Boys! Don’t you think when they grow up it’s a bit of a nightmare to cater for birthdays and Christmas?? Men are my least favourite to shop for as you all already know! Once they hit double figures, I’m out!

It starts so bloomin’ young! My eleven year old likes things that are small (and unbeknown to him – bloomin’ pricey!) As we all know, gadgets don’t come cheap! It seems like the pricier the item, the smaller it looks so when all his birthday or Christmas bits are wrapped up, sadly it doesn’t seem to look much.

With a five year old brother who is into everything, big and chunky gifts are still the order of the day so his pile looks mahoosive and Harry’s looks teeny – cue me panic shopping bulky bits at the last minute!

I digress, the point is tech costs and some things end up being a really bad investment, so we have road tested some of the coolest gadgets around at the mo and checked them out so you know what is worth the wonga as we hurtle towards the crazy Christmas period.

Now their absolute number one thing in the world to do is listen to music (and dab!) so a quality speaker that Harry can easily pair to his phone is a great investment, especially when it is chic and portable for any room in our house so we can use it too.

In my opinion, it is far too expensive to be solely for the youngsters, so it was key to us that this one served the whole family, to earn it’s keep. This speaker not only makes some sweet sounds, but does not look out of place anywhere and with it being both waterproof and having a fab battery life, it’s a winner winner, chicken dinner in our house. If you need one in your life (and I reckon you do!), check it out here, on the Very website.

Harry is really into You Tube (I have to presume as are most kids his age?) so it was a natural choice to go for a microphone that he could use when making his own vlogs, to remove that tinny echo that comes with the inbuilt sound on most devices.

The Snowball ICE is a trendy little piece of kit, looking funky in his bedroom and not too much like an actual microphone funnily enough. Comes in three different colourways from Amazon and various other retailers (click here if you love it and NEED one right now!)

Very simple to use, I had it going in no time and the quality is certainly clear as a bell! A very neat size, so much so that I’m planning on nicking it when I’m out and about doing my interview series, but don’t tell Harry – shhhh!!!

Used by both fledgling and established vloggers and podcasters, this is a great way to get the children into great quality sound when they are doing creative projects and I’m all for getting them away from watching You Tube and into making their own content!

To compliment this nifty number, the Dokicam is the perfect partner, after all, what good is sound without vision? Looking very much like a baby robot, this oversized eyeball has the capacity to turn bog standard videos into full on features with crisp, clear camera quality and great movability.

SO easy to transport and also to get started with – who has time for lengthy instructions these days, really?)

Trying to keep Dominic away from it is tricky as it is like a magnet to him!

With 360 degree capture, this dust and water resistant camera can be used anywhere, anytime and upload direct to You Tube or Facebook without the rigmarole of processing. (Yes I do plan to swipe it when they are at school for my vlogs!!!) The video quality is not crystal clear but it works really well for our purposes and I’m super impressed with it, as is Harry.

The boys had lots of fun filming each other doing dares and tricks and I was so glad to see them creating content together rather than lounging independently and not using their brains so much. If this is right up your street, find one here!

Talking of tech they can enjoy together, we were sent a set of SoundMoovz. Motion activated bands which can be worn on the ankles and/or wrists.

Simply engage the app and start creating rythms, beats and tunes – countless amounts of combinations to be invented, kept mine busy all afternoon.

I’ve seen them activate them loads of times since, definitely a great value buy. We were kindly sent them by Menkind, find them here.

So I hope you got some inspo, tried and tested and they came up trumps! If you have any fab products to add, let me know in the comments and I will give them a go!