The Best High Chairs

A good high chair should be simple to use and, above all, painless to clean. After 40 hours of testing, including cleaning up pureed sweet potato and crushed Goldfish crackers from 13 high chairs, we’re confident that the simple IKEA Antilop will make mealtimes easier than high chairs that cost 10 times as much. We also like the Fisher-Price Healthy Care Deluxe Booster Seat, an affordable compact travel chair and booster seat, and the Stokke Tripp Trapp, our adjustable and aesthetically pleasing upgrade pick.

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The Best Full-Size Strollers

A full-size stroller needs to do—and be—many things.

It must safely and comfortably transport a child from A to B for several years, while also seamlessly supporting a family’s day-to-day activities. Depending on where you live, and what your day-to-day life looks like, you may rely on your stroller to be a cargo carrier for groceries and extended outings. You might need a stroller that you can easily fold and carry with one hand—say, to regularly toss in the back of your trunk, to carry onto public transportation, or to lug up several flights of stairs. Or maybe you want a stroller that facilitates a regular jogging routine or is built to handle a walk off the beaten path.

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The 28 Best Gifts for 2-Year-Olds

Keeping up with the developing skills and interests of a 2-year-old can feel like a sprint (sometimes literally) or a guessing game. “Play is how they start to understand the world,” said Heather Singh, who was until recently the director of educational programs at the Thinkery, a children’s museum in Austin, Texas.

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The Best Portable Bluetooth Speaker

Portable Bluetooth speakers are the easiest, most affordable way to spread music and podcasts across a room, backyard, or beach blanket. Because these speakers come in a variety of designs and sizes, no model is perfect for every situation—but the excellent sound and rugged design of the Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 3 made it the favorite in our tests.

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You Don’t Have to Ditch the Switch When You Switch to Smart Lights

Smart-home confession: It can be tedious to have to consult a phone or smart speaker just so you can turn off smart lights (there, I said it). Personal confession: Some members of my household regularly trigger a smart-home meltdown by flipping off the switches that power all the smart lighting, rendering them, well, stupid. Alas, a smart house divided cannot stand.

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Our Favorite Watering Cans

Almost any vessel that holds liquid—from measuring jugs to that half-finished glass of water on your desk—can water your plants, but a well-designed watering can does it better, with less mess and considerably more style. Here we share our four favorite watering cans for everything from houseplants to flower beds.

Our picks are intended for gardeners of all ages (we’ve had nearly 20 testers ranging from 9 years old to 70-plus). We researched and tested dozens of cans in a wide variety of garden settings, and our picks include an all-around plastic can for outdoor gardening; an affordable, all-purpose can for houseplants; a can with an extra-long spout for hanging plants; and a small metal can for succulents and small pots. If those don’t work for your needs, we’ve also identified several other good watering cans.

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The Best Upright Carpet Cleaners

Unless your carpets are subjected to marathon-levels of foot traffic, you likely don't need to buy an upright carpet cleaner. Aside from spot-cleaning major stains, one wash per year is plenty for most people, so it makes more sense to rent a machine or hire a pro. But if you want fresh-looking rugs at all times, get the Bissell DeepClean Lift-Off 66E1. We tested eight models, and this was the only one that completely cleaned up our mess.

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Bed Bath & Beyond Is Bankrupt. But You Can Still Use Its Coupons.

Bed Bath & Beyond is shutting its doors after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, marking the end of an era for coupon clippers everywhere. Once upon a time, Bed Bath & Beyond’s storied, oversized “Big Blue” coupons could be found in every mailbox, circular, and email inbox, but Bed, Bath & Beyond has stopped accepting them. A few other retailers have stepped in snag sales away from BB&B’s liquidation, though. Our deals team dug in to see what’s worth it.

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The Best Wireless HDMI Video Transmitter

Sometimes it’s not convenient, or even feasible, to run an HDMI video cable between your video player and your TV or projector. A wireless HDMI video transmitter solves that problem, allowing you to send an AV signal wirelessly across the room or through walls to another location. A good wired setup will always be more reliable, but if you need wireless transmission, we recommend the Nyrius Aries Home+ because it performs well and has more features than the competition.

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The Best Dishwashers

Any dishwasher—even a cheap one—can clean your breakfast bowls and dinner plates, as long as you use a decent detergent. But the best dishwashers can handle the tough jobs and are also quiet, reliable, and easy to load. After digging through thousands of customer reviews and stress-testing 17 models with seriously crusty dishes, we’ve concluded that the Bosch 300 Series is the first one you should consider.

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The Best Countertop Ice Maker

If you can’t get the ice you want from trays or store-bought bags, and a built-in machine (like the one in a fridge) won’t cut it, then you might want a countertop ice maker. You can just buy whatever’s cheap or looks cool: The most compact and affordable models—which make nine bullet-shaped “cubes” at a time—are likely all the same basic machine made in the same factory, and they work pretty well.

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The Best Blackout Curtains

If outdoor light interrupts your sleep, you may rest better using blackout or room-darkening curtains. After testing 20–using a strobe burst and a light-sensitive camera–our favorite option that blocks most light is: the Freemansburg Solid Blackout Thermal Curtains.

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The Best Electronic Keypad Door Lock

When you think about it, keys are irritating—they’re bulky, you’ve got to keep track of them, and your keychain just picks up more and more of them as time goes by. A convenient alternative is an electronic lock: In the middle ground between traditional keyed locks and fully connected smart locks, these keyless locks open with a code entered on a touchscreen or a keypad. Their ability to add or delete multiple user codes comes close to a smart lock’s versatility, but using these doesn’t require any kind of connected device. We tested six electronic locks, and the Yale YRD256 Assure Lock SL offers the best combination of security, features, and overall looks.

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The Best iPad Pro Cases

After spending at least $800 on an 11-inch iPad Pro or $1,100 on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, you would be wise to protect your investment. You can find plenty of cheap cases, but if you can afford to spend a little more, it’s worth it to safeguard your extremely expensive tablet and its scratch-prone aluminum body. We’ve tested a number of cases for Apple’s newest iPad Pros, and we’ve found a few great options that offer a better balance of protection and price than Apple’s official cases do.

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Can You Recycle Styrofoam, Bubble Wrap, and Other Shipping Packaging?

So many of us have been there: guiltily wondering what to do with piles of plastic bubble wrapping, air pillows, or peanuts from a package.

How do you responsibly dispose of this junk?

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The Best Cheap Printers

Printers are not our favorite household gadget, but sometimes they’re necessary. If you run a home business that has to generate receipts, shipping labels, or tax documents, for example, or if someone in your household is in school, you probably need a basic printer. Here are a couple of relatively inexpensive models that we recommend based on our tests for our guides to laser printers and all-in-one inkjets.

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The Best Car Vacuum

If you want to vacuum your car, we think there are much better options than buying a car-specific model that plugs into your vehicle’s 12-volt outlet. You might even already own a vacuum that will do the job just fine. But if you’d like a dedicated tool, the Black+Decker Flex Vacuum BDH2020FL is our favorite cordless handheld vacuum for car cleaning. (We used to also recommend the Dyson Humdinger, but it’s currently unavailable.) The Flex is capable of handling the tough-to-reach areas in a car with its long, flexible hose. It comes with multiple attachments and has enough run time to clean a vehicle from the dashboard to the trunk (including the upholstery and hard-to-reach crannies, like the armrest storage box) in one go. And unlike dedicated plug-in car vacs, it's a multipurpose machine—it works just as well around the house.

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This $10 ‘Carbage Can’ Made My Car Less Disgusting

I have an embarrassing confession to make: I used to treat my car like a trash can.

Whatever I could crumple and throw into the front passenger footwell of my battered, clanking Subaru Crosstrek, I would. Crinkled receipts, balled up fast-food wrappers, empty plastic coffee cups, even used tissues—my car was extremely gross, but I just couldn’t be bothered to put in the effort I assumed it would take to keep my car clean. (Especially since that car, with over 150,000 miles and a check-engine light that seemed to always be on, made me a regular at the mechanic’s.)

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The Best Travel Car Seats

Let’s face it: Traveling with little kids can be a slog. But a lightweight, compact, easy-to-install travel car seat is one tool that can help make trips a bit easier.

We’ve tested 14 travel car seats for infants and up, and examined how they perform in various circumstances, including during air travel and in rental cars. The Chicco KeyFit 35, one of our picks for the best infant car seats, is an excellent choice for both travel and everyday use. For an affordable and easy-to-use convertible car seat for toddlers and preschoolers, we recommend traveling with the Cosco Scenera Next. The backless, lightweight Cosco Rise is great for booster-age kids.

If you’ll be hopping in and out of taxis or rideshares with a baby, the Doona is a unique but expensive infant car seat that converts to a stroller. And instead of purchasing a dedicated convertible car seat for travel, another option is to bring yours along with the Britax Travel Cart.

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The Best Shower Curtain

A good-looking shower curtain is an easy and inexpensive way to spruce up even the most drab bathroom. We spent 30 hours on research, interviewed two designers and a house cleaner, and tested 13 candidates in a variety of materials to find our favorite: the Threshold White Waffle Weave Shower Curtain. It offers the best combination of good looks, reasonable price, easy care, and durable materials.

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The Best Laser Printer

Printers are annoying. All of them. But if you want to keep the annoyance to a minimum, we recommend a laser printer: Not only do they print sharp text and crisp graphics, but they also run more reliably than inkjets, and they won’t clog if they sit unused for weeks between jobs.

The best laser printer is the powerful, versatile HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw. It’s easy to set up and use, and it produces great-looking results both in color and in black and white.

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The Best Camping Tents

Whether you’re thinking of hitting the road or staying close to home for your next car-camping adventure, you and your loved ones will need a comfortable place to sleep. After researching more than 65 tents, talking to tent designers and tent-pole manufacturers, and sleeping in a total of 27 tents on seven weekend camping trips, we’ve concluded that the Mountain Hardwear Mineral King 3 Tent is the best car-camping tent available now for two people, and the Eureka Copper Canyon LX 6 Person Tent is the best choice for most families.

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The Best Ductless Mini Split Air Conditioner

A mini-split is an efficient, scalable way to add cooling or heating to specific rooms of a home. Also known as ductless mini-split air conditioners and heaters, they consist of one or more wall, floor, or ceiling-mounted indoor units connected to an outdoor compressor. They’re easier to install than a full ducted system, more efficient than window units or central HVAC, and they often make sense as a supplement to your existing heating and cooling equipment—giving a boost to an isolated area of your home. Add in thermostat-like controls alongside smart-home integration and mini-splits start to sound pretty great—but they aren’t cheap, with installation costs that can reach into the five figures. (Many local utility companies offer rebates to offset some of that.)

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How to Clean Your Fan or Air Conditioner

A filthy fan or air conditioner is not only less efficient at cooling you down, it’s also a potential health risk, especially if you have sensitive lungs or allergies.

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