For those looking to move beyond the default envelope of cash this Eid Al Adha, tech gifts have quietly become the more interesting option: useful, slightly indulgent and increasingly reflective of how people actually live now.
These are the gifts people text you about months later. The ones that permanently colonise a bathroom counter, bedside table or carry-on bag. From nostalgic keychain cameras and AI chessboards to wellness gadgets, ambient AI wearables and Gulf-proof beauty tech, this is WIRED’s roundup of the smartest Eid Al Adha gifts for the chronically online.
A New (Charli XCX-Approved) Phone
Nothing Phone (4a)
Price: $435.40 (AED 1,599)
Most smartphones nowadays feel indistinguishable from one another: increasingly expensive black rectangles promising marginally better cameras every year. London-based brand Nothing built its entire identity around reacting to that aesthetic fatigue, turning transparent hardware and deliberately visible design elements into a kind of anti-minimalist tech statement.
The Phone (4a) feels aimed squarely at the internet generation that treats personal technology less like an appliance and more like part of an overall visual identity. Its semitransparent industrial design, exposed details and glyph lighting system make it instantly recognisable in a product category where most devices now blur together visually.
The company’s growing cultural presence – including singer-songwriter and actress Charli XCX as its first brand ambassador – also reflects a broader shift in consumer tech itself: devices are once again being marketed less around pure specifications and more around taste, aesthetics and online identity.
Tiny Camera, Huge Personality
Kodak Mini Shot Keychain Camera
