I've tested 5,000 gadgets - These are the 10 I actually Use.

Simplehuman Trash Can

Each one more essential than the last. And number 10 is my smart trash can, which sits permanently just outside our filming room. And I've picked it because it is the most streamlined way to trash things. I can literally wave my hand over it and it will open. But even if you don't have a hand to spare, you can actually just say, " Open can", and you can dispose of it without even touching the bin. Pretend that fits.

Not to mention the two separate compartments, so I can recycle things easier, the anti-fingerprint, anti-germ finish, and the fact that it's built to hide the existing bin liners that you have in there, while also giving you a really quick way to top them up from the back. Really has been revolutionary.

Ember Mug

Now, if there's one thing I've learned by testing the thousands of gadgets I have, it's that while the coolest gadgets are the ones that can dramatically change the way you live your life, oftentimes the best gadgets are the ones that mean you don't have to. They fit into your existing life and just make the things that you already do either faster or richer. And maybe the best example of that is the Ember Mug. This is a mug that I set up once when I first got it, like three years ago. And from that point, every single cup of tea that I've had has been kept at my perfect, exact, ideal drinking temperature. And I realize that sounds excessively particular, but for me, this whole idea of a tasty hot drink is actually my incentive to start working and also to stay productive while working. And so a mug that can both keep the drink hot, making it more enjoyable to drink and therefore a better incentive, and also make the tea last longer, because you can't just down it, you've got to sip it, is actually really good for my productivity. And funnily enough, it actually makes me drink less caffeine too, because one cup takes me one and a half hours to finish. So right now, the tea is at around 55 degrees Celsius. So let's see what temperature it's at at the end of the video.

Oral B iO10

Okay, this one is unexpectedly awesome. So about two years ago, I made the decision to start prioritizing my mouth care routine. So I got myself a water flosser, which clears the bits of food in between my teeth, and then upgraded my manual toothbrush to an electric toothbrush, which I recently just upgraded again to this toothbrush of the future. There's an LED color display on it for starters. It's there so you can cycle through the seven different cleaning modes. You don't actually need seven different cleaning modes, but I do use a combination of daily clean, tongue cleaning mode, which has actually made a big difference to making my breath just feel fresh all the time, and then whitening mode for a bit of a polish up every now and again.

And then because the brush head both oscillates up and down and rotates, as well as being moved manually by your hand over your teeth, it really does leave you with that dentist clean feeling every time you brush your teeth. It's got an LED that makes sure that you're brushing with the right amount of pressure, which made me realize that I've actually been brushing too hard for about 27 years of my life. But what I think is the coolest thing is that it pairs via Bluetooth to its wireless charging stand. And when you start brushing, the stand will tell you which parts of your mouth you need to focus on and for how long. Now, obviously, this is pretty overkill.

You don't actually need a toothbrush this advanced. But the way I see it is we spend like 95% of our lives trying to juggle work, hobbies, social life, family time. But if you're not healthy, you can't enjoy any of those things. So if there is a gadget that allows you to spend the same amount of your time doing something, but just be healthier because of it, then it definitely makes sense to at least invest somewhat in that.

Balmuda Toaster

Now, ever since I made that video on gadgets that think different, and I covered the Balmuda toaster, this thing has had a permanent place in my kitchen, in my heart.

Matter of fact, ever since I first locked lips with a piece of wholemeal goodness from this machine, which basically uses water to give your bread a steam bath, making it crispy on the outside yet fluffy on the inside, I have not used a normal toaster once. It's really funny, actually. Every single person who comes around here says to me, Aaron, there's no way to make toast better. Toast is just toast. And then I feed it to them, slowly watching as their expression turns from complacency to confusion to a wide grin as they start to realize how wrong they were. Really expensive machine. And it can only do two slices of bread at any one time. But if you value the end result more than anything else, I can't recommend it more.

Roborock S7

But even higher on my tier list is the Roborock S7 vacuum cleaner. I featured it in a sponsored video about a year and a half ago, but it is so legitimately useful that I still have the thing scheduled to clean at 11.30pm every single day. It vacuums the entire open-plan ground floor using laser-based navigation, automatically sucking harder when it's over thicker carpets, and then returning to its base by itself when it's done, emptying all of its goodness into this canister right here. You'll realize over a longer period of time using it that there are some obstacles that it just doesn't like. Like this rug over here is just a little bit too high for it to climb reliably. But then all you need to do is to go into the app and just set it as a no-go zone, and it will just do everything else. But it still literally halves the total amount of time we spend vacuuming in this house.

AirPods Pro 2

90% of it is your fault, isn't it? So, at number five then, we've got my earphones of choice. I do prefer to use built-in laptop speakers when I'm listening back to our own videos, because that tends to be more representative of how they're going to sound to you. But then when I do end up watching some friends on the go or listening to some music, the earphones that I reach for are the AirPods Pro 2. And I would say it's about 50% a convenience thing. Like when you use other Apple products, AirPods are just... they're so thoughtless. Like you have access to Siri, so instead of taking your phone out your pocket, you can just ask your earphones to go to the next song. And if you ever leave them behind somewhere, then just like an AirTag, they will tend to literally appear on a map on your iPhone so you can walk yourself back to them. So they're incredibly convenient, but if that's all it was and the sound quality itself was mediocre, I care enough about sound quality that I would have just ditched these for a pair of Sonys. But the new AirPods, even Apple integration aside, are really, really capable. Apple's been playing catch up when it comes to sound quality for almost their entire existence. There hasn't been a pair of Apple earphones that have sounded good for the price, until this one. The best way to describe it is rich and full-bodied audio. And the thing that tops it off for me is how the noise cancellation has also become more intelligent. It gently fades in as you put the earphones in your ears. And it's powerful enough that it doesn't just get rid of the gentle whirring of say your vacuum cleaner, but even like the intense screeching of the London Underground. For anyone who's ever ridden the Central Line, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Theraface

Okay, ever since I upped my exercise intensity for that fitness transformation last year, I pretty much always seem to have some sort of muscle ache.

In the process of trying to relieve that muscle ache, I've tried a lot of massages and the TheraFace is currently my number one. And a sub to the channel would be very nice.

So you can use this on other areas, but it's primarily designed as a face massager. And there's a few reasons why it's become a staple in my life. What tends to make me reach for it in the first place is just the simple fact that it's really, really relaxing. I don't realize how much tension I have accruing in my forehead until it gets beaten out of me with one of these. If I turn it on now, you can also hear that it's quiet enough that you can also use it while you're watching a movie with other people. And then the cherry on top is that it's also just a feel-good vector. This thing is like an 8-in-1 face treatment. Like, the massage brings blood to your face and therefore reduces the appearance of lines. It uses microcurrents to increase the muscle tone of your face. Different types of LED to clear acne and reduce the bags under your eyes.

AirUp Steel

The list goes on. Now, you might remember when I started my fitness transformation, one of the key tools that allowed me to make sure I was getting enough water was the AirUp bottle, which uses these scented capsules on top to trick your brain into thinking that you're drinking flavored water when you're not.

Well, since then, I have upgraded to the AirUp Steel, which uses the same interchangeable flavor system, but is also just a really premium bottle, which keeps your cold drinks cold, doesn't discolor over time, and doesn't at all change the flavor of the water, which some plastics can. Now, how much you actually end up liking this product will vastly depend on the expectations you have going in. Because if you buy one of these expecting it will be able to turn water into juice just by using scent, you'll be sorely mistaken.

It's more like it gives the water a noticeable scent and then a slight taste, but I mean, that's enough for me to reach for my bottle way more than I otherwise would have. So it's making a big difference to my life.

iPhone 14 Pro Max

But even more essential to my day-to-day life is my smartphone of choice. And there are actually two that I use right now. The main phone, which I carry everywhere and do all of my work-related things on, is the iPhone 14 Pro Max. It's not the most impressed I've ever been with an iPhone, in that the battery life is slightly weaker than last generation, the cameras pick up a lot of dust and they're kind of hard to clean, and I've ended up turning off the Always-On Display, which is one of the main new features that it launched with. But having an iPhone as my backbone is also super convenient, because A) the key way that I talk to my girlfriend is via voice notes, and they just sound so much better than they do on Android. Oh, guess what? You won't believe it. The new Samsung phone is apparently going to come with a 200-megapixel camera. That is so exciting, right? Sure.

And a lot of the key people around me also use Apple products. So being able to FaceTime them has resulted in higher quality calls when we're trying to coordinate the logistics of a holiday, for example. And being able to just airdrop them the photos from our latest gathering is a genuine time-saving. And C, as I'm starting to make more and more personal videos on the channel, I find myself recording footage on my phone more than I ever used to. For the simple fact that your smartphone is the most convenient camera that you're always going to have with you. And so for as long as the iPhone leads the pack when it comes to video, it's going to be really hard to switch away from that. I've got the Casetify Bounce case around it, which is not exactly streamlined, but does give me extreme peace of mind that my phone is protected. And there is also a tiny little heart that my girlfriend has snuck in there for me.

Google Pixel 7 Pro

Welcome to my mushy romantic life. But then I also sometimes use the Google Pixel 7 Pro. Mostly really for photos, because I just find that it pumps out sharper, more cinematic images. And then of course the photo editing, because nothing beats the intelligence of Google's editing suite right now. So what about gadget number one then?

What is the most essential piece of tech in my entire life?

MacBook 16" Apple Silicon

Well, it's this. The 16-inch MacBook with an M1 Max chip. This is the best laptop I've ever used for two reasons. One, that because this is using an Apple-made chip, which is based on the more efficient mobile phone processor architecture, the battery life in this literally lasts twice as long as any other laptop I've ever used before. Which means that I can spend the entire day traveling and still be productive just writing away my scripts on it.

But then, because this chip is also really optimized for Apple software, any time I need to jump in and do a bit of editing or change up a music track for a video, this laptop also has the performance to be able to run our editing program, Final Cut Pro, as smooth as butter. Okay, so the EmberMug. It's been about two hours of filming. It started off at 55 degrees Celsius. It is now at 61. It's got hotter. So check out the next gadget video. That's here and I'll catch you there.