First of all, I bought my husband the iGrill Cooking Thermometer last year during the height of grilling season and it continues to be one of his all time favorite devices. It’s just about the best $80 I’ve ever spent. Integrates with your iPhone or your iPad and ensures that bad things don’t happen while beer is being consumed and your food is on the grill. Frankly, I love it as much as he does.
I’m an unabashed Apple fan (so skip this if you’re a hater) and the day I brought AppleTV into our lives was also a good one. For a mere $99 we now stream Netflix, movies, MLB.com and other sports that I don’t care at all about, YouTube – and a host of other goodness. Not to mention all your music, photos, etc. It’s one of those things that I always think everybody knows about, until I start talking about AppleTV and get a lot of blank stares. You can stream stuff through your Wii and PlayStation, too, but hubs likes AppleTV the best. Check it out if you’re in the market for a streaming solution and you won’t be sorry.
The MoshiMoshi Retro POP Handset that I suggested for Mother’s Day is something that my husband actually loves more than I do, so if your guy is old enough to remember a time when handsets were built for comfort and/or if he travels in a car a lot, this might be just the gift for him. My husband has now purchased them for all of his clients and it’s literally one of his top favorite toys.
A client pointed me in the direction of this automatic lawn mower thingie (a la iRobot, only for your lawn)—okay, so its official name is LawnBott. While I think it’s super cool, I know that my husband wouldn’t really love it. The reason: he loves yard work because it’s a two-hour period that he can escape from all of us. So if I were to pony up the dough (and it’s not cheap) for this little wizard, it would mean taking away something he loves–time away from all the estrogen (and ensuing drama) that dominates our home. Oh, and I can’t imagine this not getting stolen in the first hour it was out in the yard. Yes, Virginia, we’re urban dwellers.
Oh, and I also bought him the Nike+ FuelBand Fitness Tracker (which was one of my Mother’s Day picks, too), and while he doesn’t like it as much as I do, he’s using it daily, which was my goal. More Nike+ FuelBand = less fat tummy. Less fat tummy = wife who nags less. Happy wife, happy life. Oh wait, this is supposed to be about Father’s Day! No matter, it’s a great gift and he loves it. Mostly.
There you go. A gadget-loving wife’s best suggestions for Father’s Day gifts that might just wow him. Most of them are pretty affordable, except for that lawn thing — and all of them are things we have, use and can’t imagine living without them. Mostly. Except for that fitness band, and that’s growing on him, too.
Oh, and if you’re the craftsy sort, check out these amazing DIY kid projects for Father’s Day from the amazeballs people at Cool Mom Picks. There’s a bunch of them that I’d like to do. If I could ever drag myself away from the Internet.
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”