Happy New Year! For those of you who have heard rumblings about the Consumer Electronics Show next week, fear not: Although a huge part of Wirecutter is about recommending great tech, we won’t be inundating you with millions of blog posts about sandwich-making drones or smart fridges that double as your personal therapist—or any other bleeding-edge gadgetry that isn’t quite ready for prime time (or your home).

Instead, we’ll be doing the same thing we’ve done every year. (Check out our write-up from 2017.) Our on-the-ground CES team, with support from the remote staff, will take a careful look at all the interesting TVs, cameras, headphones, smart-home devices, batteries, robots, and more (yes, even the smart fridges and the drones) to determine what’s really going to make a difference in 2018 to people like you and me. We’ll sort through the haystack of gadgetry for you to find those great needles of usefulness and publish them together in one comprehensive post on our site. Keep an eye on our site midweek (or in next week’s newsletter) to see what we thought. We’ll also update all our guides that are affected by the new stuff coming out of CES. So, sit tight and FOMO-free—we’ll let you know if there are any new developments that affect our recommendations.

—Jacqui Cheng, Editor-in-Chief

Because we think we can make a small difference by being picky, here are some great deals on solid pieces of gear.

One of our favorite deals from this week: The Zinus Memory Foam 12 Inch Green Tea Mattress. Though its price isn’t quite as low as it was during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, our budget foam mattress pick is still a great value at $190, just $10 more.

Another of our favorite deals this week: The Tribit XSound Go Bluetooth Speaker. This budget Bluetooth speaker is already pretty affordable, but this is a nice $8 drop from its usual $40 street price.

• We’ve added some clarity around the best uses for our two top picks from Sonos. And we expect to see some new soundbar models at CES next week, so we’ve condensed our What to look forward to section. We’ve also moved a former pick from Yamaha to the competition section, because it’s become difficult to find. [Soundbars]
• Our previous rice cooker pick was discontinued and replaced with the near-identical Hamilton Beach 37548 Rice & Hot Cereal Cooker. We’ve updated our guides after testing this newer model to confirm that it’s still great. [Rice Cooker]
• We had a chance to test the Echo Spot, and added some thoughts to our guide. [What Is Alexa?]
• We’re still confident in our top picks, the EatSmart Precision CalPal and Taylor Glass CalMax, but we’ve added some long-term test notes to help you start your resolutions off right. [Bathroom Scales]
• Several new companies have gotten into the home security game since our last major round of testing. Although we haven’t tried them all yet, and most don’t have the proven track records of our current picks, we’ve added the latest information to our What to look forward to section. [Home Security Systems]
• We’ve reviewed our entire guide and made some minor edits throughout, but we’re still confident the Wüsthof Classic Ikon 7-Piece Walnut Block Knife Set is the best for most people. [Knife Sets]
• After 10 hours of additional research on new models released since our last major update, we remain confident in our top picks, but we’ve added some notes to the competition section. [Juicers]
• We’ve added long-term test notes for our pick, the Peugeot Paris u’Select Pepper Mill, and our runner-up, the Fletchers’ Mill Border Grill Pepper Mill. [Pepper Mills]