For business travelers who treat the world like their office, the right travel tech isn’t just convenient, it’s non-negotiable. Work trips often mean meetings happen mid-transit, and deadlines don’t wait for time zones. Today’s professionals require gear that’s as agile and refined as they are. For your next trip—especially on business—every item in your travel arsenal should serve a purpose: keeping you connected, organized, and one step ahead.

This story is part of The New Era of Work Travel, a collaboration between the editors of WIRED and Condé Nast Traveler to help you navigate the perks and pitfalls of the modern business trip.

Among the business travel essentials? A reliable staple: The Apple MacBook Air: powerful, lightweight, and designed for productivity anywhere. Not to mention, with the right universal converter or portable charger, you can plug it in to charge just about everywhere. Add a portable Wi-Fi hotspot or travel router, and your workspace expands to airport lounges, hotel lobbies, or high-speed trains. For presentation, compact travel steamers ensure you arrive looking polished, while smart luggage and digital tags streamline the journey from check-in to customs. Whether you’re a digital nomad taking a client call on the road or reviewing contracts over espresso in Milan, we’ve compiled the best tech for work trips built for motion. When business takes you everywhere, your gear should work like you do: seamlessly, stylishly, and without pause.

Updated October 2025: We’ve added the Sony WH-1000XM6, OnePlus Pad 3, and Netgear Nighthawk M6 Pro.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

Stylish and feature-packed, with excellent touch controls, the Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones are the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy. Enjoy podcasts, music, or the sweet sound of silence when you fly, with unbeatable active noise cancellation. These cans also boast top-notch sound quality, with a multiband EQ to make the most of any audio source. The new folding design also makes it easier than ever to stow them away for travel.

Courtesy of Apple

Powerful and portable, the svelte Apple MacBook Air (M4, 2025) is the best of the best laptops, and perfect for business travelers looking to get some work done in the office or on the move. You can expect slick performance, long battery life, and a lovely bright display. Apple’s M4 chipset supports two 4K external monitors and on-device AI processing. There’s also a crystal clear 12-megapixel webcam that’s ideal for video conferencing.

Courtesy of Amazon

Need to make a stellar first impression on that presentation you crossed an ocean to give? Keep those pearly whites gleaming with the Oral-B Pro 1000. Top of WIRED’s best electric toothbrushes guide, this is a reliable and effective way to clean your teeth. The Pro 1000 sports a circular oscillating brush head that can get in everywhere, and it buzzes every 30 seconds to prompt you to clean each quadrant of your mouth. You can also expect 10 days of battery life when fully charged.

Courtesy of Amazon

Asus

RT-AX57 Go Travel Router

Connect all your gadgets to the Asus RT-AX57 Go travel router before you leave for a trip and you only have to worry about connecting one device at your destination. This dual-band Wi-Fi 6 router has gigabit WAN and LAN Ethernet ports to plug into a modem, port in your hotel, or any other internet source. It can connect to public Wi-Fi, and you can even connect your phone to the USB 3.2 port and use the RT-AX57 Go as a hotspot to magnify your cell connection. The Asus RT-AX57 Go also comes with security software and VPN support, making it one of the best Wi-Fi routers around.

Courtesy of Ceptics

Ceptics

GaN 70W Universal Travel Adapter

The best travel adapters enable globetrotters to plug in all their gadgets. The Ceptics GaN 70W Universal Travel Adapter is first in our bag for every trip because it covers more than 200 countries and has a secure locking slider design that pushes out EU, UK, and US plugs (you can rotate the pins for sockets in Australia and China). We love the retractable 25-inch USB-C cable that goes up to 70 watts, but you also get an additional USB-C port and two USB-A ports, making this the only charger you need to pack.

• 

  Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

• 

  Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

• 

  Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

If you’re an Apple person, you probably have an iPad, but for everyone else, Android-powered slates have really improved in recent years, and this is the best Android tablet right now. OnePlus elevates the experience with software tweaks like Open Canvas, enabling you to multitask with three apps. When you’re done with work, the sharp and smooth 13.2-inch screen is perfect for kicking back with a movie. The Snapdragon 8 Elite inside ensures performance is fantastic for work or play.

Courtesy of Amazon

Travel Inspira

Luggage Scale

No more surprise baggage fees—this compact scale slips neatly into your luggage and gives you peace of mind before check-in. Picked by Condé Nast Traveler as one of the best luggage scales, its user-friendly strap and clear display take the stress out of weigh-ins, so you’re never left guessing. Built tough for globetrotting, it withstands knocks and rough handling. For business travelers, it’ll help keep your bag within weight limits and keep your trip on-budget.

Courtesy of Hatch

Hatch

Rest Go Portable Sound Machine

This palm-sized sound machine delivers 10 soothing tracks—from ocean waves to white noise—without apps or Wi‑Fi, making it perfect for travel. With around 12 to 15 hours of battery life, it’ll last through long flights or busy days. Its simple button layout and clip-on ring allow quick setup anywhere, from airport lounges to hotel rooms. Funnily enough, the gadget is actually designed for babies, but can be used by travelers of all ages—and a must-have for Traveler editors. It’s affordable, tough, and sleek enough to blend into any travel toolkit.

Courtesy of Nesugar

Nesugar

Portable Handheld Steamer

A travel staple for sharp professionals, this handheld steamer tackles wrinkles in minutes—no ironing board needed. Just plug it in and press and glide to freshen suits, dresses, and linens. Lightweight enough for a carry-on bag yet effective enough to smooth creases effortlessly, it’s the secret weapon to looking polished on arrival. Ideal for impromptu meetings or last-minute evening events, it ensures you always step out wrinkle-free.

Courtesy of Apple

Slip an AirTag into your luggage or attach it to your bag and you can track it effortlessly via your iPhone—no more anxiety about lost bags or gear. The new U1 chip enables precision-finding, showing you the exact direction and distance to your missing item. It’s water- and dust-resistant, runs for about a year on a standard battery, and transmits location via the vast Find My network. Privacy protections like rotating IDs mean no unwanted tracking and solely, smart security.

Courtesy of Amazon

iWalk

Small Portable Charger

Tiny yet mighty, the iWalk charger fits in any pocket and delivers a fast juice boost thanks to its 4,800 mAh capacity and 20W output. It’s ideal for those in-between moments—waiting at the gate or lounging before boarding. LED indicators keep you informed, and USB‑C recharge is quick and convenient. Stylish and available in multiple colors, it’s a sleek companion for busy days abroad—and not to mention, a Traveler favorite.

Courtesy of Calpak

Calpak

Portable Charger Luggage Tag

Doubling as a luggage tag and power bank, this Calpak device blends functionality and finesse with its faux-leather exterior. It quietly powers up your phone mid-journey through USB‑C (or Lightning) connections when you need it most. Slim and lightweight, it slips neatly onto your bag and travels with ease. Backed by a one-year warranty, it’s a reliable (and chic) lifesaver for unexpected low-battery situations on the go.

It’s that time of year again, and Prime Day deals are back. The Amazon Prime Big Deal Days event—also known as Amazon Prime Day 2—is officially arriving on October 7 and 8, but early deals have already started flowing. The WIRED Reviews team has hundreds of years of collective experience covering shopping holidays such as this. What sets us apart is that we only write about actual deals on the gear and gadgets that we’ve hand-tested. We’re getting ready to cover the whole sale with a variety of stories and even a liveblog (and, hopefully, lots of caffeine.) Below, you’ll find the best deals we’ve managed to find so far. Come back for additional coverage when the event begins.

Get prepared with our guide on How to Shop Prime Day Like A Pro. We also have advice on avoiding scams on Amazon and making sure you’re getting all of your Amazon Prime perks.

Updated October 4, 2025: We’ve added 10 new deals on the Ninja CREAMi and Luxe Cafe Premier, multiple coffee devices and accessory ovens, and a Zojirushi rice cooker. We also swapped out dead deals and checked for accuracy throughout.

Featured in this article

The Best Qi2 Power Bank

Anker MagGo Power Bank (10K) (Qi2)

Jump to Deal

The Viral Ice Cream Maker

CREAMi Ice Cream Maker Bundle

Jump to Deal

Apple iPad (2025, A16) for $319 ($30 off)

This is the best iPad on the market. The 2025 Apple iPad (A16) is cute and comes in a few different colors in your choice of 128-, 256-, or 512-gigabyte storage. It has a modern design, USB-C charging, Touch ID, and two 12-MP cameras. It’s powerful enough for most people, and it doesn’t have support for Apple Intelligence (which may be a blessing or a curse). If you primarily use your tablet to watch videos, play mobile games, or do light work, it’ll be just fine (and you won’t overpay for features you aren’t using). One thing to note is that it only supports the first-generation or USB-C Apple Pencil. Check our guide to the Best iPad Accessories for additional picks.

Nothing Ear (a) for $89 ($20 off)

Photograph: Parker Hall

The Nothing Ear (a) top our list of the best wireless earbuds. They look super cool, with a stylish semi-clear design, on-board touch controls, and a sleek charging case. They pack excellent sound and good noise cancellation, and they’re downright easy to use. The battery lasts about five and a half hours if you’ve got active noise cancellation on. They also pair easily with both Android and iOS devices. This deal comes within $10 of the best discount we’ve tracked.

Ugreen 145W Power Bank for $66 ($34 off)

Photograph: Ugreen

Ugreen’s charger is best power bank you can buy for tablets—surprisingly compact for a 145-watt charger with a 25,000-mAh battery. What makes this special is you can actually draw the full wattage while charging, which means this is the power bank for you if you want to charge fast.Wired reviewer Simon Hill notes this is the best lineup you can buy to keep your tablet charged at all times.

Anker MagGo Power Bank (10K) for $70 ($20 off)

Photograph: Simon Hill

Anker

MagGo Power Bank (10K) (Qi2)

This is the best Qi2 power bank out of the many we’ve tried so far, and we’ve not yet seen it sell for less. It has a built-in kickstand, a two-way USB-C port, and a built-in LED display. You can attach MagSafe iPhones or Qi2 phones in landscape or portrait orientation. It’s not the beefiest power bank in the world, offering about one and a half charges for newer phones, but it’ll definitely come in handy if you just need a quick top-off while on the go—especially since you won’t need to bring your own cable.

Apple MacBook Air (M4, 2025) for $799 ($200 off)

Photograph: Brenda Stolyar

Apple

MacBook Air (M4, 2025)

It’s hard to do much better than the MacBook Air (M4, 2025). The best laptop has beefy performance, terrific battery life, and is super quiet thanks to its fanless design. It also has support for two 4K external monitors, and the built-in M4 chip allows for on-device AI processing and support for Apple Intelligence. The webcam boasts 12 megapixels, which is an upgrade compared to previous models, too. It comes in your choice of four different colors and three storage configurations. Check our MacBook buying guide for additional recommendations.

Ninja CREAMi Bundle for $200 ($55 off)

CREAMi Ice Cream Maker Bundle

The Ninja CREAMi delivers on a wild promise. It’s a home device that can make ice cream out of seemingly anything. WIRED Reviewer Julia Forbes wrote that she and her husband like to take turns dazzling each other with far-flung ice cream recipes, and recommends it as a gift for newlyweds. Anyway, the bundle with extra ice cream tubs is more than 20 percent off in the leadup to Prime Day, less than the CREAMi alone generally costs. Prefer soft serve? The Ninja Swirl by CREAMi ($350) is also on sale for $45 off.

Arlo Pro 5S Security Camera for $100 ($80 off)

This is a great deal on our favorite outdoor security camera, and you can get in on it right before porch pirate season. The Arlo Pro 5 has clear footage, fast live-feed load times, and smart notifications. Recording at up to 2K resolution with HDR, it won’t struggle in low light thanks to night vision, and there’s also a color mode. Two-way audio is clear, and there’s a built-in siren too. You do need an Arlo Secure subscription to make the most of this camera, but the deal is solid. The multipacks are discounted, too.

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2024) for $300 ($100 off)

Full disclosure: A new Kindle Scribe is coming, but we still think this is worth buying. The Kindle Scribe is our favorite e-reader for taking notes. It works well as a digital notebook and as a way to read your favorite books. With a generous 10-inch display and a Premium Pen (with a soft-tipped eraser on the end) included, you can use it to plan, journal, or annotate. There are some AI software features like note summarization, too. We do wish it was waterproof, or that it had some color features like the new model will, but if you’re in the market for something like it, it’s worth considering. There’s a chance it will get slightly cheaper when Prime Day actually arrives, but it likely won’t be by much—especially considering this is a match of the lowest price we’ve tracked.

Ultrahuman Ring Air for $300 ($50 off)

This smart ring is our favorite without a subscription. Importantly, due to a ruling by the FTC, these rings will no longer be available for purchase in the US after October 21 (though Ultrahuman says existing rings will still be supported). If you have been eyeing one, this deal is a match of the best we have tracked so far. The Ring Air can track your heart rate, blood oxygen, physical activity, and sleep, and it’ll offer insights about changes in your heart rate variability or skin temperature. There are some additional convenient features like a smart alarm that’ll wake you up during a lighter part of your sleep cycle, too.

Baratza Encore Coffee Grinder for $120 ($30 off)

Courtesy of Amazon

Baratza

Encore Burr Grinder

WIRED has devoted a lot of time to thinking about and analyzing the best coffee grinders—because frankly, the quality of the grind is every bit as important to determining how your coffee tastes as the machine you use to brew. What we keep discovering is that Baratza’s entry-level Encore grinder series performs shockingly well for its price range. At a $120 Prime Day deal, it’s punching far, far above its weight. Note this grinder is for drip, French Press and AeroPress. For espresso, you’ll want the Baratza Encore ESP ($200).

Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that’s too important to ignore. Subscribe Today.

When Amazon.com Inc. recruited longtime Microsoft Corp. product chief Panos Panay in 2023 to run its devices division, his new colleagues thought the e-commerce giant was preparing to take its consumer gadget line upscale.

Panay pushed back on the idea during an all-hands meeting with thousands of engineers from the Alexa, Echo and Fire TV brands. But his vision for the business didn’t come into clearer focus until this week, when the executive unveiled a suite of new products at an event in New York. The message: Panay aims to build devices that people want to show off in their homes and use—at every price tag. “The idea is putting a lot of detail into every product,” he said in an interview.

Though most of the new devices, including updated smart speakers, e-book readers, home security tools, TV accessories and other offerings, do carry higher prices, the company’s more affordable products are equally key, Panay said.

“The superpower of designing for cost is such a rare talent,” he said. “When you just anchor on that and now you’re making great products and you can serve everyone—that’s how we can have an impact on the world.”

Ralf Groene, a former top designer at Microsoft who came out of retirement earlier this year to become head of design at Amazon, echoes that sentiment. “There’s lots of sophistication in the material, but we don’t want you to be like, ‘Oh, it’s so sophisticated.’ It needs to blend in.” He compares it to not noticing your shoes when you run. Or when you play the guitar and are “just into the music,” Groene said.

While Panay is thrilled with Amazon’s slick-looking new Echo speakers and Kindle e-readers, he talks most proudly about an updated $40 4K Fire TV stick—an unglamorous peripheral that lets people stream programming on their television. That product has a new operating system with improved speed and performance “on the cheapest possible 4K device,” he said.

“In my heart, that’s a great product,” Panay said, “because so many can afford that and get an incredible experience.”

Still, making more premium hardware—something Panay calls the “signature” line—to generate higher profit margins, a la Apple, is also a major part of the goal. Amazon’s hardware division has long been seen as a loss leader—with the real money coming from subscriptions and purchases made through the Alexa voice assistant.

Panay disputes that view. While the overall division continues to lose money, some product lines are profitable, and others are heading in that direction, he said.

Panay also oversees Amazon’s efforts beyond Alexa and devices, including its push into satellite internet through Project Kuiper and autonomous vehicles with Zoox. The profit drive has been a priority for the group in recent years as Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy seeks to cut costs and reform a unit that sometimes operated as a borderline research lab.

“My belief is that our job is to make devices the next big business at Amazon,” Panay said. To accomplish that—and continue building the organization—certain levers need to be pulled to make the business more successful, he said.

The revamped devices could help. Other than the Fire TV stick, most of the new Amazon-branded hardware has a higher price tag. The latest Echo Show 8, for instance, is $80 more than the current model. And the new color Kindle Scribe is the priciest Amazon e-reader by about $200. With those higher prices, you’re also getting a much better product, Panay said. But you’re not getting an overhaul built around high-end metals or the world’s priciest fabrics.

“The first transformation is just elevating those products to the next generation of what they should be,” Panay said. “It’s just the beginning of that.”

His department’s top leaders assemble every Thursday for confidential planning discussions, and they’ve created a road map for the next three years of products, Panay said. A key first step was releasing an AI-fueled version of Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa+, a rollout that began in March. That set the stage for a device strategy: “Great products made even better through ambient AI,” Panay said.

Though Alexa+ can run on Amazon gadgets dating back more than five years, the latest hardware is the first to include the system already installed. The devices also have new features.

The updated Echo Show—a smart speaker with a screen—combines AI with sensors to know who just walked up to the device. It then immediately displays a person’s preferences and can serve up tailored podcasts or photos. The Kindle, meanwhile, can upload a user’s notes to help fulfill Alexa queries made on speakers.

While the company is now confident enough to include Alexa+ as the default option on its new devices, the rollout hasn’t been entirely smooth. Users have complained about slow deployment, broken compatibility with some appliances and the system misunderstanding commands. Still, Panay is all in.

“This is not an easy transition,” he said, given that hundreds of millions of people use the current version. Still, “an Alexa+ home is probably the most exciting home product that I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Amazon already has double-digit millions of users running the new Alexa, which costs either $20 per month or comes free with a Prime subscription, but the company is working at full speed to improve it, Panay said. “Everybody will want it and use it,” he said, adding that it will take time to resolve kinks across every use case.

Daniel Rausch, Panay’s lieutenant in charge of Alexa and Echo, said the results are already promising: The new interface boasts two to three times more usage than the old-school Alexa—for those who have it. (The regular Alexa still has hundreds of millions of users).

In a world where people are glued to their smartphones and computer displays, Panay wants to steer Amazon users in the other direction. That means creating AI devices that work in the background and require less screen time.

But plenty of other companies are chasing that dream, including Apple, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc. Even Panay’s predecessor, Dave Limp, had been exploring the idea at Amazon.

For Amazon to be a true contender in this market, the company will finally need to crack the code on mobile devices. A decade ago, it tried and failed with the Fire Phone—back when Panay was at Microsoft designing tablet-laptop hybrids. The company is working on future earbuds and smart glasses that tap into Alexa, but the real win will be something entirely new that’s portable and built around AI.

“There’s an entire paradigm shift of user interfaces that’s coming—I think the way people interact with their devices is being challenged,” Panay said. “I am a firm believer in ambient AI and being able to talk to something, have that conversation wherever, whenever, however you want to. I think it’ll take different form factors to accomplish that.”

To help, Amazon acquired a startup called Bee in August. That company developed a wristband that can record a person’s day and send the user a summary to a phone app. Though Amazon didn’t discuss the idea during its product unveiling Tuesday, it aims to eventually update the device and tie it into Alexa+.

To reshape Amazon’s hardware group, Panay has brought in collaborators from his Microsoft days, as well as veterans from Amazon itself. The team includes Aidan Marcuss, who worked on Windows until last year and now heads Amazon’s TV business, as well as J Allard, the co-inventor of Xbox who now leads a team focused on new form factors.

Ring creator Jamie Siminoff, meanwhile, returned earlier this year. Perhaps the most significant addition is the German-born Groene, who left his Microsoft role when Panay exited.

When Groene joined Amazon eight months ago, his first order of business was bringing all of the company’s designers—across hardware, software and user experience—under one roof. That created a structure similar to the way Apple develops its products.

Before the shift, design was implemented on a product-by-product basis by individual product managers. While this structure allowed for efficient product creation, there were silos that prevented teams from building on one another’s achievements, Groene said. It also yielded a slate of mostly utilitarian products that, aside from the Amazon smile logo, shared few common design traits.

Two other major changes: involving design from day one of the product process and making rapid prototyping a core part of development. Rausch, who has worked in Amazon’s devices division since 2009, said the biggest change is that sketch artists, prototypers, material scientists and engineers now work together from the start.

“Bringing it all together much sooner, iterating on the product much sooner, setting the bar higher much sooner lets you end up with something much more complete and just frankly better,” he said.

Amazon is launching its new products just weeks after Apple rolled out new iPhones—some of the company’s biggest updates in years—proving that this decades-old form factor is here to stay.

Meanwhile, Meta released new smart glasses with a display, showing that companies outside of Apple are eager and capable of introducing entirely new categories of devices.

OpenAI also looks to become a contender in mobile hardware, with ex-Apple designer Jony Ive working on a bevy of new AI-centric gadgets.

For Amazon to become a true leader in devices, it will need breakthroughs that go beyond its current lineup. It will also need to convince users that Alexa+ and its AI is worth paying for—lest they revert to or downgrade to the old version of Alexa. In any case, it will take years for the company’s strategy to take shape, Groene said.

“It’s really a journey,” he said. “In 12 months, you’ll see the story one step further, but it’s still not the full picture. It’ll take its time.”

2025 Bloomberg L.P. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.