Apple’s colorful HomePod Mini is down to one of its best prices to date

Believe it or not, May is now just a few weeks away, which means both Mother’s Day and graduation season are nearly upon us. If you plan on picking up a gift for either occasion, it might be wise to get a head start on your shopping now before your calendar fills with festivities.

For Apple aficionados, Apple’s Siri-enabled HomePod Mini makes for a versatile gift, one that’s on sale at Costco for members for $79.99 ($20 off) through April 23rd. Non-members can also buy the smart speaker at a discount when they pay a 5 percent surcharge, which raises the final sale price to $83.99 — a price we still rarely see.

If you’re already embedded in Apple’s ecosystem, the HomePod Mini will let you do more than just play music and check the weather. It also allows you to make calls via your iPhone and acts as a hub for your HomeKit devices. What’s more, thanks to some recent software updates, it can monitor the room temperature and humidity levels. As a result, you can program your smart thermostat or air quality monitor to adjust itself when those levels go up or down. The fact it offers good sound for its size and comes in a number of vibrant colors just makes it more attractive, especially as a fun piece of desk decor.

Thanks to Microsoft’s spring sales event, there are also a number of good deals this week for Windows fans. As a part of the ongoing promotion, Microsoft is discounting various configurations of the 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 5. Right now, for instance, you can grab the model with a 12th Gen Intel Core i7 Evo processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $1,399.99 ($300 off) from Best Buy and Microsoft. That’s the best price we’ve seen on this configuration so far this year; however, if you can get away with less power, it’s also on sale at Best Buy and the Microsoft Store with a Core i5 chip starting at $899.99 ($100 off).

If you’re looking for a Windows laptop for general use, the Surface Laptop 5 is a beautiful and highly capable machine. It offers more than enough power for day-to-day work and even some prowess when it comes to photo editing. Its thin, light build makes it highly portable as well, while its spacious 3:2 display is bright enough for home use. It even features an audio jack and support for Thunderbolt, even if the port selection is rather limited.

If you’d like to add some smart lighting to your home, the Philips Hue smart button starter kit provides everything you need to get going. And right now, you can pick up the five-piece package at Amazon for just $58.22 ($42 off), its best price yet.

The apt-titled kit includes three white A19 Philips Hue smart bulbs, each of which offers 800 lumens of brightness and is designed to emanate various hues of white light. The bulbs are compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant as well, so you can turn them on and off with your voice. The kit also comes with a Philips Hue smart button that allows you to control your lights without a smartphone as well as a Philips Hue Bridge, which lets you add up to 50 lights, set automations, and control them from anywhere in the world.

The Bridge isn’t a necessity given the bulbs support Bluetooth, but it’s a nice perk considering it normally retails for $59.99 on its own.

If typing up long-winded emails on your iPad Pro or iPad Air feels out of place, you might want to check out today’s deal on Apple’s Magic Keyboard. Right now, the handy accessory is on sale at Amazon and Walmart in black for $229 ($70 off), its best price of the year.

In essence, the keyboard allows you to use your iPad more akin to a traditional clamshell laptop. It magnetically attaches to your tablet, letting you position your iPad at a more comfortable angle, and it features an excellent trackpad with gesture support. It also provides a great typing experience, along with a USB-C port on the side that allows for passthrough charging. Just note that while it is compatible with every iteration of the 11-inch iPad Pro, it only works with the fourth- and fifth-gen iPad Air.

We’re not done yet