so it’s a lovely gift for mums who love photos they can stick in a frame, on a fridge or use in a DIY project. Your mum can even edit her snaps using the Sprocket Studio’s new Photo Cards feature. This will let her create customised greeting cards and thankyou notes you won’t find anywhere else – now that’s a special gift.
Make mum’s life brighter with something from the Philips Hue range of smart lights. These intelligent bulbs offer an interesting way for your mum to create the perfect ambiance in her home with lighting. The Philips Hue White Ambiance is an adjustable smart light system that can be set to light temperatures between cool and warm, or adjusted to mimic sunrise or sunset. If she wants something more fun though, the Colour Ambiance will add a pop of colour to any room in the house.
Does your mum fancy herself as an excellent home cook? Then she could really make use of this nifty gadget in the kitchen. It’s a single piece of kit that works as a pressure cooker, a slow cooker and a rice cooker – not to mention a steamer, a sauté pan and a yoghurt maker. That’s filling the job of several different appliances, freeing up valuable space on the kitchen counter. The Instant Pot also comes with a recipe book which your mum can try out, or you can too if you’d like to pamper her with a delicious meal on Mother’s Day.
Read our Instant Pot Duo V2 7-in-1 electric pressure cooker review
Our homes are getting smarter, kitchens included, so why not the garden? Your favourite lady can now set up an indoor herb garden – no green thumb required. All she needs to do is fill the water tank in this ‘smart’ indoor garden box and plant some seeds. Once her little seedlings sprout, she can turn on the LED light and watch her herb garden flourish, only needing a watering every two weeks. A perfect way to make sure there’s a supply of fresh herbs at home.
In more ways than one, vacuuming can really suck, so why not get your mum something that can give her a helping hand? The Ecovacs Deebot 900 is a robot vacuum that will blitz the dirt off hard floors, and do a decent job on carpets too, provided they aren’t high-pile rugs. The app is very easy to use, so your mum can lay out exactly where she wants the little droid to go, and control when its job is done, all without leaving the lounge. It’s one of the best autonomous cleaning solutions you can get right now without having to spend top dollar for some of Ecovacs’ competition.
Read our Ecovacs Deebot 900 review
Let’s be honest, most of us don’t have excellent posture. The Upright Go 2 is a wearable posture device that has set out to change that, by helping us learn to sit and stand up straighter. So if your mum spends her days hunched in an office chair (or in her current home office setup), this is an interesting gift that can help straighten out her slouch. The device attaches to the wearer’s back with adhesive strips, and provides feedback through a subtle vibration once synced with the downloadable app.
We might be spending more time at home where all our devices are conveniently plugged in every time they need some juice. But these days won't last forever. At some point, we're going to be able to go out again and chances are we'll need something to keep the batteries in our phones topped up. And that's where Mighty Purse comes in. The company makes some rather stylish purses with built-in backup power packs so mum can stay charged up no matter where she is. The bags are made from genuine leather and the battery packs inside are slimeline, so they'll barely be noticed when she's toting the bags around.
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