An electronic gadget might not be the “traditional” Mother’s Day gift, but just about every mom we know would prefer a cool new piece of tech over a short-lived bouquet of flowers and box of chocolates. A number of us on the Engadget staff collaborated to create this guide, filling it with the Mother’s Day presents we’ve received ourselves, have given to the moms in our lives, or have otherwise tested and can safely recommend as a welcome gift. Whether the mom in your life is into music, cooking, fitness or even a good night’s sleep, there’s bound to be a useful device or service here that they’ll enjoy.

If you’re struggling to come up with just the right gift for your mom, you’re not alone. Mothers can be particularly difficult to shop for, especially if your mom is like many we know who insist that they don’t want or need gifts. Short of giving them some time back in their day to do what they want to do instead of things they need to do, the gift ideas we collected below can help you show the mother figure in your life that you care and want to spoil them a bit even when they claim it’s not necessary — because they deserve it.

Check out the rest of our gift ideas here.

We don’t speak for all moms, but a brief and unscientific survey has confirmed one gift most moms will love across the board: Time. Unspoken for, unstructured, zero-obligation time. While we couldn’t find extra hours on sale anywhere online, we did find some gadgets and gizmos that help save time and others that make precious down time more enjoyable. Our recommendations include some of the gifts we’ve given to the moms in our own lives as well as what the moms on staff would want for themselves. Most have a tech bent, because we are who we are, but all should appeal to any mom who wants to make the most of their time.

Check out the rest of our gift ideas here.

The free story DLC for Sea of Stars, the excellent Chrono Trigger-inspired indie RPG, will be available to download starting May 20. You might fear that a free expansion is going to be light on content, but the new Throes of the Watchmaker quest clocks in at eight hours. It’s a substantial add-on for those who have rolled credits on the main campaign, which you’ll need to do before the quest unlocks.

The DLC reunites the main game’s protagonists Zale and Valere, who journey into a miniature clockwork world designed by the titular Watchmaker. His magical invention is threatened by an ominous cursed carnival, and it’s up to the now experienced Solstice Warriors to save the day.

As well as a brand new area to explore, the expansion introduces a new playable character in Artificer, a laser-wielding robotic sharpshooter who joins the party on their quest to save the land of Horloge. And to really drive home the circus theme of the piece, Zale swaps his sword for juggling balls, while Valere becomes an acrobat. There are new combat abilities and combos to master for each character, tied together by a progression loop that is separate from the main game.

Sea of Stars composer Eric W. Brown returns for the DLC with an all-new score that includes additional original songs from co-composer Yasunori Mitsuda of Chrono Trigger fame.

Sea of Stars made a huge splash when it arrived back in August 2023. Heavily inspired by SNES-era RPGs, it cleverly takes the best bits of the genre — gorgeous pixel art, a proper overworld map, memorable music — while doing away with the more controversial ‘90s tropes, like grinding and random battles. The turn-based combat system incorporates Mario & Luigi-style timed button inputs, and allows you to reduce the damage received from incoming attacks by breaking “locks” with specific attacks of your own.

Throes of the Watchmaker is the second Sea of Stars DLC add-on, following the (also free) Dawn of Equinox update, which added local co-op and combat refinements. The full game is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One, and costs $35.

For those looking to elevate their cooking, a sous vide machine might be the perfect addition to your toolkit. Previously, these gadgets were almost exclusively used by high-end restaurants. But more recently, prices have come down to where they can be relatively affordable additions to your kitchen.

These devices make preparing perfectly cooked steaks a breeze while taking all the guesswork and hassle out of dishes like pulled pork or brisket. And it’s not just for meat either, as a sous vide machine can make easy work out of soft-boiled eggs, homemade yogurt or fish. And while some may say you need a lot of accessories like vacuum sealers or special bags to get the best results, starting with the right appliance will get you 90 percent of the way. So to help you figure out which sous vide machine is right for you, we’ve assembled a list of our favorite gadgets you can get right now.

Best sous vide machines for 2025

What to look for in a sous vide machine

While they might have a fancy name, the main things we look for in a quality sous vide device are quite straightforward: ease-of-use, reliability and a good design. It should be easy to clean and have clear, no-nonsense controls. It should also have some way of attaching to a tank or pot, whether by magnet or adjustable clamp, so it doesn’t become dislodged during use. And most importantly, it should have a strong heating element and motor that can deliver consistent water temperatures to ensure your food hits the correct level of doneness every time without overcooking.

Spoilers for “The Well.”

Sometimes, in fiction, you don’t need to say a Very Important Thing in a Very Important Way to make a good point, just ask how a thing would work if it played out in the world. This week’s episode of Doctor Who, “The Well,” does exactly that, and brilliantly.

Picking up straight after “Lux,” the Doctor and Belinda, still in their ‘50s outfits, are trying to get the TARDIS to work. Belinda helps with the controls, but the vessel still refuses to land on May 24, 2025, which panics the nurse even more. If the TARDIS isn’t broken, she assumes that the date or the Earth itself could be broken, and frets about her parents. The Doctor shares her concerns, but promises that she will be reunited with her family.

The Doctor persists with his plan to land in a few more spots with the Vindicator (the gadget he built last week) to orient the TARDIS. This time, it’s 500,000 years in the future, and Belinda asks if humanity even exists by now. He assures her it does, as humans spread to the stars and wormed themselves into every corner of the universe. The pair head to the TARDIS wardrobe to get into some appropriate clothes before heading out.

They step out onto the gantry of a spaceship where an advance party of marines are leaping into the void. With no choice but to join them, they land on the planet below, enabling the Doctor to take the Vindicator reading. But, alas, the planet’s heavy radiation means the ship (and by extension, the TARDIS) has to glide down slowly over the next five hours. So they tag along with the mission, the Psychic Paper enabling the Doctor and Belinda to insinuate themselves with the team.

The planet is inhospitable, occupied only by a small mining colony that has dug down into the world to extract its last remaining useful resources. The colony went silent a few days before and, before you can say “Oh, is this going to be an(other) Aliens riff?” one of the marines suggests it would have been wiser to “nuke the site from orbit.”

All of the colonists are dead, half from gunfire, half from injuries that look like they fell and broke every bone in their body. The mirrors are all smashed and the systems are offline, the records of what went on inaccessible. But there is one survivor, the colony’s chef, Aliss Bethick (Rose Ayling-Ellis) who, like the actress who portrays her, is deaf. Aliss has been waiting in the middle of a large cargo turntable (which reads on camera as a big circle) for days.

Aliss is isolated, both physically in the staging and because of her hearing loss, and while she can lipread, it’s still a barrier between her and the soldiers. The Doctor can communicate with Aliss in sign, and the soldiers all have their own captioning screens on their lapels. Much of the second act is taken up with the interrogation of Aliss as the marines work through the logistics of how to communicate with her. For instance, getting her attention by casting to another soldier’s screen in her eye-line to get her to turn around. Belinda enters the circle to treat Aliss’ injuries but keeps seeing something lurking behind her new patient.

It isn’t long before the Doctor learns that the desolate planet they stand on was once covered in diamonds. This is the planet Midnight from the series four episode of the same name when the Doctor, trapped in a shuttle, tries and ultimately fails to defeat a sinister entity that possessed one of the passengers. Like then, the Doctor’s pleas for calm fail. Two of the soldiers mutiny and attempt to lure the entity out and kill it. They do not survive.

It’s Belinda who works out and explains the rules: If you imagine the host — Aliss — at the center of a clock, then whoever stands directly behind her is attacked by the unseen monster. If you stand at six o’clock then you’re fine, but “you’ll die at midnight.” Quite literally, as whoever is in the entity’s way gets thrown around like a ragdoll — half the crew shooting each other to kill the entity, the other half getting minced by the alien.

The Doctor approaches Aliss to speak to the monster but since it’s time for the third act to start wrapping up, he just stares for a bit before working out the solution. In order to mine the diamonds the colonists would dump down mercury, using a pipe which is conveniently running behind Aliss’ head. Shooting the pipe will cause a river of mercury to cascade down, creating a mirror that should be enough to banish the monster.

They make their escape, but the Doctor can’t help but wait behind to see the monster, giving it a chance to latch onto Belinda. The captain of the marines shoots Belinda enough that the entity thinks she’s about to die and switches hosts, after which point they leap into the mineshaft. Belinda wakes up in the TARDIS in the Doctor’s care, ready for the next adventure. Meanwhile, the marines debrief their boss — Mrs. Flood! Who knows all about the Vindicator, too — before revealing the alien did make it on board their spaceship after all.

One of the threads in the episode is Belinda keeps discussing human terms and superstitions to shrugs from everyone around her. It’s something that’s got both her and The Doctor puzzled, as there seems to be something very wrong with all of reality.

You die at midnight...

James Pardon / BBC Studios / Disney / Bad Wolf

Showrunner Russell T. Davies was asked about bad faith criticisms that the show had somehow gone woke. “Someone always brings up matters of diversity and there are online warriors accusing us of diversity and wokeness and involving messaging and issues and I have no time for this,” he said. “What you might call ‘diversity’ I just call an open door,” he added, “it’s cold and it’s bracing and there’s a world in front of you! There’s a blue sky, there’s clouds and there’s noise, there’s birdsong, there’s people arguing.”

What’s notable about this is that Davies’ open-minded (and open-hearted) approach to making the show creates storytelling possibilities. For instance, the last time an episode of Doctor Who featured a deaf character (2015’s “Under The Lake”), she relied upon a colleague to interpret on her behalf. And her ability to lipread wound up being part of the solution to the episode’s problem — reducing her to little more than a plot mechanism.

Here, while Aliss’ deafness is a core part of the plot, it doesn’t feel as if she’s defined by that one facet. Effort has been made to flesh out her character, and it’s more a venue to explore how technology and communication intersect with someone with different accessibility needs. Especially as (co-writers) Sharma Angel-Walfall and Russell T. Davies made the effort to think through how this would work.

BBC Studios / Disney / Bad Wolf

Whenever I’m watching an episode of nü-nü-Who, in the back of my mind I’m mulling what the injection of Disney money changed. “Midnight,” the episode “The Well” is a sequel to, was produced as a “double banked” episode — splitting the leads to shoot two episodes at a time. “Midnight” was also intended as a cheap story, with the bulk of the script taking place in a single room. If we’re being honest, “The Well” could have worked just as well given the bulk of the action takes place in a handful of rooms.

That’s not to say the extra cash lavished upon this episode is wasted: “The Well” feels almost indulgent by Doctor Who standards for the sheer breadth and depth of its sets. I can’t help but recall the Aliens riff Strange New Worlds produced in its first season, which re-used the series’ standing sets for the wreck of the USS Peregrine. It sounds weird to say that Doctor Who is luxuriating in the fact it can afford to show a trashed bunkroom for all of a minute, but it is.

Perhaps part of the reason it does feel indulgent is that this is an episode relatively low on incident and high on character. Belinda gets a real showcase here, both asserting herself on the narrative at several points, but also being rebuked for doing so. She tries to take charge to help the injured Aliss but the medical kit is so advanced she’s not able to use it. She’s smart enough to work out the rules of the alien, but also it gets the better of her in the end.

Whereas the first two episodes this season felt overstuffed and rushed, the smaller story and focus on character lets everything breathe. That an accessibility tool is a key focus of the plot and used as a venue for storytelling and character development is marvelous.

Look, I’m as bored saying it as you are reading it, but once again I can’t help but point out the influence of Steven Moffat on this season. One of the inspirations for monsters like the Weeping Angels and the Silence was the idea of them being easy to turn into a schoolyard game. The unnamed entity here, with the mechanic that if you stand directly behind the host you will die, seems perfectly in that tradition.

But “The Well” also offers instances where Davies is in conversation with the rest of this season and his earlier work. In both “Midnight” and “The Well,” the Doctor is at risk of losing his grip on the situation because the threat of the unknown makes people paranoid and jumpy. A streak of deeply dark pessimism runs through all of this work and while it’s also on show here, there’s a little more hope than there was before.

It’s also interesting how Davies, who has always structured his seasons in a fairly rigid manner, seems to be deliberately repeating motifs and beats. The parallels between this season and the last feel almost like they’re trying to draw attention to themselves. “Space Babies” and “The Robot Revolution,” “The Devil’s Chord” and “Lux” and now the “Boom” paired with “The Well” feel like episodes vying for the same space in different realities. Not to mention the repetition of moments from episode to episode — like the TARDIS wardrobe sequence and the repeated hand injuries. If next week's "Lucky Day" is predominantly featured on Ruby Sunday without the Doctor and revolves around physical distance and / or the supernatural, then perhaps we might assume that this is more than coincidence. 

Mrs. Flood Corner

I’ve always hated “The End… or is it?” fake-outs that often undermine the drama of whatever denouement they’re tacked on to. Sure, it can be effective if you want to cheapen the sacrifices your characters made to vanquish the villain, but often it comes across as hacky. Not to mention that people with poor media literacy will assume that it’s actually a teaser for a cliffhanger to be resolved the following week.

Here, eh, it’s essentially a way to shoehorn Mrs. Flood in as the soldiers' boss taking the debrief after the Doctor and Belinda depart. She knows about the Doctor’s use of the Vindicator, and has now seen it in action thanks to the soldier’s recording. But there’s no breaking the fourth wall, which means she’s operating here in the same manner as Susan Twist did last year. Which is, uh, interesting.

Food at the grocery store seems expensive — until you go out to eat. If you’ve decided to get more use out of your kitchen, we know of a few handy gadgets to make cooking at home easier, quicker and probably more fun. As food lovers and tech reviewers, the Engadget team has tried out pizza ovens, sous vide machines, air fryers, ice cream makers and more. This list gathers up the best of what we’ve tested and reviewed in our own kitchens and serves as a great place to start as you zhuzh up your cooking situation. We’ve also linked to our reviews and buying guides so you can dive deeper into our recommendations for the best kitchen gadgets around.

Best kitchen gadgets for 2025

Nicole Lee contributed to this report.

You can sink a lot of money into your kitchen without even realizing it. There’s no doubt that some of the best kitchen gadgets are on the pricey side, but there are also plenty of budget-friendly tools that can make your time meal prepping, cooking for a party and reheating leftovers much easier. All the recommendations on this list are either products I use currently, or more affordable versions of something I decided to splurge on after years of food prep. You may not consider every single item an essential for your kitchen, but all of them can save you time when you need to get dinner on the table quickly.

Best cheap kitchen gadgets for 2025

Xbox’s Summer Games Showcase on Sunday brought a nice little surprise amidst all the expected news: the announcement of a new Life is Strange game, Life is Strange: Double Exposure. The game, which sees the return of its original protagonist Max Caulfield, will be released on October 29 for Xbox Series X/S, PC and PlayStation 5. Anyone dying to get their hands on it a little earlier, though, can pre-order the Ultimate Edition, which will grant them access to Chapters 1 and 2 on October 15. A Nintendo Switch release appears to be coming later, as well.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure picks up years after the events of the first game. Now, Max has found her friend Safi murdered and tries to use her powers of time manipulation to go back and save her — but things go awry. It’s a “full-on murder-mystery, with a supernatural twist” in which Max will have to bounce between parallel timelines to stop the killer.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!

The following contains spoilers for “Rogue.”

Doctor Who has always been gay.

From the get-go, many of its key creative figures were queer, and a large proportion of its fans are too. As Tat Wood explained in his essays in show guide About Time 6, the mix of science, fantasy and camp offered subtextual solace for queer youth in less tolerant times. Russell T. Davies returned and pledged to start saying the quiet part as loudly as he possibly could. As it stands, “Rogue” is probably the overtly gayest episode of Doctor Who ever made.

“Rogue” was written by Kate Herron and Briony Redman, the former best known as the director and executive producer of Disney’s Loki. Davies was loudly critical of Loki’s single nod toward the character’s pansexuality, calling it a “craven, feeble gesture.” This, then, is a chance to make amends by embracing all of the modern-day queer-geek touchstones. “Rogue” is an episode that sprints through slash fiction, D&D, cosplay, identity and, of course, the simmering erotic tension generated when two hot dudes face off against one another.

Bad Wolf / BBC Studios

As for the plot, it’s another modern-day Doctor Who that is carried by performances and vibes rather than mechanics. We open in 1813 at a stately home where two “gentlemen” are arguing in the night over a Lady’s Honor™. But the heroic figure breaks character, annoyed that his wimpy part isn’t as fun as playing the conniving, libidinous villain. Turns out he’s an alien that can absorb other people’s identities, leaving nothing but a desiccated corpse.

Inside the building, the Doctor and Ruby are dancing along to the Bridgerton-esque party, indulging their love of the Netflix series. Ruby is wearing a pair of Sonic Earrings that either control or inform her movements (it’s not clear) letting her partake in the formal dances. The earrings pick up interference, sending the Doctor off to investigate while Ruby immerses herself in capital-S Society. The source of the disturbance is a brooding figure lurking on a balcony above the dance floor: Rogue (Jonathan Groff).

Rogue is a bounty hunter sent to apprehend the alien — a Childer — who transforms into other people at the cost of their lives. The Doctor and Rogue slink off to discuss the matter in private and find the remains of the Duchess of Pemberton (Indira Varma). The pair accuse each other of being the Childer but, since Rogue has a gun and the Doctor doesn’t, he wins the argument. He marches our hero at gunpoint to his spaceship and uses a device to trap him in place, planning to dump him in an incinerator. The Doctor, however, is more interested in flirting with Rogue and hijacking the ship’s sound system to play Kylie Minogue.

Once Rogue has scanned the Doctor and discovered he’s not a Childer (complete with fan-baity images of past Doctors) they agree to work together. They talk about their lives, and the fact they have both clearly lost people along their journeys. After the Doctor has toured Rogue’s ship (it’s messy, he leaves his D&D dice on his main console) they visit the TARDIS. Both offer each other the chance at a better, or at least different, life, although we know deep down neither of them could ever leave what they have now. It doesn’t stop them from getting ever closer, but never quite being able to act upon their obvious impulse to lock lips. Now, with the help of the TARDIS, the Doctor modifies Rogue’s trap to more humanely exile them to an alternate dimension instead of an incinerator.

Meanwhile, Ruby is watching some Bridgerton drama, making friends with a character who behaves like she’s drawn out of a Jane Austen parody. It turns out that she is also a Childer, one of a handful that came to Earth to LARP their way through the evening. The gag being that, much like the Doctor and Ruby, they’re all Bridgerton fans who came to indulge in some fantasy. The night will end with a grand wedding, albeit one that just happens to descend into homicidal chaos.

After a chase, the Doctor and Rogue return to the house to see Ruby, now apparently the latest costume change for one of the Childers. Ruby's apparent death unleashes the Doctor’s vengeful side, and he prepares to sentence all of the aliens to a long and painful exile as a consequence. But when he does trap the Childers, it turns out Ruby was just playing along and had actually beaten her would-be attacker. But once the trap is sprung, it can’t be undone, and so the Doctor is faced with no choice but to condemn his friend along with his foes.

As a payoff, Rogue passionately snogs the Doctor and takes the trap controls out of his hand. Knowing that the Doctor can’t decide what to do, he sacrifices himself to push Ruby out of the trap, taking her place in the process. He triggers the trap, imprisoning himself in the alternate dimension with the Chidlers. As dawn breaks, the Doctor talks a good game about moving on, as we all must do in times of loss, but Ruby sees through it. There’s no way for him to rescue Rogue, and so he must accept what has happened and move on to pastures new. Which, in this case, is the next episode, the first part of the series’ two-part finale.

Bad Wolf / BBC Studios

One downside of Doctor Who’s abridged season is that we’ve been deprived of a lot of Ncuti Gatwa. He was absent much of the last two episodes and only at the end of “Dot and Bubble” did he get his first showpiece moment. Given Gatwa’s generosity to share focus with his co-stars, it’s gratifying to see him getting a chance to shine. And while Groff has to play Rogue as a stoic for much of the episode, the interaction between the pair is joyful.

I don’t feel as qualified to talk about the queer representation in the episode, but their chemistry felt believable and grounded. I’ll leave it to better, more qualified writers to expand on these themes, but I was urging the pair to kiss every time their faces came close. It’s funny how time changes your opinion on things: When the Doctor kissed in the doomed 1996 TV movie, I hated it. The idea of a sexy Doctor enmeshed in such human trivialities outraged my 12-year-old mind. Now, I just want the Doctor to bang whoever they want, whenever they want.

The nature of a guest-starring role in a running TV series means that there was no chance Groff would not die or be exiled into the ambiguous “if you ever fancy coming back” void. But it does mean Doctor Who’s loudly, proudly queer era has embraced the “Bury Your Gays” trope. It’s sad to see two men who are attracted to one another not get a chance to embrace that future, even if Rogue’s sacrifice is noble and well-telegraphed.

None of that should detract from the fact “Rogue” is a delightful way to spend an hour, and yet another welcome swerve both across genres and tones. It’s a gloriously slashy and fun romp that should help show that Doctor Who is a vehicle through which you can tell almost any story it’s possible to tell. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with it all those years ago, and I hope you have too.

Susan Twist Corner

I was on vacation and so couldn’t review “Dot and Bubble,” which was a magnificent episode of Doctor Who. Last week, the pair recognized Twist who was playing Penny Pepper-Bean, and the Doctor even took a picture of her face. They also both clocked where they’d seen her before, although Ruby’s memory was shakier given the time-bending weirdness of “73 Yards.”

Here, Twist is depicted in a portrait which, again, the Doctor notices and records. It does appear that the show has managed to find a way to balance the needs of each episode with the knowledge fans will scrub every frame for more meaning. But this isn’t Davies’ first time mining the show’s metatext and paratext to bait fans: 2008’s “The Next Doctor” played with audience expectations after David Tennant announced he would be leaving but information about his successor was kept quiet.

It might be nothing, but Rogue also mentions his bounty-hunting “paperwork” has gotten a lot more demanding since the “new boss” took over. Is that a hint about a big bad or just a character moaning about the admin side of their job?