What inventor or product designer isn’t a gadget lover? It’s practically a requirement to work in the industry. Of course, it’s no surprise either, since inventors and product designers naturally have a love of creating, and finding, new, amazing products.

At Pivot, we’re no different. Our Christmas shopping lists always include at least one or two of the year’s best gadget gifts. This year, we’ve decided to share our favorites in this list. Happy gifting!

Hoverboards

You can thank Back to the Future Day for making hoverboards one of the hottest gifts to buy this year. Though they don’t actually hover – they’re more accurately called self-balancing boards, and they work on the same principles as a Segway – they do give the rider the smooth feel of hovering above the ground.

As you might expect, these things come at a price: no less than $300, to be exact. And they can range in price up to a cool $2,000 – some beta versions are even coming in at $10,000.

And they’ve got some safety risks too. There’s the risk of falling, obviously, but there are several cases of hoverboards exploding while the rider is either charging the hoverboard or riding it. These seem to happen mostly with knock-off versions or ones being bought via social media – so if you do decide to give one of these to a friend or family member, make sure you go through a trustworthy retailer.

Huawei Watch

The Huawei Watch is a smartwatch that actually looks like a really nice, traditional watch – perfect for the stylish gadget guru on your list.

Modeled after luxury watches, the traditional round face features a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, a super high-resolution display, and runs Android Wear. It also comes with several options for bands and watch faces.

As for the “smart” part of this smartwatch, the Huawei Watch includes a built-in heart rate monitor and exercise tracker. It can also run apps from the Google Play Store. The price? $349 and up.

Samsung Gear VR Virtual Reality Headset

This mobile virtual reality headset is a great gift for tech early adopters. When you pair this headset to a Samsung phone, you can play virtual reality games without being tethered to a PC or gaming console, as other VR headsets require.

It’s also lighter and more compact than the other available virtual reality headsets out there, which is a real plus for gamers. After all, the thing has to be strapped to your face while you’re using it, and you don’t want the price for getting caught up in extended gameplay to be a seriously sore neck.

The price is right, too. At $99.99, it’s not a total bank-breaker.

Moleskine Smart Notebook

This gift will really wow designers. Designed exactly like the rest of the ever-fashionable Moleskine line of notebooks, the Smart Notebook allows you to turn your hand-drawn sketches into workable digital files. All it takes is the Moleskine app, available in the Apple store, and an Adobe Creative Cloud membership.

What you do is draw on the pages – which are regular paper with special markings to help the app read your sketch – then use the app on your phone or mobile device to capture the drawing. The app will then upload the image to Adobe as an SVG file, which you can edit in Adobe programs. Not too bad for a notebook that costs $32.95.

The 3Doodler 3D Printing Pen

Who says 3D printing requires a desktop machine? The 3Doodler pen, the world’s first 3D pen, allows you to take the same plastic that 3D printers use – ABS or PLA-type plastics – and write, draw, and create with them. It’s a little like a hot glue gun of the future, except in this case, the glue is plastic and it holds its shape.

The 3Doodler got its start on Kickstarter, blowing its $30,000 goal out of the water by raising $2.3 million. (Read our post on how to start your own crowdfunding campaign here.) It remains popular with reviewers, not least because it’s fairly reasonably priced at $99.

There you have it! We hope this gives you ideas of what to look for this Christmas, whether for yourself or for others. And if Pivot can help you get your product off the ground with our product design services, manufacturing services, or business services, contact us!