Top 5 gifts for New Year’s Eve 2026

New Year’s Eve is a time of magic, warm greetings and definitely gifts. To make the last one memorable and bring joy, it is important to choose not just something in a beautiful wrapper, but useful and what a person needs. After all, it will be much better if your gift will be used, and not just collect dust in the room.

We present a selection of seven categories of gifts, from tech gadgets to useful and versatile little things.

Notes: Prices are subject to change. The final price of the gifts reviewed is also subject to individual customer discounts.

Smart Speakers

In the digital age, a smart speaker has become one of the most practical and desirable gifts. It’s not just a gimmicky item, but a real virtual assistant that’s perfectly integrated into your everyday life: it turns on music on demand, tells you the weather, sets reminders, controls smart appliances, and even entertains your kids with stories. Such a gift will suit both technology lovers and those who are just beginning to master smart devices. Any speaker is easy to operate, which means it’s suitable for adults and kids alike.

There are so many models available on the market right now, from compact budget options to multifunctional stations with a screen.

Yandex speakers (cost from 4,490 to 44,990 rubles)

• Station Light 2 is a compact and affordable model with a 6W speaker and LED display. Suitable for small rooms, basic tasks (alarm clock, smart home control, listening to music);
• Station Mini 3 Pro – a model with more powerful sound (18 W) and support for Zigbee and Matter protocols for smart home control. Equipped with LED lights that respond to music and commands;
• The Midi Station is a mid-range model (24W) with Zigbee support. Features balanced sound and contour lighting. Suitable for kitchens or living rooms where you need better sound quality than compact models;

• Station 2 is a powerful speaker with two speakers (30W) and Lossless-audio support. It has a light control panel and is suitable for connoisseurs of quality sound. It does not have a screen, but supports Room Correction to adapt the sound to the room;
• Station Max is the flagship model with five speakers (65W) and LED display. It supports Zigbee and is suitable for large rooms. Provides the richest sound and a wide range of smart home control options;
• Station Duo Max is a model with a touch-sensitive rotating FullHD screen. Combines powerful sound, eight microphones and support for thousands of smart home devices. Suitable for those who want to control their home via voice or display;

• Station Street is the first portable speaker with Alice. Equipped with two speakers (30 watts) and water and dust protection (IP67). Can be used outside the home, connected to a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot or via Bluetooth. Supports stereo pairing.

Sber speakers (cost from 2 000 to 40 000 rubles)

• SberBoom Mini is a compact model with a voice assistant. Suitable for smart home control and listening to music in small spaces. It supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, and integrates into Sber’s ecosystem;
• SberBoom Mini 2 is an updated version with improved sound thanks to Magnetic Sound technology. It retains the functionality of the first model, but offers better sound quality;
• SberBoom Mini 2
• SberBoom Micro – the smallest speaker capable of turning any “non-smart” into a speaker with a voice assistant. It is customized to work with the voice assistant, listen to music and audiobooks, and has access to all the features of GigaChat;

• SberBoom Home is a model with Zigbee protocol support, which allows it to be used as a hub for controlling smart home devices. It has a monochrome LED display;
• SberBoom – a powerful speaker with surround sound (40 watts) and support for multi-room and stereo pair. Suitable for large rooms;

• SberPortal -smart display with voice assistant and Harman Kardon speaker (30W). Combines the functions of a speaker, smart assistant and multimedia center.

VK speakers (cost from 3,899 to 15,000 rubles)

• VK Capsule Mini is a compact model with a digital display that shows the time, weather and Marusi’s animations. Equipped with four noise-canceling microphones and a 5W speaker.
• VK Capsule Neo is a miniature speaker that can be customized with stickers. It has two microphones, a display and a 5W speaker. Supports smart home control and works with Marusia;
• VK Capsule – model with two speakers (low-frequency 25W and high-frequency 5W) with a total power of 30W. Suitable for parties and home theater;

• VK Capsule Pro is a flagship model with three speakers (two 12.5W tweeters and one 40W wideband) totaling 65 watts of power. Equipped with a touch screen, Zigbee support and built-in sensors (temperature, humidity, light, motion).

Electronic Books

Not only have e-books become more popular in recent times, but there are also new companies on the market producing some pretty good models. E-ink screens mimic a paper book and reduce the strain on your eyes when reading. And while e-books used to have only monochrome screens, now there are more models that can display all colors.

1. Price. It’s always important to count on your budget;
2. Backlighting. An important point is that some ebooks come without screen backlighting. So pay special attention to this;
3. Screen color rendering
4. The ability to expand memory. In general, many readers support huge digital libraries. On average, 3-4 thousand books (if you do not take into account heavy pdf files, which can quickly eat up the basic memory of the device);
5. Additional features. Consider whether you need Wi-Fi, stylus, color screen and whether it is worth overpaying for them.

Digma M2 (about 12,000 rubles)

A good simple ebook option, with the minimum-necessary features for comfortable reading.

• 5.83-inch backlit screen;
• 8GB internal memory, support for microSD cards up to 32GB;

Onyx Boox Galileo 3 (about 25,000 rubles)

A convenient and feature-rich option that still doesn’t turn an ebook into a tablet.

• Audio playback support;
• Access to the “Yandex Books” application;
• Flexible text and screen brightness settings;

Digma P6 (about 24,000 rubles)

• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support (for connecting a headset and listening to audiobooks):
• Convert text to voice;
• Touch screen;
• Displays 4096 colors.

Smart TV backlight

Want to give your loved ones not just a gadget, but new emotions from your favorite movies and games? A smart TV light is a great New Year’s gift. It turns ordinary viewing into an exciting spectacle: colors from the screen “go beyond” the display, creating an immersive effect and visually enhancing the picture. It’s a surprise for movie buffs and gamers alike, adding a touch of magic to ordinary evenings in front of the TV.

Modern backlighting systems work according to a clever algorithm: they analyze colors at the edges of the screen in real time and send the data to LEDs located around the perimeter. As a result, the wall behind the TV comes to life, replicating the colors and dynamics of what’s happening in the frame. Many solutions support different modes, from seamless video adaptation to synchronization with music.

But keep in mind that backlighting will only work to its full potential over HDMI. So it works best with a PC, game console or TV set-top box.

Projector

New Year is the time to create atmosphere and give emotions. If you’re looking for a practical and impressive gift, check out budget projectors. This is a great solution for those who dream of a home theater but aren’t ready to spend a lot of money on professional equipment. With this device, an ordinary evening watching a movie will turn into a real movie event, and a child’s room will become a space for magical projections.

Modern inexpensive projectors can surprise: they are compact, easy to set up and give a picture with a diagonal up to 2-3 meters. Many models support HDMI and USB connectivity, so you can easily stream content from a laptop, game console, or thumb drive. Some are equipped with a built-in OS (for example, Android TV), opening access to online movie theaters without additional devices. For families with kids, it’s also an opportunity to stargaze on the ceiling or show educational presentations in a cozy environment.

When choosing a budget projector, you should pay attention to resolution (from 720p for animation to Full HD for movies), brightness (from 500-1,000 lumens for a darkened room), and built-in speakers (though for full immersion, it’s best to consider an external speaker). It’s a gift that will be remembered for a long time – it turns any evening into a small celebration.

There are a few budget models:- Lenovo Xiaoxin 100M PTZ – 7,400 rubles;- BENEF, 4K – 9,200 rubles;- Wanbo Projector Dali 1 – 10,500 rubles.

Night-light

This gift creates a cozy atmosphere: the soft, diffused light is soothing, helps you relax after a busy day, and makes evenings truly homey. A nightlight is also useful for those who are afraid of the dark or those who like to read before bedtime.

Now you can find nightlights for every taste: from minimalist geometric shapes to funny animal figures, fairy houses or starry skies. Many models have adjustable brightness and color temperature control – you can choose a warm yellow light for sleeping or a more neutral light for reading. There are options with remote control, touch sensors or even synchronization with a smartphone, which makes use even more convenient. For New Year’s Eve, models with winter motifs such as snowflakes, Christmas trees or twinkling lights are especially popular.

Universal gifts

If you still can’t think of a suitable gift for a loved one or a friend, and New Year’s Eve is just around the corner, there are some pretty universal gifts that can be not only interesting, but also useful.

• Candles – if the future gift recipient likes to create themselves some unusual atmosphere, or they have favorite books, then themed candles can be a great gift. There are a huge number of them – on movies, on books, on TV series, in connection with the holiday or with some funny inscriptions.
• Advent calendars – well, to give something like this should not be on New Year’s Eve, in early December, to pass the time until the holidays. However, no one prevents you from giving such a gift and on the holiday itself. Both adults and children will be interesting every day to open a box or a box and wonder what will fall this time.
• A certificate is the most versatile gift you can give. If you know which store is your gift recipient’s favorite, then everything becomes much easier. And if there is no such, you can buy a certificate on the marketplace (Ozon or WB) and then the recipient will be puzzled to choose a gift for the New Year.
• Subscription – and last but not least – subscription to services. It can be some book applications in which your recipient likes to spend time, services for watching movies and TV series, perhaps a subscription to game services.
• Subscription

We wish you a happy upcoming New Year and success with choosing the right gift. If your goal is not to surprise someone, then remember, you can always ask about the gift you want. At the end of the day, even any favorite goodie can be much better than any other item.