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Whether you’re hacking a Roomba into a home-­security droid or assembling your own robocreation, outfit your workbench with these essentials. 1. Carbide3D Shapeoko 3 When an off-the-shelf part won’t do the trick, carve your own. This CNC router subtracts material­ from a block of wood, plastic, or aluminum with its quarter-inch carbide cutter to precisely shape any widget you design on your PC. The spacious 16 x 16-inch cutting area lets you think big. $1,099 2.

In the past few years, wirefree earbuds have sprung up in lush profusion, like baby frogs after a spring rain. I have to admit, though, it took me awhile to come around to them. Wirefree earbuds don't always fit securely and they're usually more expensive than many of the best earbuds. I'm constantly knocking earbuds out of my ears while walking, working, or adjusting my hood, and I can't afford to be that precious about them.

There's a Sonos sale going on right now. We're big fans of Sonos speakers here on the WIRED Gear team. The speakers often have best-in-class audio, and they're designed entirely around the idea of building a network of speakers in different rooms of your home. Sonos has been making connected audio equipment for more than a decade now, and the company supports its products for long stretches of time; someone who bought a Sonos amp in 2005 can probably play Spotify on the thing today without hassle.

There’s a ghostwriter in my machine. And it’s no Lee Israel—she’d balk at all the fast-­flying verbal inanities. I speak of Smart Reply, Google’s answer, in the form of a triad of autogenerated responses, to the problem of email. Just the other day, it saw fit to butt-reply to a frenemy of mine, “I’ll be there!” This in response to an invitation I had planned to ignore.

If you’re a new parent, you’ve probably spent an inordinate amount of time Googling baby monitors. It's tempting to invest in a high-tech smart monitor that will track each breath and heartbeat and teach them to sleep through the night. But I must warn you, new parents: You’ll need a monitor for much longer than the first year.