It’s sometimes hard to find holiday gifts that hit the really sweet spot: With enough quality to show how much you care, but not so high-end that you’ll find yourself starting off the new year with an unpayable credit card bill. Don’t sweat it — part 2 of our holiday gift guide features an array of excellent devices, each of which costs less than $150. You’ll find gear to suit a wide range of tastes, such as a toolkit for hardcore tech enthusiasts and a programmable bot for budding geeks, an electronic writing pad for literate friends and a 3D “pen” for creative doodlers, streaming media devices for cord-cutters, and much more. We’ve included prices and shopping links, but be aware that prices fluctuate. And, as always, don’t let your holiday shopping be ruined by false deals and scams. Check out the rest of our holiday gift guide if you’re looking for some great stuff over $150, or some low-cost stocking stuffers. (You’ll also find a video showing off some cool wearables.) Meanwhile, here are our suggestions for mid-priced tech gadgets to give (or perhaps to get?) this year. Imagine if Apple shoehorned Siri into something resembling a hockey puck, then made her a lot smarter and more capable. That’s the idea behind the Echo Dot, a smart-home gizmo operated almost entirely by voice. In place of Siri, the Echo Dot relies on Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant, which can respond to a huge (and growing) number of commands, from ordering pizzas to requesting Ubers to telling jokes (mostly corny ones, alas). In a home that already has other smart components, Alexa can turn off lights, adjust the thermostat, and much more. The Dot contains a small built-in speaker, but for better sound music lovers can pair it with a wired or Bluetooth speaker, then crank out news, music, podcasts, and even audiobooks. The Echo Dot does all this for less than a third of the cost of Amazon’s original Echo device, which makes it a lot more accessible for gift-giving. And just think: Every time your friend summons Alexa, he or she will think of you. — Rick Broida You know that buddy of yours who can magically fix busted phone screens, worn laptop batteries, and fried hard drives? It’s not really magic: It’s a bit of know-how and the proper tools. Hobbyists and pros alike would benefit greatly from iFixit’s Pro Tech Toolkit, an aptly named bundle of drivers, tweezers, spudgers, opening tools, and other essentials for repairing electronics. It also comes with an anti-static wrist strap to prevent accidental zaps of sensitive parts and a magnetic pad to keep screws from rolling away. Everything stays tucked neatly in a fold-up carrying case, and iFixit backs the toolkit with a lifetime warranty. — Rick Broida You know that friend who’s always making cool sketches on cocktail napkins? Help him add a third dimension to his drawings. The 3Doodler Create looks like a pen, but instead of putting 2D lines on paper, it produces 3D objects. Simple ones, to be sure, but amateur and pro artists alike will have a blast seeing what they can create. Wireless and battery-powered, the 3Doodler extrudes heated plastic sticks that cool and harden almost instantly. It comes with a sampling of these sticks; the company offers inexpensive refills (starting at $10 for 25 sticks) in a wide variety of colors and materials (including glossy, sparkle and glow). This $99 (vendor price) gift should delight anyone with even the slightest artistic inclination. — Rick Broida Have friends who like camping? You can help light up their campsite and teach them some science at the same time. The Hydra-Light PL-500 is a camping lantern and portable USB charger that doesn’t run on batteries. Instead, it relies entirely on salt water. Go science! All it takes is some water and a dash of ordinary table salt. That, combined with the included alloy “PowerRod” and a carbon-based membrane inside the lantern’s fuel cell, delivers juice to both the LED lantern and an internal lithium-ion battery, which can be used to charge phones and other small USB devices. According to the manufacturer, the rod will last for up to 250 hours and can be stored dry for over 25 years — so it’s a good item to keep on hand for the apocalypse or the next power outage, whichever comes first. — Rick Broida PL-500 Salt Water Charger & Light Set Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your smartphone is disgusting. Lots of studies have found “ick!”-inducing amounts of bacteria on our mobile devices — more than is typically even found on toilet seats, according to some reports. (Now, there’s an image for your office holiday party…) Give someone the gift of good health with the PhoneSoap 2.0 smartphone sanitizer. All they’ll have to do is drop their phone in the apparatus, turn it on, and then breathe easy as it uses UV-C lights to zap all the nasty germs away. The $60 (vendor price) gadget even charges a phone while it’s cleaning. Peace of mind and power — an electrifying combination if I’ve ever seen one. Your favorite germaphobe will never stop thanking you. From a distance, at least — seriously, do you know how much bacteria a typical hug transfers? — JR Raphael Getting video content from the internet onto a TV doesn’t have to be a hassle. Help your friends or family members stream sanely with Google’s new Chromecast Ultra or Roku’s Premiere+. Both devices can handle 4K and HDR content, and both support a wide range of streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Now. The main difference between them is that the $69 Chromecast has no remote control or on-screen interface; it’s just a simple little dongle that plugs into the back of a TV, and you use any phone or tablet to “cast” content and control playback from regular mobile apps. The Roku, in contrast, which goes for $100 (vendor price), is a more traditional set-top box with a standalone remote; it relies on menus and apps on the TV for interaction. The Chromecast has the perk of working with Google’s new Google Home tabletop assistant. If you’re considering getting one of those as part of your present, your giftee will be able to start and control playback simply by speaking aloud — a pretty neat feature. The Roku, on the other hand, has the distinction of supporting Amazon Video, which the Chromecast does not. Decisions, decisions… — JR Raphael If you have friends who would rather write with pens than type with keyboards, consider Wacom’s Bamboo Slate. This lightweight electronic “smartpad” lets users take notes or sketch naturally on normal paper and then save their work to the cloud. Unlike other digital writing systems, the Bamboo Slate doesn’t need specialized paper — just place any paper on the clipboard-like device (you can also slip a pad into the slot at the top) and use the included pen. The Slate stores whatever you write as a graphic file — when you’re finished, just press a button on the device and that content is sent to Wacom’s Inkspace cloud app. (Slate owners get 5GB storage free and 50GB for $3/month after a three-month trial.) From there, documents can be exported or synced with other cloud services such as Dropbox, Evernote, or OneNote. The Bamboo Slate comes in two sizes: a large for 8.5 x 11 in. paper that costs $150 and a small for paper half that size that goes for $130 (vendor prices). If you’re looking for something fancier, the $200 Bamboo Folio package includes the larger smartpad along with a nylon cover that has space for extra paper and business cards. — Barbara Krasnoff Is giving someone a fitness tracker as a gift like buying them a gym membership? Well, maybe, but it’s a lot cheaper and perhaps a little less pointed. If you’re going to go that route, the Fitbit Charge 2 is a great choice. For $150 (vendor price), it tracks steps plus exercises like running, biking, or weightlifting; connects to your phone’s GPS; and does a pretty good job of monitoring your heart rate (although it’s not as accurate as a chest strap and should not be mistaken for a medical device). More than that, it’s actually pretty attractive. Its interchangeable bands come in six colors, it has an unobtrusive monochrome OLED screen, it can go nearly a week on a single charge, and it connects with Fitbit’s terrific app and website. Fitbit is far and away the leader in the “basic” fitness tracker category — ones that don’t run third-party apps…
