What Does Tech Got to Do With Love?

While holidays such as Christmas have for years now become a major season for tech gifts such as TVs and appliances, Valentine’s Day for the most part has remained true to its traditions of cards, flowers, and candy, along with more personal items such as lingerie and fragrances. But technology has become increasingly creative in recent years, with apps for dating and hook-ups as more gadgets cleverly working in romantic themes. In addition, consumer electronics items suited for holiday giving, such as AirPods, can also make nice gifts for a loved one.

Design News checked several online sites to come up with some random tech-themed ideas for Valentine’s Day. We would like to acknowledge zdnet.com and pcmag.com for their help in gathering ideas for this story.

While some of these gift ideas are decidedly high-tech, others are unabashedly low-tech with a romantic twist. With only two days before Valentine’s Day, perhaps one can shell out a few extra bucks so Amazon or the gift site vendor can do a rush, same-day or overnight delivery.

May your Valentine’s Day be filled with love and happiness.

Apple AirTag

While Apple’s familiar electronic products make obvious Valentine’s Day gifts, one of their lesser-known but practical (and lowest priced) products is the AirTag, a small, coin-like GPS device that one can attach to any item. The Air Tag’s simple one-tap setup connects it to your iPhone or iPad. You name each AirTag based on the object it's attached to and track it in the Find My app.

A single AirTag costs $29, but a pack of four can be purchased for $99.

Apple's AirTags are a thoughtful and inexpensive gift to help a loved one easily tag and identify luggage. Image courtesy of Apple.

Da Vinci Eye: AR Art Projector

This neat app from Da Vinci relies on the magic of AR projection to create a portrait of a loved one using a smartphone, paper, and a tall glass. Images can easily be projected onto any paper, and using the app, can be manipulated to produce realistic portraits. A brief video appears below, and you can download the app from DaVinci Eye.

Seven-Color Heart-Shaped Ring Light

This heart-shaped ring light is rotatable 360 degrees and is mounted on a tripod. It comes with a USB port for a mobile electronics device and makes a suitable backdrop for video chats and recordings, popular in this era of social media. From ILYO, this light costs $140 on the Amazon store.

Social Print Studio Valentine's Day Calendar

The Social Print Studio Valentine's Day Calendar is a tear-away calendar that starts and ends on February 14^th. It features 365 pro-printed images bound in a neat block. It can be filled with personal photos. The calendar retails for $75 from the Social Print Studio site.

Use Legos to Make Flowers

Techies have a last-longing alternative to natural flowers that eventually perish. This Icon flower building decoration set has 756 pieces and 15 stem to enable the assembly of plastic-brick versions of roses, daisies, and asters that long past Valentine's Day. The bouquet costs $47.00 on Amazon. The Lego site has additional flower construction options, including roses, at various prices.

Lego offers various kits to make your own flowers. Photos used with permission. ©2023 The LEGO Group.

Dual Heart iPhone Charging Cable

Although Apple has ditched the Lightning cable, many iPhones still rely on it. This dual-heart iPhone charging cable lets each person charge your phones and avoid arguments about who is more in need of the Lightning cable. The cable costs $17 from Kikkerland Design.

Infinite Objects Video Print

Animated GIFs are another high-tech form of expression, and Infinite Objects’ video print enables one to upload an MP4 or MOV video clip or a TikTok video and turn it into a moving video print to display anywhere.

QFX RETRO-39 Shoebox Tape Recorder with USB Player

For those who remember cassettes, the old-fashioned cassette tape recorder has been updated with a USB port so you can record songs for a loved one. $31.22 on Amazon.

Using ChatGPT for Romantic Message

With all the talk about AI and ChatGPT, inevitably the subject of using an AI tool to pen a love message would come up. The idea here is NOT to simply instruct a tool such as ChatGPT to compose a canned-sounding romantic message but to provide some inputs so ChatGPT can compose something a bit more personal. Then, one needs to take that output and apply their own touch. Then, the message looks more like a person put effort into it than just lazily making a hasty request to ChatGPT.

Digital Photo Frames

With most of us having long converted to digital photography, there’s likely a massive collection of images in our phones, tablets, and other digital products. Why not upload them to a digital photo frame? These are now available with various features and at various prices, making a nice conversation and display piece and a great device to show images of loved ones.

Digital photo frames are a great way to show images of loved ones. Image courtesy of Matthew Simmons / Contributor/ WireImage/via Getty Images