Best Early Black Friday Deals Under $50

Kate Spade’s 2-Slice Toaster nabbed an excellent score in our lab tests for color range and toasting time. That means it evenly browns your slices—no matter whether you like ’em light or dark—and it does it quickly, so you’re not drooling into those toaster wells (which happen to be big enough for bagels). We did see the yellow toaster dip below $40 during Prime Day in July, but it never got much lower than this during the October sale. Black Friday may bring about a bigger discount, though, if you want to wait.

The unassuming, inexpensive Hamilton Beach 12-Cup Programmable 49465R might be easy to miss, but it can brew a mean cup of joe at a fantastic price. It has all the essentials in a basic black-plastic finish. It’s programmable and has auto-shutoff. What’s more, it does a superb job in our brewing test and can make a fresh pot in just 10 minutes. This model also performs strongly for convenience and carafe handling in CR’s lab tests. But it’s worth mentioning that this model is more prone to overflow, unlike some other models we’ve tested.

The Babish 14-inch carbon steel wok has a flat bottom, making it usable on all types of cooktops, including electric and induction. In our tests, cooking evenness in this wok was top-notch, and it showed very good heating speed. In addition to its main handle, there’s a metal helper handle, making it easier to lift when full. Our testers found it easy to clean and use. This wok comes pre-seasoned, which is handy because seasoning a wok manually can be a time-consuming process.

ThermoPro’s SmartBT Meat Thermometer TP920 is one of the lower-priced leave-in two-probe wireless thermometers. It sends instant temperature readings to your smartphone via Bluetooth, offering excellent response time and accuracy. The easy-to-use app estimates the remaining cooking time for nearly all cuts and varieties of meat based on guidelines from the Department of Agriculture.

Despite its small size and low price, the sphere-shaped Dot offers the same smart speaker functionality as its far more expensive brethren. It can also serve as an inexpensive way to introduce smart speaker functionality throughout your home in an Alexa-based multiroom system. You can even pair an Echo to a Bluetooth speaker you already own to lend that one smart speaker functionality. The Dot provides an inexpensive way to test the smart speaker waters, and the price makes it a reasonable gift even if you’re on a budget. We’ve seen it sell for under $25 during Black Friday last year, so it might be worth holding out if you’re thinking of giving it as a gift.

This wireless model from JBL delivers acceptable sound quality and top-notch active noise reduction. These earphones have an isolating design and an ambient sound monitoring feature; they will provide some muffling and electronic canceling of external noises and also reduce the amount of sound that escapes from the earpieces. As such, they are best for those who want highly portable earphones that reduce the amount of noise they hear from their surroundings, or don’t want the sound from the earpieces to disturb others.

If you want a reliable pair of noise-canceling headphones under $50, this Soundcore model could be right for you. Soundcore Q20i Hybrid Active Noise Cancelling headphones performed admirably in our tests for noise reduction and sound quality, and they come with a detachable audio cable and a USB-A to USB-C charging cable.

For simply listening to your favorite playlist, the JBL Tune 510 hits the value button. These on-ear headphones don’t have active noise cancellation and offer only modest physical isolation. But they sound a lot better than they should for under $30, comparing favorably to headphones that cost hundreds of dollars more.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K shares most of the same features as the more expensive Roku Streaming Stick 4K+, including improved WiFi, support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR, and compatibility with Amazon Alexa, Apple AirPlay, and Google Assistant. But it uses the older WiFi 5 standard to connect to home networks and comes with a standard Roku remote.

Utopia premium bath towels are 100 percent cotton but shrank the least in our tests, even after 10 wash and dry cycles. We found that they got a bit less soft after washing, however, and experienced some hourglassing. Certified OEKO-TEX, they’re available in plum, sage green, ivory, and lavender, among other shades. They’re usually $35 for a pack of four.

This handheld steamer is a great option if you need something for travel because it’s lightweight, about the size and shape of a flat iron (great for packing), and you can use regular old tap water. It offers 8 minutes of steaming with a manual steam button on the handle, and it was the fastest steamer to heat up in our lab test, ready to go after 40 seconds. Our evaluator recommended using a spray bottle to dampen any especially deep wrinkles to help the steamer get the job done. It was $5 less recently, but this is still a good price for the convenience.

The Labigo Electric Spin Scrubber comes with four different cleaning heads (large flat, small flat, pointed corner, and large round). It has a single speed and weighs 26 ounces with its extension handle. The unit’s battery is located in the handle, and its head is fixed at 45 degrees, so this unit may not fit into tighter spaces.

The Phomemo M110 is the bigger, bulkier version of the Phomemo D30, which we also evaluated and liked. The M110 offers a bit more flexibility with the size of the label you’re creating. It uses the same app, and has a wide variety of fonts, styles, and images, with quick creation and easy label cutting. Its size, compared with the smaller Phomemo, makes it a bit less portable, and its alignment isn’t as precise when it comes to cutting the label exactly on the cut line compared with other label printers. But it’s still a solid option.

The Bedsure Electric Heated Flannel Blanket Throw might be a worthwhile purchase if you like to keep your home cold in the summer, but someone in the household prefers to stay warm. This blanket is thin and light. Though it’s cozy, it resembles an inexpensive fleece blanket you’d find at a grocery store. One side is striped flannel and the other is linty fleece. The flannel isn’t the best quality, but it does get hot. And it has the lightest wires of the blankets we evaluated. Prices vary by color, and the option shown here is the lowest price available.

The Meross MSG100 is the best smart garage door opener controller from our at-home evaluation. It’s relatively easy to set up and install, and works flawlessly with all of the major smart-home systems (Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings).

The Arlo Essential 2K (VMC3050-100NAS) is one of Arlo’s more budget-friendly security cameras, and we’ve never seen the price dip so low for this three-camera bundle. It performs well in our tests and features a built-in spotlight, a siren, and voice/app control via Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Additional features, such as activity zones, person detection, and cloud video storage, require an Arlo Secure subscription.

The TP-Link Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug Slim EP25 is one of the most versatile smart plugs on the market, offering energy monitoring and compatibility with all four major smart home systems: Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. It’s also very easy to use and set up based on our expert evaluations, and it offers decent data security. This four-pack is down to the lowest price we’ve seen for it.

The Aqara Camera E1 is a strong performer, especially for video quality and alert response time. It can store footage on a microSD card (up to 512GB; sold separately) and offers plenty of features, including person detection, motorized pan-and-tilt so you can remotely change the camera’s view, and a privacy mode that will point the camera at a wall or ceiling.

The TP-Link Tapo C120 is an affordable outdoor security camera that offers impeccable performance for its price. It also offers a ton of features and doesn’t require a subscription to take advantage of them. Those features include activity zones, AI alerts (for people, pets, and vehicles), color night vision, two-way audio, built-in spotlights, and local video storage using up to a 512GB microSD card (not included).

If you want to monitor a handful of trouble spots in your home, the X-Sense Wi-Fi Water Leak Detector SWS54 provides the best bang for your buck. You get a hub with a siren and three wireless sensors you can place throughout your home. The sensors are unique in that they can detect both water standing on the floor and water that drips on them from exposed pipes or other sources. Each sensor has a siren, too, allowing you to easily identify the source of an alert without checking the X-Sense app. This is $5 more than the best price.

One of the best (and least expensive!) doorbell cameras you can buy, the TP-Link Tapo D130 offers a bunch of features—even without a subscription. These include 24/7 recording with local video storage on a microSD card (up to 512 gigabytes, sold separately), AI object recognition (for people, vehicles, packages, and pets), activity zones, and color night vision. This model needs low-voltage doorbell wiring for power. Cloud video storage is available via subscription.