Live and Direct: The Best Prime Day Deals of 2024

When it comes to golf, I’m a Callaway man. There’s something that just clicks about the way this brand of 40+ years crafts its wares, and I’ve always had at least a few in my bag. Callaway’s Strata brand is a more affordable offshoot, which makes this 12-piece starter set a great entry point for the aspiring golfer. You get a solid bag with five irons (including the all-important wedge and 9-irons), a 3-wood, a driver with a graphite shaft, and the all-important hybrid or “safety” club.

While I haven’t played this set myself, if I were diving into the game for the first time this is where I’d start. If you’re gifting this set, you may want to throw in a couple of extra items, such as a sand wedge for those many trips to the “beach” and a solid collection of balls and tees, since they’ll both be in short supply for the first few seasons. Otherwise, this is a well-rounded package from which to build.

So why golf? It’s a fair question. On a recent episode of his What Now podcast, Trevor Noah admitted to tennis legend Roger Federer that he doesn’t “get” golf. To that I say, hit one smooth and straight drive and you’ll be hooked. When that ball sails, you’ll sail with it, and the rest of the world fades away. Of course, most of the game is realizing you suck and coming to terms with that by learning to cool your emotions and enjoy your surroundings. Turns out, that’s golf’s most important lesson.

WIRED reviewers have been big fans of the Ticket To Ride board games since at least 2009. For awhile, we seemingly reviewed every new map and marked every anniversary. I was not here in the era when WIRED wrote about the game getting fancy new storage tins, but TTR is for my money the best board game ever made and also happens to be the only board game anyone in my family will play, and which we all play with a passion boarding on ferocity.

Playing the original American board with the same crew gets to be a bit predictable after a bit (everyone knows to grab Atlanta to Nashville if you’re going to need to get to Florida at any point) which is why there are now a vast panoply of Tickets To Ride, many of which I own. I don’t yet have the Poland map though! It looks like an interesting one, with a special emphasis on connecting countries from the crossroads of the continent. It’s on sale for Prime Day along with the classic London map, which is a small and simple board where players connect double-decker bus routes. Either or both are great buys if you’ve got a family beach or camping trip scheduled for the second half of summer.

The first big caveat here is that yes, Apple is no longer selling watches with the blood oxygen sensor enabled off Apple.com because of a patent dispute. The good news is that third-party sellers like Amazon aren’t subject to the ban, so you can still pick it up. And the Apple Watch is still a very good watch. I am particularly excited by the WatchOS 11 updates. For the first time, Apple Watch users are going to be able to view their health metrics at a glance in the Vitals app and gauge their performance improvements with a new algorithm called Training Load. Slowly but surely, Apple’s fitness software is catching up to Garmin’s—if you have an iPhone.

We haven’t seen a deal this good on the Fitbit Charge 6 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) since Black Friday of last year. It’s got basically every fitness tracking capability you could want, plus integrated Google Maps, Google Wallet, and music controls for YouTube Music Premium. There are skin temperature and heart rate readings, plus ECG and sleep tracking. The battery lasts for a week at a time. And it costs $100! Our Fitbit Buying Guide has more recommendations, and if you want something a bit more robust, check our list of the Best Smartwatches.

If you’re planning on spending money at DoorDash, Lyft, Best Buy, the Google Play Store, Instacart, or Uber Eats this year, Amazon Prime Day is offering up discounts worth browsing. And that’s not even the full list of stores! We’re talking $10 off $25, $20 off $40, and more. Make sure to use the corresponding coupon codes at checkout to save. Be aware that these may sell out quickly.

Gift card deals are only worthwhile if you’re planning on spending the money anyway. But this is a super-easy way to save a chunk of change on any planned purchases—especially if you stack the redemption with more deals. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to DoorDash more coffee.

I do not want to alarm anybody but the best deal we were expecting to see for Prime Day is real and it’s spectacular.

The very Airpods Max I happily paid $550 for just a few months ago are currently going for $395 on Amazon. Even our own noted Airpod Hater In Chief Parker Hall liked them (8/10 WIRED Recommends) and I love them. They are the best new Apple product since the original iPhone!*

*This is my own sincere opinion but does not reflect the consensus opinion of the WIRED Reviews team or the publication as a whole.

I already wrote hundreds of words about why I love this behemoth from Big Blanket Co. It measures 10 x 10, so it’s big enough that you’re practically guaranteed to have the best nap of your life. Imagine it: You’re on the couch watching some terrible TV show. The window is open. Your pet is nearby. Your eyelids are heavy. You snuggle in deeper and wrap the blanket around yourself three times over. There’s no danger of the fabric running out—just layers and layers of cozy. You might just pull a Rip Van Winkle and sleep for 20 years. Or, at the very least, you can cuddle up during movie night with no fear of being called a “blanket hog” (not that I’ve ever been called that name by several different loved ones in the past). The blanket is machine washable and it’s available in tons of different colors. But be warned: If you take a 20-year nap, I am not liable.

If you’re hunting for a bargain, it’s always smart to shop for last year’s tech, and the Pixel 7A (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is a prime example of why. This is the lowest price we’ve ever tracked on Google’s midrange smartphone of 2023. It was recently succeeded by the excellent Google Pixel 8A, but for $249, the Pixel 7A delivers a great camera system, long software support, and access to Google’s smart software, which is chock full of helpful features. It performs smoothly, and you even get perks like wireless charging and an IP67 water resistance rating. There’s not much else missing, making this one of the best Prime Day smartphone deals.

The OXO Conical Burr Grinder is the very best budget-friendly coffee grinder, and reliable sources are saying this deal price has the WIRED Gear team Slack channel in a frenzy. In fact, this price has occurred just twice in the past year. There are 15 different grind settings. It’s not too loud. The countertop footprint is small. What more could you ask for?

The WIRED Reviews team is awake (sort of), we are caffeinated (overly), and we’re about to start bloggin’ up some deals. This year’s Amazon Prime Day will be an interesting one, as more companies have decided not to compete directly with Big Smile by hosting their own sales either right before or during the event. My brother-in-law did tell me he went wild at the Walmart Summer Savings event, which I thought looked pretty mid—with a few exceptions, like Sony’s WH-1000XM5 headphones (9/10, WIRED Recommends) for $298, about what we expect to see them on Amazon today and tomorrow. As the sun starts to rise over an America that sometimes seems united only by its love of shopping sales, stay tuned. We have a lot of fresh bargains and Lightning Deals.