Tech
We’ve Rounded Up the Best Early Labor Day Deals on Gear We’ve Tested
Labor Day is not until September 1, but retailers are already offering oodles of Labor Day deals. The unofficial end of summer, a celebration of the American worker’s contribution to our national prosperity, brings with it bargains on WIRED-tested gear, including home office essentials and some of our favorite gadgets. For the next couple of weeks, we’ll be cruising and perusing for the latest true discounts on the gear we recommend to our friends—and rounding them all up for you below.
Check our Best Labor Day Mattress Deals and upcoming outdoor gear deals stories for additional savings. We’ve also got some updated roundups for Back to School Deals and Back to School Laptop Deals.
Featured Labor Day Deals
Tech Deals
Photograph: Ryan Waniata
The Sony Bravia 7 II has been on sale for this price for a little while, but we have yet to see it drop lower. It’s in our Best TVs buying guide as the pick with the most immersive picture. It has natural yet vivid colors and excellent picture processing. Reviewer Ryan Waniata says it renders 4K and HD scenes “so clearly you’ll feel like they’re going to spill into your living room.” It could have better black levels and a few more ports, but it’s still an excellent set, especially at this price.
Our favorite electric scooter, the Apollo Go manages to strike an excellent balance between features and price. It weighs 46 pounds and has maximum speeds of 28 miles per hour, though you can tweak top speed, brake strength, and acceleration response in the app. It also has a few extra features like turn signals, a bell, and self-healing tires. We haven’t seen it sell for less.
This is the best price we’ve seen thus far for our favorite Android tablet. It’s not a high-performance powerhouse, but it can handle the tasks that most people need. You can watch videos (even outdoors in bright sunlight), play most games, and use the included stylus to take notes or efficiently browse the web. The battery lasts about 20 hours and only takes about 100 minutes to recharge.
Courtesy of Apple
The Apple iPad (A16, 2025) is the iPad we recommend for most people. It comes in fun colors like blue and yellow, and it’s plenty powerful to handle whatever you’ll throw at it on a day-to-day basis—from playing games to streaming videos to browsing the web. It doesn’t support Apple Intelligence, which may be a blessing or a curse depending on who you ask. It does have a modern bezel design around its 11-inch LCD screen, plus USB-C charging, a Touch ID sensor, and two 12-megapixel cameras—one in the back and one for selfies. It also works with many of the best iPad accessories.
The M4 Apple MacBook Air is the best MacBook for most people. This is the cheapest we’ve seen it. Where some MacBooks are overkill for basic everyday tasks, this lightweight model can handle them with ease—and you won’t be paying for performance that you won’t use. It has a bright display, long battery life, and support for up to two external displays as well as Apple Intelligence. And while you might want something else if you’ll be doing heavy video editing or need a giant screen, the M4 MacBook Air will be capable of handling multiple Google Chrome tabs and apps running in the background. We do wish it had some more ports, but you can always use a USB hub to customize them further.
These are the best noise-canceling earbuds we’ve tried. They have excellent sound quality and battery life, plus solid control options, and they’re comfortable to wear for long periods of time. But where they truly excel is in active noise canceling. They can make a busy subway car or crowded airplane disappear entirely, lending you extra focus or decompression with no effort.
Home and Outdoor Deals
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
Branch has made our favorite office chair for years. It has oodles of adjustable elements, including the arms, armrests, seat depth, recline, lumbar support, and seat tilt. The foam cushion seat is comfortable and the mesh backrest is supportive, too. The affordable price tag is icing on the cake, and while it doesn’t go on sale very often, you can save ten percent until the sale ends with code LABORDAY.
If you don’t want to spring for the Ergonomic Chair Pro, this is the best budget-friendly office chair and an option worth considering. It’s very easy to assemble and there are a few adjustable areas for a better fit—the armrests, seat, recline, and lumbar support can all be dialed in. There are some fun fabric color options, like blue and orange, though the upholstery does tend to pill and is a magnet for pet hair. Even with its quirks, it will be a definite upgrade if you’re still working from the ratty chair you picked up off Craigslist when you first built your home office.
Sitting all day is bad for you! This telescoping desk can be raised up as high as 45 inches, with simple setup and two available sizes. It comes in a few different finishes. The leg motors aren’t the quietest, but they work well, and the desk looks great in any setup. For additional recommendations, check our home office buying guide.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
This coupon code gets you 20 percent off almost everything on Humanscale’s website. Humanscale makes some of the best office chairs. The Freedom Headrest is the best reclining office chair, and it drops from $1,743 to $1,394 with code SEMIANNUAL20. Editor Julian Chokkattu said, “this chair gracefully supports my back like a mother gently laying a baby in a crib.” We also like the Humanscale Path, which is great for tight spaces and even comes in armless versions. It falls from $1,294 to $1,035 after code.
The Silk & Snow S&S Organic Mattress is our favorite organic latex mattress. The latex-wrapped coils help to alleviate any tension or pressure points while you’re sleeping, and it’s especially great for side sleepers. Check our roundup of Labor Day Mattress Deals for additional expert recommendations.
This is the bed frame I’m currently using, and I love it very much. Assembly wasn’t my favorite, but once I got it all put together, I fell in love. It has a drawer at the foot of the bed that’s handy for storing extra linens or off-season clothing, and it’s sturdy too. I also appreciate that the platform lets me maneuver my mattress easily so I don’t have to fight to change my sheets.
Photograph: Nena Farrell
This well-made, luxurious sofa is one of the best couches you can buy online. Operations Manager Scott Gilbertson called it the best-looking and most comfortable couch he’s ever sat on. The website lets you order swatches and pick the layout you want, and you can even get a full-size printout to make sure the couch will look right in your living space. There are dozens of options for upholstery, legs, and cushion fill, so you can create the couch of your dreams. For a more affordable option, we also like the Benchmade Modern Laguna (pictured above) on sale for $2,397 ($599 off). “My family and I have been sitting on it for a year and a half now, and the single cushion (as well as the rest of the couch’s cushions) is comfortable and supportive,” says reviewer Nena Farrell.
Breeo makes the best upgrade fire pit. The American-made pit has a fire bowl that’s two feet wide, so it’ll fit pre-cut wood, and there are a ton of accessories available. (We especially like the live-fire pizza oven, on sale for $723—a $128 discount). The hefty, sturdy base and natural patina (on the Corten steel option) make this a centerpiece worthy of any backyard.
This is featured in our guide to the Best Kitchen Composters. It has the fastest compost breakdown of any model we tried. It has some quirks, like a lid that requires two hands to open and the machine’s tendency to make a loud whirring noise as it works. But it’s a great-entry level kitchen composter, and it doesn’t drop in price very often.
Courtesy of Ooni
The Ooni Volt is the very best electric pizza oven. It can heat up to 850 degrees Fahrenheit, and the triple-pane glass door always lets you see what’s going on. And while you might miss out on some of the vibes that come with a fire-powered oven, the Volt can safely be used indoors and outdoors—so you won’t have to brave the coming winter chill (or supply propane refills) to get your paws on some good ‘za.
Hydroviv makes one of the best shower water filters we’ve tested. The bacteriostatic showerhead was able to filter total chlorine down to undetectable levels in reviewer Matthew Korfhage’s chloramine-treated water system. This deal is for the automatically-replenishing subscription bundle. Hydroviv says you should replace filters every six months, but you can pause or cancel that subscription if you decide you want to order them separately.
WIRED Reviews Editor Julian Chokkattu tested and loved this outdoor couch and armchair set. The couches come with OuterShell, which is a built-in cover that helps protect the couch cushions from the elements (and stray bird poops). The performance fabric is made from recyclable materials, and the covers are machine washable. Julian still has to see how the couch fares New York winters, but so far, it’s sturdy and comfortable. We like that the couch is made with Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood. It’s also backed by a ten-year warranty and available in four different fabric options.
Photograph: Martin Cizmar
We really like this cooler from RTIC, and clipping the on-page coupon gets you 10 percent off the normal price, bringing it within $10 of the best discount we’ve seen. The rotomolded 45-quart cooler is heavy, but the padded handles make carrying it easier, and tester Martin Cizmar hasn’t experienced any issues with ice retention. And unlike coolers from Yeti, this one actually has its full listed capacity available inside. All the better to store your beer.
We’ve recommended the Albany Park Barton in our Couch Buying Guide for years. It’s soft and supportive, with deep seats and wide arms so you can put down your coffee cup or phone without needing an extra table. There are many different fabrics to choose from, and you can choose the stain of the wooden legs too. Assembly wasn’t too difficult—just be prepared to take out a lot of recycling afterward. The couch also comes with a 30-day trial so you can try it before committing.
Home Depot is offering up to 35 percent off a variety of appliances for Labor Day, including washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, and various bundles. This discount also applies to a few robot vacuums that we like from Roborock and iRobot, as well as a large selection of window air conditioners we recommend. If you’re in the market for a new home appliance, this sale is worth checking out.
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Tech
Asus Made a Split Keyboard for Gamers—and Spared No Expense
The wheel on the left side has options to adjust actuation distance, rapid-trigger sensitivity, and RGB brightness. You can also adjust volume and media playback, and turn it into a scroll wheel. The LED matrix below it is designed to display adjustments to actuation distance but feels a bit awkward: Each 0.1 mm of adjustment fills its own bar, and it only uses the bottom nine bars, so the screen will roll over four times when adjusting (the top three bars, with dots next to them, illuminate to show how many times the screen has rolled over during the adjustment). The saving grace of this is that, when adjusting the actuation distance, you can press down any switch to see a visualization of how far you’re pressing it, then tweak the actuation distance to match.
Alongside all of this, the Falcata (and, by extension, the Falchion) now has an aftermarket switch option: TTC Gold magnetic switches. While this is still only two switches, it’s an improvement over the singular switch option of most Hall effect keyboards.
Split Apart
Photograph: Henri Robbins
The internal assembly of this keyboard is straightforward yet interesting. Instead of a standard tray mount, where the PCB and plate bolt directly into the bottom half of the shell, the Falcata is more comparable to a bottom-mount. The PCB screws into the plate from underneath, and the plate is screwed onto the bottom half of the case along the edges. While the difference between the two mounting methods is minimal, it does improve typing experience by eliminating the “dead zones” caused by a post in the middle of the keyboard, along with slightly isolating typing from the case (which creates fewer vibrations when typing).
The top and bottom halves can easily be split apart by removing the screws on the plate (no breakable plastic clips here!), but on the left half, four cables connect the top and bottom halves of the keyboard, all of which need to be disconnected before fully separating the two sections. Once this is done, the internal silicone sound-dampening can easily be removed. The foam dampening, however, was adhered strongly enough that removing it left chunks of foam stuck to the PCB, making it impossible to readhere without using new adhesive. This wasn’t a huge issue, since the foam could simply be placed into the keyboard, but it is still frustrating to see when most manufacturers have figured this out.
Tech
These Sub-$300 Hearing Aids From Lizn Have a Painful Fit
Don’t call them hearing aids. They’re hearpieces, intended as a blurring of the lines between hearing aid and earbuds—or “earpieces” in the parlance of Lizn, a Danish operation.
The company was founded in 2015, and it haltingly developed its launch product through the 2010s, only to scrap it in 2020 when, according to Lizn’s history page, the hearing aid/earbud combo idea didn’t work out. But the company is seemingly nothing if not persistent, and four years later, a new Lizn was born. The revamped Hearpieces finally made it to US shores in the last couple of weeks.
Half Domes
Photograph: Chris Null
Lizn Hearpieces are the company’s only product, and their inspiration from the pro audio world is instantly palpable. Out of the box, these look nothing like any other hearing aids on the market, with a bulbous design that, while self-contained within the ear, is far from unobtrusive—particularly if you opt for the graphite or ruby red color scheme. (I received the relatively innocuous sand-hued devices.)
At 4.58 grams per bud, they’re as heavy as they look; within the in-the-ear space, few other models are more weighty, including the Kingwell Melodia and Apple AirPods Pro 3. The units come with four sets of ear tips in different sizes; the default mediums worked well for me.
The bigger issue isn’t how the tip of the device fits into your ear, though; it’s how the rest of the unit does. Lizn Hearpieces need to be delicately twisted into the ear canal so that one edge of the unit fits snugly behind the tragus, filling the concha. My ears may be tighter than others, but I found this no easy feat, as the device is so large that I really had to work at it to wedge it into place. As you might have guessed, over time, this became rather painful, especially because the unit has no hardware controls. All functions are performed by various combinations of taps on the outside of either of the Hearpieces, and the more I smacked the side of my head, the more uncomfortable things got.
Tech
CEOs are taking the lead on AI initiatives | Computer Weekly
The AI radar 2026 study from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has reported that artificial intelligence (AI) investment is set to double in 2026 compared with 2025. The study, based on a survey of 2,400 business executives, of which 640 are CEOs, found that almost every chief executive polled (94%) is committed to continuing investments even if returns take time to materialise.
In fact, almost all (90%) of the CEOs polled believe AI agents will deliver a measurable return on investment (ROI) by 2026.
The study found that over two-thirds (72%) of CEOs now act as the primary decision-maker for AI in their organisation, taking responsibility from CIOs, who were previously the main lead in AI projects.
Christoph Schweizer, CEO of BCG, said: “Corporate investment in AI is here to stay. 94% of our survey respondents say they will continue to invest in 2026, even if it takes time to see the return. They intend to spend 1.7% of revenue on AI comprehensively. That is more than twice of what it was a year ago.”
BCG’s research suggests that companies leading the way in AI deployments are investing 60% of their AI budgets on agentic AI (AI agents). “We tell CEOs that they need to make AI a key priority,” he said. “The way they own it, the way they talk about it, the way they bring their organisation along. They need to spend time on deepening their own AI literacy.”
BCG recommends that CEOs understand the tools, the technology, and keep in touch with technology suppliers and partners. “Ultimately, you need to know what you talk about so that you can bring your organisation along and steer for maximum return,” added Schweizer.
With regards to the adoption of agentic AI, BCG found that more than 30% of the CEOs investing in AI during 2026 said they would be building agents to deploy in the work environment. Vladimir Lukic, global leader of BCG’s Technology and Digital Advantage, said: “AI agents will truly be something that will unlock organisations and deliver a return on investment within 2026.”
Sylvain Duranton, head of BCG X, said the research highlights differences in CEOs’ AI confidence in different regions. BCG reported that UK businesses are less likely than global peers to make large-scale investments in AI in 2026.
The study found that only 24% of UK companies plan to invest more than $50m in AI, compared with much higher shares in countries leading the AI race, such as Greater China (68%), Japan (53%), the European Union (38%) and the Middle East (41%). BCG also reported that British CEOs are the most sceptical of AI’s potential return on investment and less involved in decision-making on AI.
Discussing the regional differences, Duranton said: “CEOs in the East, in India, in China, in Japan, the Middle East and Africa tend to be highly confident that AI is going to be a positive return on investment move. In the global West – Europe, the US and the UK – there’s a bit more caution.”
In his experience, many Asian companies have huge confidence and boldness in moving forward with AI. However, many European and US firms operate in a different way. “There’s some more skepticism in their workforce,” said Duranton. “There potentially is some more regulation that they deal with.”
Firms leading the way with AI deployments, which BCG categorise as “trailblazers”, tend to focus heavily on upskilling the workforce. Jessica Apotheker, chief marketing officer and managing director at BCG, said: “Trailblazers are putting 60% of their AI budget behind upskilling and retraining their workforce. So, they’re really wanting to go deep in the organisation, changing the way people work, putting people behind this new technology.”
BCG reported that in these organisations, 70% of the workforce has been upskilled or reskilled on AI.
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