The TheraFace Pro intimidated me. Made by Therabody—the company behind the popular Theragun devices—the TheraFace Pro is the It Girl beauty tool of the moment, on par with the coveted Dyson Airwrap in both price and prestige. This $399 tool offers a variety of skin-care treatments, from microcurrent and LED light to percussive facial massages. You can also buy extra heads for heating and cooling treatments.
But do you need all this if you’re not, say, cast in Top Gun 2? The answer is, maybe. Skin is the first defense against outside bacteria, so most people could probably stand to take better care of it. It’s hard to know exactly how well the TheraFace Pro works (if at all), but I really enjoyed my time with it. Despite my initial concerns about the contactless thermometer-esque device, it did make high-end skin care feel accessible and easy.
Buzz-Worthy
The TheraFace Pro comes with six detachable magnetic heads for four different types of skin-care treatments—facial cleansing, microcurrent, LED light, and percussive massage. These heads are controlled by two buttons, the percussion button and the ring button, each with three settings that equate to low, medium, and high. Except during cleansing, it beeps every 15 seconds to let you know how long you’ve spent on each treatment.
Therabody is known for its percussive treatments, and facial massage can improve blood circulation and trigger lymphatic drainage. There are three percussive attachments that come with the Pro that can be used solo or in tandem with the red-light treatments. The bristled facial cleansing head also pairs with the percussive button to exfoliate and massage at the same time.
To use the microcurrent, you apply the TheraOne conductive gel on your face to lubricate the area and create a barrier between your skin and the electric current. Then you touch the two metal knobs to your face, glide them over your skin, and control the current with the ring button. Theoretically, the electricity stimulates your facial muscles to strengthen them and increase collagen production, a natural protein your body makes to maintain elasticity in the skin (among many other functions).
The LED light treatment head has three different settings controlled by the ring button: red light, blue light, and red with infrared light. Red light and red-plus-infrared increases collagen and elastin production by energizing cells microscopically, and blue light kills acne-causing bacteria by activating the body’s immune system.
You want to avoid actual skin contact to avoid potentially spreading acne-causing bacteria over your face, so the light treatments only initiate when they’re half an inch from your skin. You’ll know it’s working because the light will intensify. While you can pair percussive treatment with the red light settings, you don’t want to pair a percussive session with a blue-light session, because the percussion will negate the blue light’s bacteria-killing effects.
If you also purchase the additional temperature-controlled heads, you’ll get two extra treatments—heating and cooling. With those heads, the Pro can apply heat to encourage collagen production, or cooling to reduce inflammation and puffiness (both with the same high, medium, and low settings).
Fact Finding
The TheraFace Pro has been cleared for use by the US Food and Drug Administration, meaning that the FDA tested the LED-light and microcurrent treatments and ensured that the device was safe to sell. Therabody’s clinical trial states that the device showed efficacy and satisfaction of 80 percent or higher in multiple skin-care categories. That said, the trial was on a very small sample (35 people), and it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor before you start electrocuting your skin, even with the tiniest of currents.
I spoke to dermatologist Jeffrey Hsu to ask if these treatments actually work. For the most part, they do, but he had some warnings. For starters, percussion therapy can remove dead skin, but it’s easy to overuse, and people with thin or sensitive skin might develop irritation. That’s why Therabody does not recommend pairing an exfoliating cleanser with the cleansing head.
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably not accustomed to perfectly smoking nearly 50 pounds of pork shoulder using a smartphone while lying in your bed. But there I was with the new Traeger Timberline, hitting the “super smoke” button and checking my temps at 6 am before my morning coffee, making enough meat to feed 100 people at my town’s annual backyard kegger.
I haven’t just been cooking massive amounts of pork on Traeger’s freshly redesigned premium smoker. In fact, this summer, it’s become rare for me to cook anything that isn’t in some way smoked. Chicken salad? Smoke that chicken first. Steak? Smoke it before you sear it on the built-in induction burner. A fresh juicy melon? Throw it on the Traeger for 30 mins for a perfectly caramelized desert.
This smart smoker and induction burner provides the perfect all-in-one outdoor kitchen. Minus a middling Wi-Fi connection (you’ll want to make sure your yard has solid coverage), the new Timberline delivers everything I’d want from a modern smoker and more: You can bake, sauté, and smoke in a single unit that’s power- and fuel-efficient. After about two months, I’ve barely used a bag and a half of wood pellets. The fly in the smoke-ringed ointment? It costs $3,500. That’s a lot of cash for any kitchen appliance.
A New Rig
The Timberline comes in a large orange box with clear instructions for setup, but you may want a partner to help you move some of the heavier bits. The heart of the system is a sizable insulated smoke box with room for six pork shoulders, or about the equivalent racks of ribs or chickens (the company also sells an XL version with roughly a third more space for an additional $300). Inside the smoke box, there are three tiers you can put everything on, with a vent for the smoke cut midway along the backside of the smoker so that it circulates fully to the top before venting.
There’s a drip tray and ash/grease catch in an easy-to-detach compartment in the cabinet below the smoker, which also serves as a great place to store extra pellets and metal liners for the drip tray. You’ll get a lot of use out of those metal drip liners before you need to replace one; the six pork shoulders only filled one up about halfway.
Besides the smoke box, on the right of the unit you’ll find a box where you can fill your wood pellets of choice (Traeger sent me an assortment of their own in-house pellets, but you can use other brands). There’s even a plastic bin and special trap door so you can drop one type of pellet out of the auger for storage and put another type in if you want to smoke something with, say, hickory before switching back to applewood.
The main control area for the Timberline is on the right side of the unit via a very comfortable push-button knob and a color LCD display. The best way to use it though is to connect your phone to the grill via the Traeger app. Once you have it connected to your Wi-Fi, you can control every aspect of the machine (including setting timers and temperature alerts) from your smartphone. It’s pretty damn nifty. You just want to make sure your router has enough range because I experienced a spotty connection on the Traeger now and then.
The left side of the Timberline houses an induction burner, which pairs perfectly with cast iron pans for searing items you’ve just cooked to perfection on the smoker, or for cooking companion dishes while you wait for something to finish smoking.
Accessory rails surround the front and sides of the smoker and give you a place to put things like a paper towel holder, a pop-up holding tray, and hooks for grill tools. Traeger sent me those accessories, which are nice and all, but not necessary, especially since they cost a lot. You’ll pay $120 for a front shelf, $60 for a bin to store utensils, and $120 for a stainless steel grill tray. Yikes. The one accessory you need—a grill cover—costs an astonishing $180. No, it’s not made of silk.
When I first tested a solar-powered Garmin several years ago, the solar function extended the battery life by a few days. Now, every solar-powered Garmin I’ve tested has lasted more than two weeks. As I was about to leave on a two-week family beach trip for a long overdue vacation, I naturally donned Garmin’s new Instinct 2S Solar.
This latest solar-powered version of Garmin’s popular backcountry Instinct series is smaller and has a sharper display than previous ones. More important, I didn’t have to charge it for 21 days. That was three weeks of multiple GPS-tracked activities per day, including running, swimming, hiking, snorkeling, paddle boarding, and boogie boarding. If you value accurate backcountry tracking and not having to charge a battery, this is the best adventure watch on the market.
Fun in the Sun
The Apple Watch has consistently dominated the smartwatch and fitness tracker market for several years. But there’s one area where it simply cannot compete: battery life. If you’re busy enough to want a smartwatch, you’re busy enough to find it annoying that you have to charge it every day (sometimes more than once).
The Instinct 2S Solar uses a Power Glass face to convert the sun’s energy (as measured in lux) to battery power. If you’re the kind of nerd who likes to check your solar intensity and how much sunlight your watch is exposed to per day, you can scroll down the watch face to find this information from the previous six hours, along with other useful at-a-glance stats like notifications and step count.
It’s kind of fun to see your solar intensity go up and down as you bike, run, or sit in the shade. But all I really needed to know was that with a lot of direct sunlight, the Instinct 2S Solar got quite a bit of power. In my months of testing, I got up to three weeks on a single charge. That’s less than Garmin’s claim of 50 days, but way more than almost every other fitness tracker. I never had to put it in power-save mode, which would’ve extended the battery life by lowering the brightness on the watch face and disconnecting the watch from the paired phone. Three weeks is plenty of time.
It’s especially astonishing because the Instinct 2S Solar is much smaller than previous Garmin Instinct watches I’ve tested. The case is 40 mm, almost 5 mm smaller than the frankly enormous original Instinct; it’s about the same size as my Apple Watch Series 7. It still has a monochrome memory-in-pixel display, but it’s noticeably sharper to me than its predecessor. Even with a 1.2-inch screen, I can read my notifications clearly.
Beat the Heat
Since it debuted in 2018, the Instinct has been one of Garmin’s top sellers. It now comes in solar- and non-solar-powered versions; different specific editions, including a tactical version with, er, “stealth mode”; and some of the craziest colors in the sports watch market. Different colors are available for different editions, so Garmin now has a “design your own” tool on its website to make sure you get the Instinct you want.
You might not believe it, but if you’re older than 19, you can probably identify exactly what a classic, high-end Juno synth sounds like. If you’re craving that vintage sound, you can still find it by haggling with weirdos on Craigslist and repairing ancient circuitry, but it will cost you in money, time, and possibly aggravation.
Not any longer: Small, affordable, rechargeable, and portable, Roland’s new Aira synth line includes the T-8 drum machine, J-6 synth, and E-4 vocal processor. You can sync them up without a laptop to perform live or use them with an audio interface to record classic-sounding hits. Together they cost less than a Macbook Air.
The democratization of music production gear is nothing new. Top 10 singles have been crafted in bedrooms and home studios for decades, and producers like Finneas are making hits with gear that costs as much as a single day’s studio rental did in the early 1980s. The Aira is just the latest line to step into the land of old-school synths, drums, and vocoders for less than the price of a Walkman off eBay.
The ’80s Called
The T-8, J-6, and E-4 come in compact plastic cases with orange, blue, and pink backs. A small USB-C port behind each synth acts as a charging port (you can get about four hours of battery life if you want to take these off-grid) with 3.5-mm midi in and out ports beside it.
On top of each unit are two 3.5-mm sync ports (in and out, for pairing with other units in time) and mix in-and-out ports for sending audio through all three units without a mixer. It’s a nice touch that lets you play them all at once. On the upper right of each unit is a volume knob, which is small but oddly satisfying to turn.
Below that, they become their own distinct digital instruments. I won’t get into how to use them (Roland’s excellent manuals and a few YouTube videos will take you further than I can in a few hundred words), but here’s what they do.
The T-8 acts as a 32-step sequencing drum machine, much like the classic Roland 808 (read: Kanye West’s favorite drum machine) but with more sounds. It has controls for bass drum, snare, hi-hat, toms, and hand claps. You can also add a bass or keyboard line. If you like the sound of ’80s radio beats, you’ll find those here, as well as more than enough tuning and customization features to write EDM, indie, hip hop, pop, and other beats with ease.
If you made me choose from the current crop of flagship Android smartphones, the new OnePlus 10 Pro wouldn’t be my first or second choice. It’s not my last either. At $899, it sits in an awkward spot of being pretty good for the money, but not quite as great as some of its peers.
Before diving into the details, it’s worth noting that the OnePlus 10 Pro is the only flagship offering from OnePlus this year. Usually, the company puts out a “non-Pro” variant that’s a little cheaper, but the 10 Pro is flying solo (at least for now). That makes my job easier. But while the standard option has had trouble keeping up with the midrange competition, it does stink that you have one less phone to choose from at a time when the number of phone makers is dwindling. If you’re really craving options, you can at least buy last year’s OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro at a discounted price.
Excelling at Basics
It’s hard to find much fault with the hardware on the OnePlus 10 Pro. I have the Volcanic Black color, an apt name as it does somewhat resemble the glittery shine of lava rocks (it also comes in a pretty Emerald Forest). You kind of want it to have that rougher, sandstone-esque feel when you touch it, but instead, this glass back is slippery. Thankfully, it’s no fingerprint magnet.
Most phone makers seem to have settled on 6.7 inches as the preferred size for a flagship smartphone, and that’s the case with the new OnePlus. It’s … large! Sure, it’s no Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, but use it one-handed and you’ll be shimmying this phone up and down your palm as you try to reach the top of the screen. It is a tiny bit narrower and shorter than competitors like the Motorola Edge+ 2022 and the Google Pixel 6 Pro, which makes the size feel more manageable.
The AMOLED screen is one of the highlights here. It’s sharp, colorful, and gets very bright in sunny conditions (though it’s been fairly cloudy of late in New York). There’s a 120-Hz screen refresh rate, which makes moving throughout the operating system and apps feel very fluid. OnePlus says the screen can quickly adjust from 120 Hz to 1 Hz based on the type of content on the screen, which helps conserve battery life.
Speaking of which, I haven’t had to think much about the battery. That’s always a good thing. I never felt like the 10 Pro’s 5,000-mAh cell was going to die on me, though you shouldn’t expect it to last much more than a full day. If you’re spending hours filming TikToks or gaming on it, you’ll likely need to top up before bed. The good news is that charging is among the fastest you’ll find on a smartphone in the US. If you use OnePlus’ included 65-watt charger and cable—unlike with other phones, you don’t need to spend extra on a charging adapter—you can juice this phone back up to 100 percent in roughly 30 minutes. Yowza. With the (not included) 50-watt wireless charger, you can do the same in around 50 minutes. Speed like that is handy when you’re about to head out but realize the phone’s low on power.