Make your dorm room a little smarter

You can spend more for a high-end blender, or significantly less for a unit that will handle the basics, but this $200 Breville splits the difference in cost without major sacrifices to performance. From ice to almond butter, the Breville admirably handled every food test we threw at it.

The $170 Bunn MyCafe MCU is an Editors' Choice Award winner for single-serve coffee makers. A set of attachments lets you dispense better-than-average K-Cup drinks, fresh ground coffee, and tea, along with plain-old hot water.

With almost as much cleaning power as a $500 Dyson stick vacuum cleaner for less than half the cost, the $180 Hoover Linx cordless stick vacuum is a no-brainer.

You can spend $79 a pop for color-changing smart light bulbs, but these LuMini bulbs come in at a more approachable $35 each. It can't replicate standard light-bulb tones, but it's one of the best deals going to set a mood or light up a party or a game night.

The wee Panasonic FlashXpress Toaster Oven is a retro-looking toaster oven that's surprisingly good at what it does. For $150, you'll get the functionality of a much more expensive model.

This compact, feature-rich Web-based security cam not only lets you keep an eye on your stuff when you're out, it can also act as a Z-Wave home automation hub.

Two of the four sockets in this smart power strip connect to Quirky's home automation app, complete with IFTTT support. Not only does that grant you basic device automation, it also lets you get creative, pairing devices with various services. Have your lamp turn on when it's time for class, send a Tweet automatically every time you make a Pop-Tart, and so on.