40 thoughtful and fun tech gifts under $100

The new Echo is the best smart speaker you can give as a gift this holiday season. Alexa can answer all your giftee's questions, play music, and control any smart home devices.

These wireless earbuds are cheaper than AirPods, but they sound even better.

Fitbit's affordable Inspire HR tracker has no shortage of useful features to track your giftee's fitness metrics. The tracker has a heart rate monitor that helps improve the accuracy of tracking calorie burn, resting heart rate, and heart rate zones.

Philips Hue smart light bulbs can be controlled remotely, set to go on at specific times, and controlled by voice commands if you have a smart speaker.

The small-yet-mighty Bluetooth speaker can go swimming in the pool or ocean. It's also dustproof and therefore suitable for hikes and other outdoor adventures.

PopSockets Grips stick to the back of your phone and can expand whenever you need a grip or a stand. Use one to take photos, text, hold a large device, watch movies, and video chat with ease and comfort. Many cost less than $10 and they come in a variety of colors and patterns to fit your personality.

The Cableyoyo is a $10 rubber and metal spool, around which you wrap your earphones (or any other smallish cable) for safekeeping.

Anyone who likes to stream video in 4K on their TV needs a Roku Streaming Stick+. Roku's media streamers are the best in the business, and the Stick+ can stream TV shows and movies from all the major streaming platforms, including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and many more.

The entry-level Kindle is a great gift for book worms who want to have a digital library of ebooks to take with them on the go.

With the Click and Grow Smart Garden, your loved one can grow fresh herbs like basil, cilantro, or thyme in a matter of weeks.

Otterbox cases are built to protect phones and withstand a lot of drops, but that doesn't mean the brands' cases are ugly. In fact, Otterbox has tons of super fun cases with Star Wars, Disney, Pixar, and Marvel characters on them as well as some stylish designs.

The Echo Show 5 is an affordable smart display that has Alexa built-in. Your giftee can watch recipes and videos on it, see the time at a glance, and ask Alexa questions. It can also play music and control smart home devices.

If you are getting your loved one the Echo Show 5 mentioned above, you may also want to get them this hilarious Toy Story case.

Phones are breeding grounds for germs, so a good cleaning kit is both a thoughtful and practical gift. This one from Whoosh! leaves your phone clean without leaving any streaks behind.

Sennheiser makes some of the best over-ear headphones, and these $80 ones are comfortable, deliver outstanding sound quality, and have a long battery life.

The Lifeproof Fré iPhone case is perfect for people who love to be in or near the water all the time and for those who always drop their phone in some kind of liquid. This case is fully submersible in water that's up to 6.6 feet (2 meters) deep for 1 hour. It's also fully sealed with its built-in screen protector and port covers, so it's safe from the elements.

Protect your loved ones' fingers when it's cold outside and they still want to text their friends. These touchscreen gloves are super warm and work well on screens.

Casetify's easy to use tool lets you turn your favorite photos into a custom iPhone case. There are three case styles and dozens of templates, so you can turn your friend's best Instagram photos into a unique way to protect their phone.

Native Union makes some of the most attractive phone accessories around. The Night Cable is the best long lightning charging cable for the iPhone. It has a 10-foot cord and a handy weight to hold it in place while your phone charges.

If your giftee has a phone with wireless charging built in, the TaoTronics Desk Lamp is a great gift. It has a built-in wireless charger and a USB port so you can charge your devices wirelessly or with a cable. The lamp is also well made and fully adjustable. It has multiple brightness and color temperature settings so you can make it your own.

Nomad uses genuine Horween leather to craft gorgeous, durable iPhone cases that age beautifully. We can't recommend the brand's cases enough. Nomad also makes a few Samsung and Google Pixel cases.

Smartphone and tablet screens are fairly fragile and often shatter or get scratched, so it's a good idea to gift the klutz you love a screen protector from InvisibleShield. The brand makes excellent screen protectors that offer special features like blue light blocking and privacy shielding in addition to protecting your screen.

The new Echo Dot is a great way to incorporate a smart assistant into any home without spending a ton of money. Amazon improved the sound quality, too, so now it's better than ever. Alexa can do everything from answer questions, play games, and play music, to control smart home devices.

If your giftee isn't into Amazon's products but still wants a smart speaker, the Google Home Mini is a great alternative. The smart speaker is great at answering queries, can control smart home gadgets, and play music with good sound.

Native Union always impresses with its stylish tech accessories. If your giftee hates boring black and white tech, get them Native Union's attractive wireless chargers, which come in a nice rose or graphite color.

Instant cameras are the perfect gift for shutterbugs who wish they'd lived during the age of the Polaroid. Fujifilm's Intax Mini 9 comes in cute colors and takes fun, retro pictures that are printed right after they're taken.

Any smartphone shutterbug will love having the Lume Cube Air in their mobile photography kit. The little light helps illuminate the subject of a photo when the lighting is subpar.

Even though iPhones now come with more storage built in, it's still easy to run out of space. For people who take too many photos, download tons of music, shows, and games on their phones; the SanDisk iXpand is the perfect gift.

An iPhone dock looks nice on any desk, nightstand, or table, and it gives your giftee a good place to charge their phone. This Native Union Dock+ comes with a lightning cable for iPhone owners, but can just as easily be used with a USB-C or Micro USB cable.

Blue light can interfere with sleep patterns and cause eye strain, so your giftee is sure to love these blue-light-blocking glasses.

Tile trackers are one of the most practical tech gifts you can give. This pack comes with two Tile Slims, which are thin enough to slip into a back or wallet, and two Tile Mate's, which have loops, so they can fit onto key rings. Once they're paired with your giftee's phone, the trackers will send them a notification when it's lost contact with the tracker, and show them its last known location on a map.

Basically, you're giving four people in your life the gift of being able to digitally retrace their steps.

It seems like everything is high-tech these days and a lot of it seems pointless, but this is not one of those things. Ember's smart mug can keep your loved one's drink at the perfect temperature so that they never burn their tongue again. It uses a smart heating coaster and an app to help you decide how hot you want your drink to be every time.

You don't have to spend a lot to get a great tablet, and the Fire HD 8 proves that. This 8-inch tablet has a 1,280 x 800-pixel screen, 16GB of storage built in, and room for expansion via a Micro SD card slot.

No one likes waking up to a blaring alarm, so a light therapy alarm clock that tries to awaken you with a gradual, sunrise-like increase of light is a nice gift. The iHome Zenergy offers a number of great light alarm features, but it also has a pretty great Bluetooth speaker built into it, so your giftee can play music, too.

JBL's Flip 4 is still the best waterproof speaker we've ever tested; it survived completely underwater for 10 minutes and continued to work perfectly fine. If you're shopping for someone who's planning on a warm vacation — or lives someplace nice all the time — this speaker will let them rock out without worrying about dropping it into the pool or ocean.

If your loved one hates germs, they'll love this phone sanitizer. PhoneSoap kills 99.9% of common household germs, including bacteria that lead to E.Coli, Salmonella, Staph, the flu, and the common cold — without harming their phone.

Olloclip makes great lenses that you can attach to many different phones so that you can get a wide-angle, fish-eye, or macro effect on your photos.

The Roku Ultra is the best media streaming device with its easy-to-use interface, 4K video streaming, voice control, and simple remote. It can transform your so-called dumb TV into a smart one that plays shows and movies from Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, Prime Video, and other streaming services.

Whether you're shopping for someone who's getting into vinyl for the first time, or wants to resurrect a collection they haven't touched in years, they'll need a turntable. Audio Technica's has a built-in preamp, so they'll be able to plug it into any pair of powered speakers or stereo receiver, drop the needle, and enjoy.

Kids love tablets, but they can also be destructive fiends when it comes to tech. Luckily, Amazon's Kids Edition of the Fire 7 tablet is here to save the day with its protective case, warranty against damage, and tons of kid-friendly content.