Best Gifts for Mom (2026): E-Readers, Digital Wall Calendar, Smart Bird Feeders

I got my first set for Christmas from my siblings last year, and originally I stuck some pretty stickers on my case to tell the difference between my case and my husband’s. I’ve since upgraded to this stylish case from Troubadour (previously Mujjo), which makes it easy to see which is mine and clip it onto my keys. It’s a nice accessory if your mom already has AirPods but struggles to keep track of them or is looking for an easier way to differentiate hers from the other members of the house.

Gamer Gear

Once my kiddo is asleep, you can find me parked on the couch playing video games. I upgraded to a Nintendo Switch 2 ($449) earlier this summer so I could finally buy and play Pokopia ($70), since it’s exclusive to the new console, and I already can’t wait to use it to play the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ($60) remake coming out in November. It’s also quickly become an experience I can share with my son now that he’s 4; he’s been helping me and my husband replay Tears of the Kingdom, but he mostly requests we help him build monster-hunting robots and cook food for Link like he’s a starving Tamagotchi.

If you’re not looking to upgrade her console just yet but need a Switch-friendly cozy game for her, Stardew Valley has another big update in the works and only costs $15. I’m also hoping we see Fields of Mistria ($14) come to the Switch eventually, but the full launch came out in August for Steam users and has major quality-of-life improvements if she has played Stardew one time too many. My husband also upgraded his gaming setup this summer with a Steam Machine (from $1,049), and I have big plans to start using it often for Fields of Mistria. If your mom loves games, she’ll love any one of these new devices or new games if she already got herself the new gadget like I did.

Photo Spotlight

As a mom, I take a lot of photos of my family. A lot. And sometimes it feels like all those great photos of my son’s milestones go to my camera roll and photo storage to die. There are two solutions I love for this that are incredibly giftable: a digital photo frame she can instantly upload images to, and a printed photo book where you can take the best of the best and put them at her fingertips. I have and love both for different reasons. I love the digital photo frame to add all the photos from a fun weekend at the San Diego Zoo or Los Angeles Renaissance Pleasure Faire for me to relive again and again, but I also love being able to pull a photo book from the bookshelf and relive a specific moment I know is waiting there for me. Aura makes my favorite digital photo frames (followed by Skylight and the Calendar 2 if you want a multipurpose device, but Aura has no subscription fee if you only want photos), while Mixbook has been a favorite of mine for a while when it comes to printing photos, and has great starting prices for its photo books.

A Bird’s-Eye View

If you know a mom who loves to bird-watch (I know one!), you can upgrade her bird feeder to a smart one. Smart bird feeders add a camera to the feeder so she can see a close-up feed of the birds that come to hang out in her yard, and they’re adorable to boot, for a little smart curb appeal. WIRED reviewer Kat Merck recommends the original Birdfy Lite as a great gift; it’s her favorite smart bird feeder and comes in adorable colors to brighten your mom’s yard and catch the eye of neighborhood birds. But the one she and I both have our eye on (her for her mother, me for myself) is the Birdfy Nest Duo, which is actually a birdhouse with two cameras so you can see the birds entering the nest outside and raising a family inside.

An Adorable Pan

I didn’t know I needed a tiny cast iron pan until it arrived. Field Co’s hand-finished, preseasoned cast iron pans are already known for being both lightweight and handsome. But with a mere 5-inch cook surface, this one might even cross the line from handsome into “cute.” But that’s what makes it a good gift: Your mother almost certainly does not have a cast-iron pan this small, and yet it also has real utility. At just 2 pounds, this pan is easy to pull out and stash, easy to maneuver or flip a pancake, easy to serve from, and the perfect size to fit the perimeter of a two-egg omelet. In addition to an egg pan, it’s a great, low-effort, single-serving pan in general—whether for grilled cheese, a little bit of bacon or sausage, or a couple of chicken thighs. The egg pan can be bought all by itself. But for $60 more, the gift set is nice. It comes with a cleaning kit (with maybe my favorite chain mail scrubber in existence), some seasoning oil, and a leather handle cover in cognac, black, brown, or cherry. —Matthew Korfhage

Compression Care

There’s a wellness gadget for everything now. Rings that track your sleep and blood oxygen levels, masks to make you look younger, massagers to relax your muscles, and now boots to improve circulation. WIRED reviewer Boutayna Chokrane says her mom loves these compression boots from Therabody to improve circulation, which is a common problem for many of our aging parents. These boots combine compression, vibration, and LED therapy into a single wearable device that comes with eight preset routines to focus on legs, knees, and joints. It’s a unique option if she wants better recovery for her legs or better circulation for her health.

Better Espresso

The DeLonghi Rivelia is the best and easiest and most user-friendly superautomatic espresso machine I have tested. What’s superautomatic mean? It means you pour whole beans into the hopper, put milk in the milk carafe, and select the drink you want to make on the touchscreen menu. Then you let the machine do most of the rest. The style of espresso made by a superautomatic machine like this Rivelia is generally a bit smoother and less intense than the sort you get in a café. But the process is also less finicky; you won’t be dealing with coffee grounds and portafilters. What’s especially nice with this Rivelia is the ability to make multiple “profiles” for different coffee drinkers in the house, each with their own favorite drinks—and the ability to swap out bean hoppers to make decaf coffee in the afternoon. The Rivelia is also the machine my own mother, a drinker of lattes and dark-roast beans, loves unreservedly. Like others on the WIRED Reviews team, I often ask colleagues and those close to me to test my top-rated machines over long periods to see how they hold up over months or years of regular use. My mother thanks me nearly every month for letting her test the Rivelia. —Matthew Korfhage

For Ultimate Everything Showers

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

For most moms, showers are sacred—especially for moms of babies or younger kids. However, heavy metals, sediments, chlorine, and PFAS can cause health problems not just in drinking water, but in water that touches the skin, as well. They can also cause buildup on hair and shower surfaces, making them harder to clean. Many municipalities—including mine—treat water with chlorine, and when I asked him which filter he’d recommend for my own shower, WIRED water filter reviewer Matthew Korfhage suggested the Weddell Duo. It’s the only US filter he’s found that has certification for chlorine and lead removal from NSF International, and it also cites third-party testing by IAPMO R&T showing it can remove PFAS, though there’s no corresponding certification. Still, the Duo has a 2.5-gallon-per-minute flow rate and can remove most chlorine from over 8,000 gallons’ worth of showers. It’s an in-line filter, so it’s easy to install in minutes—just screw it in between your pipe and showerhead. It even comes with a little roll of waterproof tape to ensure a leak-free fit, and because of the horizontal orientation, installation won’t affect the showerhead height. The filter needs to be replaced every three months, but refills only run about $25, compared with competitors like Filterbaby or Rorra, which can cost $40 to $45. —Kat Merck

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