iHome iP4 Boombox ($200)
Slapping a sticker on your iPhone to make it look like a Walkman isn’t retro, it’s lame. But snuggling your iPhone into the guts of this matte gray throwback ghetto blaster is awesome. Two four-inch carbon composite woofers and one-inch fluid-cooled tweeters feed music from your iPhone or iPod, and SRS TruBass digital signal processing makes sure music will likely sound better than it does through your headphones. It even works on six D batteries — and that’s as old school as it gets.

Nest Learning Thermostat ($250)
The Nest Learning Thermostat is as, ahem, cool as a thermostat can be. It has an LCD display and allows you to control your home’s climate using a laptop or smartphone. It also begins to program itself by remembering your temperature adjustments and mimicking them throughout the day. And if your walls aren’t blue, don’t fret. The face’s color changes to mirror the color of the wall where it’s posted.

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