Gift Card Electronics

Gift-giving season is upon us, and it’s time for people to start panicking about what to give to their friends and families. Gift cards have gained in popularity over the years, as companies count on people to forget to use them. But how about gift cards that do more than store a token amount of cash? Best Buy is now selling a gift card that doubles as a speaker. It has a mini headphone jack that’ll plug into any audio player. You only need to spend fifteen dollars to get it. Target’s gone all out, with a gift card that is also a 1.2 MP digital camera. It comes with a USB cord and driver disk, and there’s even one with a 64MB USB flash drive. We’re very interested to see if these will take off, and what people will do with them once the cards are used up.

[via Gizmodo]

28 thoughts on “Gift Card Electronics

  1. It’s not exactly electronic, but several other stores have been doing the gimmicky gift cards for a while. Home Depot, for instance, has had the tape measure/level ones for a couple years. I can’t wait for E-paper gift cards…ideal platform for hacks much?

  2. @djrussell: I have the same gift card, and it’s come in handy plenty of times.

    @therian: I think it’s just the notion that cash is cheap anymore. Though kids would probably just sell off the card to a friend if they were desperate.

  3. Taylor, I must be missing something. I checked the definition of “abattoir” and it says it is a slaughterhouse. How would you make a gift card a slaughterhouse and how would that increase tourism? There must be an alternate definition, or a good explanation.

  4. I have gotten many from target. I have a Transormer one that changes, A mp3 player that came preloaded with a virus, Hand crand flashlight, Piano, Voice recorder, Speed racer flash drive & wii giftcard that lights.

  5. @greg: He was quoting an old Monty Python bit

    I don’t understand the point of gift cards either, but then I’m usually poor enough around xmas time that I could use real money for food rather than sparkly bullshit from best buy

  6. I got myself two best buy gift cards last year (was going to buy an item put money on the cards then used them immediately). It was a matrix of surface mounted red LEDs, you could tap on a few buttons and program in text that would scroll across the face of the card.

    I cracked them open but aside from the LEDs and some resistors it was a single chip covered in a large glop of epoxy… kind of need in itself but I figure it was worth it for a good source of free surface mount LEDs.

  7. @ Twisted, actually, it should also have a 24c16 eeprom in it. I will be releasing a hack for it soon.

    Target also had digital picture frame keychain giftcards, as well as a mp3 player gift card. Both where 50 dollars, but thats 50 + a free mp3 player/picture frame. The digicam one sucks because it has no lcd screen, just an lcd counter, like those other 10~20 dollar useless cameras.

  8. The point behind a gift card is that to some giving cash as a gift is tacky, but figuring out exactly what to buy for a person can prove to be a nightmare… enter giftcard. Another good reason for giving a gift card instead of cash is this: I have a friend who has children and is constantly buying them things (which is great) but never buying anything for herself. I’m not sure what to buy her, but I know if I give her cash, it will go to her kids and not to her. But if I give her a gift card to, say, bath and body works, I know that she will indulge herself in a much deserved gift just for her.

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