WHO, WHAT, WEARABLE
Garmin Venu
Garmin, arguably the most respected sports smartwatch brand on the market, designed its new Venu model to be the ultimate sports watch. Yes, it tells time, has text and call alerts, and plays music. But its forte is tracking and measuring sports performance, along with facets of your overall health. More than 20 preset activities—including running, walking, bicycling, swimming, golfing, and skiing—are instantly trackable. And the watch doubles as a tiny stand-alone fitness studio: It comes preloaded with step-by-step animated cardio, strength, yoga, and Pilates workouts. Perfect for frequent travelers.
What it does: A lot. The Venu’s long list of features includes wrist-based heart rate tracking; detection of irregularities in blood oxygen saturation, sleep health, and respiration; Garmin Pay for contactless payments; alerts for emails and texts; and the ability to send your real-time location to a preset list of emergency contacts—a great safety feature for long-distance runners, among others.
What we liked: Like the Apple Watch, the watch goes blank when you’re not looking at it; a lift of the wrist kicks its screen into gear. You can customize both indoor and outdoor workouts on the Venu, then track their duration and intensity. The device also has automatic rep tracking for strength training, which is both nifty and useful.
Best features: When fully charged, it has five days of battery life. And the Venu is the first Garmin with an AMOLED touch-screen display, which is more responsive and vibrantly colored than standard-issue LCD screens (Apple Watch switched to AMOLED screens in 2020). This wrist-bound fitness buddy looks and feels premium. ($349.99; garmin.com)
SUPPLY IN DEMAND
Foredom RT101 Rotary Tumbler
Versatility and cutting-edge technology distinguish Gesswein’s new Foredom RT101 Rotary Tumbler from its competitors. Designed to burnish precious metals, this solidly built, compact, direct-drive rotary tumbler lets you program repeatable processes into its easy-to-use control panel. Simply set the tumbler’s timer up to 180 minutes, choose the direction of rotation, and pick from 20 levels of speed control (ranging from 5 rpm to 100 rpm). The machine’s clear hexagonal barrel lets you watch the tumbling in action. And you’ll never have to replace a belt because this gem of a jewel tool operates without one. ($359.95; gesswein.com)
Gesswein’s Foredom RT101 Rotary Tumbler features a 1-liter capacity.