The Best Back to School Accessories For Trust Fund Babies

2022-08-26 22:20:04 By : Ms. Shirley Hu

Last week, we recommended a myriad of gadgets and devices for cash-strapped students headed off to college to live in tiny dorm rooms and cramped apartments. But what if your college experience is the opposite, and your biggest worry isn’t about all the debt you’ll be left with from higher education, but how you can maximize all the fun you’re going to have?

This week, we’ve rounded up the best college life gear for those not struggling with space, a tight budget, or the stresses of actually doing any studying. Think Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School, or the filthy rich preppy antagonists in every ‘80s college movie. This is all the stuff you’ll need to earn a PhD in partying, or a Masters of mirth.

Trying to get the party started with a tiny hockey-puck sized speaker is an act of futility. The boombox’s heyday might be over, but big sound still means big fun, and at over 14-inches tall, the Ultimate Ears $550 Hyperboom Bluetooth speaker delivers big everything. On a full charge, you get up to 24 hours of booming sound delivered by two 114-millimeter woofers, two 25-millimeter tweeters, and two passive radiators to push the sound to every corner of a party. In addition to Bluetooth, it’s also got an AUX port for connecting almost anything imaginable, and an optical input.

There’s no such thing as a screen that’s too big, but don’t lug a massive flatscreen that you’ll struggle to hang on a wall to college; turn the wall itself into your TV screen with a projector. XGIMI’s $2,500 4K Aura short-throw can create a 150-inch image when positioned just 17 inches from a wall, which means that while watching movies, playing video games, or searching Wikipedia for essay content, no one will be blinded when walking through the room and crossing the beam.

A toaster oven might be a compact way to cook, bake, and reheat a wide variety of foods, but that’s not where Balmuda’s $300 ‘The Toaster’ shines . Its specialty is bread, and bread alone, and it uses an abundance of steam to create toast that’s crispy on the outside, but moist and chewy inside. Why roll out of bed for class in the morning and grab a Pop-Tarts or a stale slice of pizza when you can instead treat your tastebuds to a luxurious piece of perfect toast?

There’s nothing wrong with surrounding yourself with college friends who don’t spend every night at the bar or the club. For some, a late-night board game session is far more enjoyable, and Arcade1Up’s $650 Infinity Game Table delivers that digitally on a 24-inch screen (or 32-inch screen for $850) without the risk of important playing pieces being lost, or the game board itself being flipped in a fit of rage. Although the game table’s lineup skews to more popular board game titles like Monopoly, Scrabble, and Battleship, there are some options from smaller publishers, like Ticket to Ride and Pandemic.

Although college students aren’t known for being particularly snobby about what they drink, it’s a time to learn new things, including what libations you’ll be sticking with into your more mature years. But why fight your way up to a crowded bar at a club when Black+Decker’s $300 Bev can be your own private bartender at home? Load it up with bottles of your favorite hooch and Bartesian’s cocktail capsules and the machine can make 40 different cocktails all on its own.

Like it or not, most of your college years will be wasted on seemingly pointless pursuits, both academic and outside of class. That includes hours spent bouncing ping-pong balls into red Solo cups. It’s just about the most basic thing you can do during a time when you’re probably enjoying your first taste of true freedom away from home, while still desperate to do whatever you can to fit in. Beer Pong is inevitable, but you can at least take it to the next level with a $2,695 interactive Beer Pong table that’s not only packed with rainbow LEDs that can react to sound and music, but can automatically detect hits and keep track of the game’s score all by itself.

Balancing classes in the day and partying at night doesn’t leave a lot of time for cleaning. But this is the year 2022, when one of the few practical uses for robots is keeping floors neat and tidy. Roborock’s $1,400 S7 MaxV Ultra not only sucks up dirt and debris; it mops too, leaving hardwood and tile floors looking shiny. But it goes one step farther than that. It autonomously returns to its home base, empties its dirt bin, scrubs the mopping head, and replaces the cleaning solution. All you need to do is pick up your dirty laundry. (A potential dealbreaker, we know.)

There’s only one college sport we officially recognize here at Gizmodo: foosball. It doesn’t require a stadium, uniforms, expensive equipment, or a merchandising department; just a sizeable chunk of a room and two to four players who all agree that spinning isn’t allowed. This $500 option from Hammacher Schlemmer is decked out in glowing blue LEDs that automatically flash a short light show whenever the table’s automatic scoring system detects a goal. It includes both regular and glowing balls, too, and to eliminate the need for a precarious power cord connected to a wall, it’s got a built-in rechargeable battery.

Ikea’s particle board offerings may seem adequate for those rare times you don’t fall asleep on the couch or in the back of a taxi cab, but Japan’s Bauhutte has a much better offering that caters to both gamers and students churning out non-stop essays and research papers. Its Electric Gaming Bed features a flexible mattress and a pneumatic lift that makes it effortless to transition from slumber, to eyes glued to a screen, to sleep again. Its highly modular, too, so while the bed with mattress will initially set you back around $670, the setup can be upgraded with a matching desk, shelving, and even places to keep snacks close at hand.

The only thing worse for a college student’s life than exams is when laundry day rolls around. Hunting down every last dirty sock and hauling it all to the laundry room is motivation enough to skip college and just backpack around Europe after high school, but there are alternatives that don’t involve replacing your entire wardrobe week after week. LG’s $1,099 Styler Steam Closet doesn’t need a plumbing hookup, but instead relies on a refillable water reservoir to blast a handful of garments inside with piping hot steam to kill odor-causing bacteria and to smooth out any wrinkling caused by tossing your clothes into the ever-growing dirty laundry pile on your floor.

Although the game, and the show it’s based on, peaked in popularity long before most college students today were actually born, The Simpsons arcade machine was a genuine quarter magnet in the ‘90s, and remains a great alternative to studying for up to four mostly sober competitors. Arcade1Up’s $656 recreation is 3/4 the size of the original, so it should have no problem finding a home in a frat house or sorority, and features authentic cabinet graphics and a glowing marquee. If you can’t understand why anyone would want to play this over an Xbox Series X or PS5, just point your parents at it when they come to visit. They’ll get sucked right in.

Depending on your chosen field of study—doctor, lawyer, groundskeeper—there’s a good chance you could end up spending a lot of time on a golf course when you eventually land a job, and you’ll need your putting game to be on point. This $130 portable putting green from Hammacher Schlemmer kills two birds with one stone as it also plays like a game of billiards, complete with numbered golf balls, a triangle ball rack, and artificial turf that doubles as a felt tabletop. And it breaks down a lot easier than a pool table when the school year is over and it’s time to move out.