The short answer
The $30.35 charger rates 4.6 / 5, the same as the $633 camera at the other end of the list. The two lowest-rated sit in the middle: the $294 display and the $250.80 lighting kit. If you are buying a gift and want odds rather than a hunch, that is the whole finding.
Buy the charger for anyone with a recent iPhone. Buy the camera only for someone who already films things. Wait for a sale on the Echo Show, because it always comes.
Tech gift ideas are where price and satisfaction come apart hardest. There is $602.65 between the cheapest and the dearest of these six, and they are rated the same. The two in the middle of the price list are the worst-rated of the lot.
What do tech gifts actually cost in Australia?
Today, on Amazon Australia: $30.35 for the Qi2 charger, $250.80 for the Hue starter kit, $294 for the Echo Show 8, $399.95 for the Sony XM5 headphones, $488 for the Galaxy Watch8, and $633 for the DJI Osmo Action 6.
Ratings, in the same order: 4.6 / 5, 4.2 / 5, 4.2 / 5, 4.4 / 5, 4.5 / 5, 4.6 / 5. The $30.35 charger and the $633 camera are the two best-rated things here, and there is $602.65 between them.
The safest gift: the Qi2 charger
Qi2 magnets snap it into place at a full 15W, twice what most wireless pads manage on an iPhone. The wall adapter is not in the box.
It is the easiest thing on this page to give, for a boring reason: almost nobody who owns a modern iPhone already has a proper Qi2 magnetic charger, and everybody with a phone charges it. The catch is small and worth naming at the counter, because a gift that cannot be plugged in on the day is a flat note: there is no wall adapter in the box.
The specialist: the action camera
8K video with a variable aperture, and it is waterproof to 20 metres without a housing. Battery life drops sharply in the cold, so carry a spare for winter trips.
Buy this for somebody who already films things. 8K and a variable aperture are real advantages to a person who edits footage, and lost on somebody who wanted a camera for a holiday and will use a phone anyway. The cold-weather battery drop is the honest catch, and a spare battery makes a decent second gift.
The one to check first: the smartwatch
A bright AMOLED screen with sleep and heart tracking that holds up, on the AU model with local warranty. It is Android-only in practice, and you will still be charging it most nights.
Two things decide this one before the specs do. It is Android-only in practice, so it is the wrong gift for an iPhone household, and it wants charging most nights, which some people find genuinely annoying after a watch that ran for a week. Buy the AU model, as the listing here does, so the warranty is enforceable without posting it overseas.
Wait for the sale: the smart display
An 8.7-inch screen for video calls, recipes, and running the rest of your smart home by voice. It goes on deep discount around Prime Day, so buying at list price rarely makes sense.
At 4.2 / 5 it is the lowest-rated thing on this list, and its own pattern of deep discounting is the reason to be patient. Paying list price for a device that is reliably marked down is the most avoidable mistake in this category. Put it on a list, wait, then buy it.
The expensive entry ticket: smart lighting
16 million colours, voice control, and scheduling that actually holds. The bridge is the price of entry, and the bulbs cost more than most rivals.
The bridge is what you are really buying, and the bulbs that follow cost more than rivals for years afterwards. That makes this a good gift for somebody who has already decided to go down this road, and a heavy one for somebody who has not. If they have never mentioned smart lighting, this is not the gift.
The headphones
The Sony XM5 sit at 4.4 / 5 and $399.95, and they have their own write-up here, against a pair at less than half the price: Sony WH-1000XM5 vs Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro. Short version: the noise cancelling is worth it on a plane, and the case no longer folds flat, which matters more than it sounds if the bag is already full.
If you are buying one
For under $50, the charger. For a teenager who films everything, the camera. For a parent who asks the kitchen for recipes, the Echo Show, on sale. And if the person you are buying for flies more than twice a year, the headphones beat all of it.
The limitation on every line above: these are ratings and specifications, not months in my hands. What they tell you reliably is where a price stops buying anything.