ArduinoMania

Arturia just released a free-to-use version of its popular Analog Lab software, called Analog Lab Play. This is a pared-down software suite with 100 presets culled from the original Analog Lab and from VSTs like the well-reviewed Pigments soft synth. There’s also a simplified interface for new users called Play View that streamlines visual cues and speeds up the preset selection process, in addition to allowing the purchase of standalone instruments. 

The available 100 presets with Analog Lab Play is much lower than the 2,000+ found with the original software, but, hey, free is free. Arturia’s new software is a good way to familiarize yourself with the company’s sound engines, just in time for those likely Black Friday discounts.

To that end, the original paid Analog Lab software is also getting a refresh. It’s now called Analog Lab Pro. It still allows access to thousands of presets captured from the renowned Arturia V Collection, Pigments and related soft synths. It costs $200 and remains mostly unchanged, but will receive the same UI refresh included with Analog Lab Play. When we reviewed the original Analog Lab, we found it to be the perfect software suite for those who like to tweak presets over creating sounds from scratch.

This isn’t the first time Arturia has thrust a free version of its software on the world. Analog Lab Intro is a similar product to Play that was offered as a free download with the purchase of select MIDI controllers and occasionally as a standalone software suite. The company also drops free instruments and effects once in a while, like 2021’s lo-fi tape plugin based on its Mellotron emulation.

Analog Lab Play is available for download right now, so hop to it. The UI refresh for Analog Lab Pro is coming at a later date. In recent months, Arturia has released an effect based on the iconic Leslie rotary speaker and an emulation of the acid house classic Roland TB-303, among other products.

Apple has announced the latest slate of upcoming games for Apple Arcade, one week after it increased the price of the subscription service for the first time in many markets. Among the titles Apple has in the pipeline is a new, exclusive 3D Sonic platformer.

In Sonic Dream Team, Doctor Eggman has found a way to turn dreams into reality. Sonic and his pals will have to navigate strange dreamscapes as they try to stop their old foe. Along with Sonic, you'll be able to play as Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose, Cream and Rouge. Each character has their own unique abilities. You'll be able to check out Sonic Dream Team when it lands on Apple Arcade on December 5.

Hitting the service on the same day is Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition. It's a mashup of an Animal Crossing-style life sim and an adventure game with a host of Disney and Pixar characters you can befriend.

Disney Dreamlight Valley has been in early access on other platforms since August last year. It was supposed to become a free-to-play title with paid expansions upon its official release in December, but developer Gameloft has changed tack, instead deciding to charge $40 for the base game on consoles and PC. However, you won't need to pay extra to play it on Apple Arcade. You'll also get access to the A Rift In Time expansion at no extra cost.

In addition to those titles, six other games are coming to Apple Arcade over the next couple of months, such as Football Manager 2024 Touch. In a first for the soccer management sim series, you'll be able to carry over your progress from Football Manager 2023 Touch.

Other upcoming games include cooking title Delicious - Miracle of Life+, Puzzle & Dragons Story (an exclusive) and oil rush-based sim Turmoil+. Knotwords+, a version of the word game that caught fire last year in the wake of Wordle’s success, will hit Apple Arcade on November 3. Indie classic Downwell+ (from Poinpy developer Ojiro Fumoto) will land join the service's lineup on November 17.

Roli was an early poster child for the emergence of MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression). The company has had its share of struggles over the last 10 years, but it's still out there trying to spread the gospel of MPE. Its first product after filling for administration in the UK (kind of like bankruptcy) and rebranding as Luminary Roli was a redesigned version of its Seaboard Rise. It's a flagship, pro-level MIDI controller, with a price to match ($1,399). The new Seaboard Block M takes the company's signature squishy, continuous keyboard and puts it in a much more affordable and portable package.

The $349.95 Seaboard Block M features the same 5D Touch technology of it's bigger sibling. That means, when paired with the right instrument (and properly configured), you can play incredibly expressive melodies and chords by sliding your fingers around, pressing firmly into the foam like surface or quickly tapping it for sustained plucks. 

Where as the Seaboard Rise 2 is a 49-key controller, with multiple macro controls and its metal frame screams premium, the Block M has just 24-keys and pared back set of controls. Though, you can connect two Seaboard Blocks together to make one modular 48-key keyboard.

Luminary Roli

While Roli doesn't explicitly say what it's made from other than "premium materials... constructed to withstand the rigors of touring", it seems safe to assume the Block M is primarily plastic. It also appears to lack the "precision frets" of the Rise 2, which made it a lot easier to find your way around the keyboard simply by feel. 

It has inherited the dedicated MIDI-out jack from the Rise 2, at least. That means you can use it to control a DAW-less setup and skip the computer altogether. This is becoming a lot more common on MIDI controllers at any price point, but it's still a welcome development.

Of course, the number of instruments out there — hardware or software — that can take full advantage of the MPE controls here are still somewhat limited. The Block M does come bundled with ROLI Studio, does give you a few options for expressive playing. It's not quite as powerful as Equator 2, the company's flagship soft synth, though. 

Lastly, Roli says you can expect about 10 hours of battery life with Bluetooth on. Though, you can always connect directly to device with USB-C for zero latency and no worries about battery life. The Seaboard Block M is available to preorder now for $349.95, but it's not expected to ship until March of 2024.

Let’s face it, buying a gift for someone who loves gaming is tough, especially this year. The past 12 months were jam-packed with some of the best releases in recent memory. While we at Engadget cover games extensively, our staff is full of people who genuinely love video games and play all the time. To save you some trouble, here are gifts chosen by gamers that are a bit different, but that most fellow gamers should appreciate all the same.

Backbone One

Dead Space

Drop + Epos PC38X gaming headset

Logitech G305 Lightspeed

Nintendo Switch OLED

Samsung Evo Select microSD card

Tunic

Microsoft Xbox Elite Controller Series 2

Press Reset

Ask Iwata

Formula 1 may do its preseason tests right before the new schedule of races begins, but Formula E holds its trials months before the first E-Prix. The official action starts in Mexico City in January, but last week the all-electric series took to the turns of Valencia for its annual preseason test. 2024’s Season 10 will be the second for the ultra-efficient Gen3 car, following a debut that delivered lots of wheel-to-wheel racing and a hard-fought driver’s championship that was decided in the final two races. While there isn’t a new car this year, there’s still plenty to know before the lights go out in Mexico.

A battery fire cut testing short

Teams lost a considerable amount of track time after a battery fire following the Tuesday morning session. The Race reports that the incident occurred in a pit stall occupied by WAE, the all-electric series’ battery supplier. The fire reportedly started from a battery that had been removed from the DS Penske driven by rookie Robert Shwartzman for three separate stints. Shwartzman had to stop on track due to an issue and once the car was back in the pit lane, the battery was removed and taken to WAE for inspection. Motorsport.com reports that the automatic battery safety system was activated causing the driver to stop. According to The Race, witnesses say there was a small audible explosion about 90 minutes after the car came to a halt on the circuit.

Formula E canceled the Tuesday afternoon and both Wednesday sessions while it looked into the cause of the fire. One person was taken to the hospital as a precaution but was released without any treatment. The series’ governing body, the FIA, deemed conditions safe to resume testing on Thursday afternoon following “investigations and findings provided by the technical suppliers,” Formula E explained.

As The Race notes, there has never been a traction battery fire at an E-Prix in nearly 10 years of events. There were incidents in 2015 and 2017, but those affected the smaller 12-volt battery. This was also unrelated to the new Attack Charge as Shwartzman had yet to demo that infrastructure. Formula E only had eight units for 11 teams and DS Penske didn’t have one at the time, The Race reports.

The first female driver in a Gen3 car

Simon Galloway

During the preseason test in Valencia, teams were required to put rookie drivers in their cars for three of the 18 scheduled hours of running. The lineup included former F2 driver Robert Shwartzman (DS Penske) and current F2 drivers Victor Martins (Nissan) and Zane Maloney (Andretti), among others. The rookie test saw the first female driver in a Gen3 Formula E car as well. ​​LMP3 and GT4 driver Gabriela Jilkova got behind the wheel of the Porsche team’s EVs, completing a 46-lap run. Formula E previously held rookie tests ahead of the Berlin E-Prix and during an extra practice session in Rome, both happening earlier this year.

The first test of Attack Charge

During a 10-hour session last Friday, Formula E held a simulated race, giving teams a 27-lap trial to test setups, run through safety car periods and demo the upcoming Attack Charge pit stops. The series had planned to introduce the stops last season, but supply-chain issues meant the technology would only be ready for the final few races. By then, Formula E felt it would be too late and decided to postpone the debut of Attack Charge to this season.

There is still a lot of unknown about how the stops will work, but what we do know is that they will take place during a specific window Formula E officials will announce right before the race. The series has also said that teams will be unable to double stack their two cars, a practice of pitting both vehicles back-to-back, which could lead to some interesting decisions about which driver gets priority. An Attack Charge stop is also expected to be quite long at 30-35 seconds. A mechanic hooks up a charging cable to the back of the car while the battery is replenished.

Jaguar and Porsche are quick… again

Simon Galloway

After strong showings at the start of the Gen3 era last season, it looks like Jaguar TCS Racing and TAG Heuer Porsche are going to be contenders once again. Jaguar and Porsche vehicles claimed four of the top five times in each of the three test sessions, including quick laps from the Envision team that runs Jaguar powertrains.

Jaguar’s Mitch Evans posted the fastest time of the week, notching a 1m24.474s mark that was over half a second quicker than the fastest lap in last year’s test. Evans, who finished third in the driver’s championship in Season nine, also topped the times in the second session. New teammate Nick Cassidy, who finished second in the championship last season while driving for Envision, kept Evans from sweeping all three sessions with a 1m24.617s in the final running of the week.

Mahindra seems poised to bounce back

Season nine was one to forget for Mahindra. The team that’s been in Formula E since the series began finished 10th out of 11. Significant offseason changes include an all-new driver pairing of Edoardo Mortara and Season seven champ Nyck De Vries. Mortara was fifth fastest in the first session of the week while De Vries posted the third best time in session two. Mahindra was hampered by the battery fire as it suffered damage to its equipment and both cars, but both drivers showed great pace at different points during the week.

The driver’s championship should be close again

19 of the 21 drivers set lap times within 0.7 seconds of each other during the last session of the week. Sure, that’s one-lap pace as opposed to managing all of the nuances of a Formula E race (like energy consumption and regeneration), but it’s clear the drivers are learning how to unlock the potential of the Gen3 cars. Last year, for example, teams were grappling with new cars and new tires, having to figure out the optimal performance for a harder Hankook compound.

Nearly two years after its prototype debut and eight months after its public beta, Sony's GT Sophy racing AI for Gran Turismo 7 is back, and going by Gran Turismo Sophy 2.0 now. It will be available to all PlayStation 5 users as part of the GT7 Spec II Update (Patch Update 1.40) being released on Wednesday, November 2 at 2 a.m. ET. 

We got our first look at the Sophy system back in February 2022. At that point it was already handily beating professional Gran Turismo players. “Gran Turismo Sophy is a significant development in AI whose purpose is not simply to be better than human players, but to offer players a stimulating opponent that can accelerate and elevate the players’ techniques and creativity to the next level,” Sony AI CEO, Hiroaki Kitano, said at the time. “In addition to making contributions to the gaming community, we believe this breakthrough presents new opportunities in areas such as autonomous racing, autonomous driving, high-speed robotics and control.”

The system's public beta this past February saw the AI competing against a small subset of the game's user base in the “Gran Turismo Sophy Race Together” event. Players who had already progressed sufficiently through the game were granted access to the special race, where they faced off against four AI-controlled opponents in a limited number of tracks. 

“The difference [between racers] is that, it's essentially the power you have versus the other cars on the track,” Sony AI's COO, Michael Spranger, told Engadget in February. “You have different levels of performance. In the beginning level, you have a much more powerful vehicle — still within the same class, but you're much faster [than your competition].” That advantage shrank as players advanced through the race rounds and Sophy gained access to increasingly capable vehicles. In September, Sophy learned to drift.

“We have evolved GT Sophy from a research project tackling the grand challenge of creating an AI agent that could outperform top drivers in a top simulation racing game, to a functional game feature that provides all game players a formidable, human-like opponent that enhances the overall racing experience," Spranger said in a press statement released Wednesday.

With Wednesday's announcement, the number of vehicles Sophy can pilot rises from the meager four models available during the beta event, to 340 (yes, three hundred and forty) vehicles across nine unique tracks. Per Sony, that means Sophy can drive 95 percent of the playable in-game models and will select its car for the race based on what the player has available in their garage (that way they're not randomly facing down a 918 in a Nissan Versa or are otherwise disadvantaged).

Players can match against Sophy in Quick Race mode (formerly "Arcade") regardless of their advancement through the game or current skill level. As long as you have a PS5, a network connection and the latest update patch installed, you too can get Toretto'ed by a stack of algorithmic processes. Good luck.

It’s easy to assume that the best tech gifts are the most expensive things. But there are plenty of options out there for the techie in your life that don’t require you to empty your wallet. If you’re struggling to come up with a gift for a coworker, family member or friend who's an early adopter or a tech obsessive, we’ve gathered some of our favorite things that are both small and affordable. The best part: All of these gift ideas come in at $50 or less.

Chromecast with Google TV (4K)

8Bitdo Pro 2

Anker 511 Power Bank

EarFun Free 2S

Tile Mate

PopSocket MagSafe Round Grip

Peak Design Packable Tote

Logitech Signature M650 mouse

Blink Mini

TP-Link Kasa Smart Plug Mini

If you ask Psync Labs, it’ll tell you the problem with smart security cameras is that they don’t know what they’re seeing. Those motion pings you get with other products? Defined by how light shifts in front of its sensor, treating an approaching figure or low-flying bird with equal alarm. So, Psync’s focus is to improve machine vision, but to also go one step further and pair this vision with GPT-enabled generative AI to help it, and you, understand what it can see. Its first product, the Genie S, is a security camera that’ll send you a written description of what (it thinks) is going on.

On paper, the Genie S has a similar feature set to plenty of other affordable home security units I could mention. There’s a powered pan-tilt base, five megapixel camera (outputting 2K Video), four LEDs, a microphone and speaker. But there are differences, like the fact it’s in the shape of a cube that, when it’s not activated, points the lens toward the base. Psync says it’s the most compact camera in its class, but probably not by as big a margin as the company hopes. Setup is easy enough – put it on a table, or use the screw mount to place it somewhere more esoteric, plug in the six foot long USB-C cable, and you’re on your way.

Psync says that a smarter camera will be better-equipped to capture what’s going on at home, but that’s not its best use case. VP of marketing Echo Wong says that the hardware is able to record those “memorable moments that fly by quicker than we can pull out our phones.” But I don’t think you would want to buy this on the off-chance it catches junior’s first word or steps. The more prosaic sales line, the one that probably wouldn’t fly as well, is that it’s a security camera with the added promise of not bugging you with needless pings because of the promise of AI smarts.

Buy one of these, and you’ll get the choice of a unit with 32GB built-in storage for $35 or 64GB for $40. I mention this up-front because we’re very much in “you get what you pay for” territory in terms of the picture and sound quality. It shoots vertically-oriented 2K video but the clips are pretty fuzzy, even if you can zoom in to get some halfway useful detail if required. It doesn’t like too much light, so if it’s pointed at a window (and/or anything reflective) then chunks of the image will get blown out. Similarly, the sound quality is something of a throwback to an earlier age of crunchy, over-compressed streams. You’ll get similarly crunchy audio using the talk feature, which has similarly “walkie-talkie” vibes that you won’t find on pricier hardware.

Psync Labs

Of course, that’s not what anyone is here for, but to see what this new company — of which little is known —has cooked up with AI. ViewSay is Psync's transcription tool which uses GPT, a form of generative AI, to essentially let the camera describe in text what it's seeing. ViewSay, which currently costs 99 cents a month, promises to identify objects, sort events that triggered the recording in a visual timeline, let you search through the clips with text and, of course, the aforementioned written pings. Pay, your fee, set this up, and your phone will ping when it spots something interesting, and give you the best description of what is going on that it can manage. Users can also set specific categories, like "Person," "Vehicle," "Pet" and will eventually be able to craft tailored alerts, like "a dog jumps on the couch" for alerts. 

Oh, but there is a catch — because that fairly reasonable 99 cents a month is just a limited-time trial, before leaping up to $7 a month. Which, we can all agree, is more than a little bit too much to spend on a product like this, especially in this economic climate. 

ViewSay is currently in beta, and while the app splash to get you to sign up promises plenty, the company is keen to keep expectations low. My impression so far is that while Psync has the bones of a workable idea here in theory, the nitty-gritty of practice isn’t. I pointed the camera at a neutral corner in my office and play-acted in front of it to see what it would do. My fake phone-call, where I learned that my (fictional) wife had discovered the secret to perpetual motion, went unremarked upon and undocumented. Well, kinda – the camera pinged my phone to say that “A man is sitting in a chair in a room, looking at his reflection in a mirror.” 

Actually, I’m being unfair – since the system can also make fairly accurate guesses at other times. Like, while I was setting the hardware up late one evening, I got a ping to tell me that “a man is sitting on the floor, holding a cell phone in his hand.” A few days later, I pointed the camera at a TV which was turned off, and the Echo Show that was in front of it. I then turned back to use my laptop – which I think was only really visible in the reflection on the TV’s screen. Not long after, the app pinged to say it could see a “A man is sitting in front of a laptop, looking at the screen, and possibly using it for work or entertainment purposes.” Now, this was either a massively-lucky guess, a false positive or a sign of how accurate this will be in future.

Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget.

When it detects something going on in this manner, the system records a 12-second clip to its local storage. These clips are retained for at least 14 days, and when you’ve looked at them in the app, you’re also able to save them to your phone. I understand you’ll also be able to take longer clips when motion is detected but that feature doesn’t yet appear to be available. You’ll also be able to share a live feed of your camera, using WebRTC, to up to four viewers – through a browser – for up to 30 minutes at a time. You might be wondering about how secure all of this is, and what exactly is happening to your data. Psync told me that its AI model is based on an AWS instance, and the footage is protected using 256-bit AES encryption. The footage recorded will be stored on the device locally, but the initial frame of the video is sent to the cloud for further analysis.

As something of an AI skeptic, and someone who isn’t thrilled at wiring up every corner of my home with a camera, I’m by default hostile to Psync’s plan here. But I can at least see where Psync is looking to add value to the standard security camera proposition. If you’re out and about, and you get a ping saying there’s a person in your living room, when there shouldn’t be, then that’s pretty helpful. Especially if you can just tune into the live feed and see for yourself what’s going on and if you need to do something about it. As much as the macro story is scary, I can understand the logic someone would apply to buy one or two of these.

But it’s worth saying too that what I just described isn’t yet what Psync is selling, only what it is gesturing toward. The system will require more training, and plenty more data from a broader user base, until it can start offering you more concrete descriptions. Now, I’m sure that in a year or two that will be the case, but until then, you’re essentially buying into an ecosystem where you’re paying for the privilege of being a beta tester.

YouTube is no longer preventing just a small subset of its userbase from accessing its videos if they have an ad blocker. The platform has gone all out in its fight against the use of add-ons, extensions and programs that prevent it from serving ads to viewers around the world, it confirmed to Engadget. "The use of ad blockers violate YouTube's Terms of Service," a spokesperson told us. "We've launched a global effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience. Ads support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube."

YouTube started cracking down on the use of ad blockers earlier this year. It initially showed pop-ups to users telling them that it's against the website's TOS, and then it put a timer on those notifications to make sure people read it. By June, it took on a more aggressive approach and warned viewers that they wouldn't be able to play more than three videos unless they disable their ad blockers. That was a "small experiment" meant to urge users to enable ads or to try YouTube Premium, which the website has now expanded to its entire userbase. Some people can't even play videos on Microsoft Edge and Firefox browsers even if they don't have ad blockers, according to Android Police, but we weren't able to replicate that behavior.

People are unsurprisingly unhappy about the development and have taken to social networks like Reddit to air their grievances. If they don't want to enable ads, after all, the only way they can watch videos with no interruptions is to pay for a YouTube Premium subscription. Indeed, the notification viewers get heavily promotes the subscription service. "Ads allow YouTube to stay free for billions of users worldwide," it says. But with YouTube Premium, viewers can go ad-free, and "creators can still get paid from [their] subscription."

The website raised Premium's rates to $14 a month in July from $12 before that. YouTube Premium also gives users access to offline viewing, background playback and higher-quality 1080p streaming, but it could be too expensive for those who just want an ad-free experience. The platform used to offer a more affordable option called Premium Lite in certain European regions, and it only cost €7 ($7.42) a month to remove advertisements from videos. However, it never made Lite available worldwide and ultimately killed that option by the end of October.

You probably own a ton of gear that supports wireless charging now, but if you want to make your setup as cordless as possible, a single-device pad just won't cut it. There are tons of multiple-item wireless chargers available now, but picking one can be a headache. You not only have to contend with varying levels of support, but different designs as well — the last thing you want is something that won’t fit on your nightstand or WFH desk. If you're looking for the best multi-device wireless charging pad for your needs, Engadget can help. We've tested numerous wireless charging accessories that support up to three devices simultaneously, and we have some thoughts on which are the ones that are worth your money.

Do wireless charging pads work with any phone or device?

It won’t be shocking to hear that your smartphone choice influences your choice in a wireless charger. Only iPhone owners will need to consider Apple Watch compatibility. Likewise, you’ll need an Android phone if you expect to power a Galaxy Watch. Buy an iPhone 12 or newer and you can attach your phone magnetically using MagSafe, while the latest Android phones often have some form of fast wireless charging.

However, it’s not simply a question of getting the fastest charger. You should consider what you might buy in the future. Don’t buy a two-device charger if you have an iPhone and AirPods, but have been eyeing an Apple Watch. And if you think you might switch to an Android cell phone (or vice versa), you’ll want to get something more generic that doesn’t lock you into any one ecosystem.

Some chargers include cradles, trays and other features that are heavily optimized for particular products, and might not even account for year-to-year changes. Some vertical stands are too tall for small phones like the iPhone 13 mini, for instance. While you can never completely guarantee that next year’s phone or watch will work, it’s worth buying something more likely to last.

Having said all this, don’t be afraid to get a charger with vendor-specific features if you’re fiercely loyal to one brand. Apple isn’t expected to ditch MagSafe any time soon, and Samsung will likely keep making Galaxy Watches for a while to come.

How to pick the best wireless charging pad for your needs: Location, location, location

Sebastian Bednarek on Unsplash

Even without a charging cable to worry about, you’re probably buying a multi-device wireless charger with one location in mind. It might sit on your nightstand or on your desk. Not everyone buys a charger just for themselves, though; you might want to use one as a shared station for you and a partner.

If the charger will sit on your nightstand, you’ll likely want a compact, stable unit that won’t swallow all your free space or tumble to the floor (and if it does fall, one with enough durability to survive). You may also prefer a lay-flat phone pad so your screen is less likely to keep you awake. The Apple Watch and some other smartwatches can double as tiny alarm clocks, so you might want a vertical charging option for any wristwear.

At a desk, however, you may want a vertical phone stand so you can check notifications. Will the charger sit on a low table? Horizontal charger pads may make it easier to grab your devices in a hurry. Travel chargers should fold up or otherwise protect the pads while they’re in your bag. And, yes, aesthetics count. You may want something pretty if it’s likely to sit in a posh room where guests will see it.

If it’s a shared charging station, you’ll want something with multiple generic surfaces, and you’ll probably have to forgo charging more than one watch at a time. In those cases, consider the handful of 4-in-1 wireless chargers on the market, or models with USB ports.

Wireless charging speed and performance

It’s no secret that wireless charging is typically slower than wired, and powering multiple devices adds a new wrinkle. As these chargers often have to support a wide range of hardware, you’ll have to forget about the fastest, device-specific options from brands like Google, OnePlus and Samsung.

That’s not to say these will be slow, but there just isn’t much separating them on the charging speed front. As a general rule, the quickest multi-device chargers tend to top out at 15W for phones. And you’ll need an Apple MagSafe charger if you want to get that full 15W on an iPhone.

It’s rare that you’ll find a truly slow example, mind you. Even some of the most affordable options we’ve seen will recharge your phone at a reasonable 7.5W or 10W, and the 5W for other devices is more than enough. If you’re only docking overnight or while you work, speed won’t make a huge difference. Just be sure that whatever you buy is powerful enough for a phone in a case. It’s also worth noting that fast charging for other devices is rare, although you’ll occasionally find speedier options for the Apple Watch Series 7.

Quality, box contents and small details

Melvin Thambi on Unsplash

The difference between a good charger and a great one often boils down to little details. You won’t always need to pay extra to get those, but a larger outlay may be worthwhile to avoid frustrations for years to come.

A textured surface like rubberized plastic or fabric will reduce the chances your expensive gadgets will slide off their charging points. The base should have enough grip and weight that the charger won’t easily shift out of place. Any floating or vertical stands should be sturdy — steer clear if there’s any wobble.

You’ll also want to make a note of what’s included in the box. Some chargers don’t ship with power adapters, and we've seen numerous models whose Apple Watch “stands” are merely holders for your existing charging puck.

Then there’s helpful touches like status lights for confirming correct placement, although you’ll want to make sure they dim or shut off after a certain amount of time. And while it’s still true that cradles and trays can limit compatibility, you do want your devices to stay where you put them. Shelves and lips can prevent your phone or watch from sliding. Oh, and be wary of floating smartwatch mounts, as heavier timepieces might sag.

Best premium 3-in-1 wireless charger: Belkin BoostCharge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Pad with MagSafe

3-in-1 wireless charger runner up: Logitech Powered 3-in-1 Dock

Best budget 3-in-1 wireless charger: Anker 533 Wireless Charger

Another good option: Otterbox 3-in-1 Charging Station for MagSafe

Best 2-in-1 wireless charging pad: Mophie Dual Wireless Charging Pad

2-in-1 wireless charging pad runner up: Samsung Super Fast Wireless Charger Duo

Best wireless charging pad for two people: Mophie 4-in-1 Wireless Charging Mat