Maya Chen

Maya Chen has been reviewing consumer electronics for eight years. She came to product journalism from electrical engineering — a background that means she's less interested in marketing language and more interested in whether the hardware actually does what it claims. She got her degree at UC San Diego, worked two years at a mid-size tech publication covering mobile devices and accessories, then moved to independent reviewing.

Her coverage area is broad by necessity. She writes about wireless earbuds, mechanical keyboards, smart rings, fitness trackers, portable chargers, USB-C hubs, webcams, e-readers, and any piece of health-monitoring technology that a consumer would buy without medical guidance. She's skeptical of anything that markets itself as "medical-grade" without FDA clearance to back the claim.

Maya tests over at least three weeks and often longer. She's particularly interested in how products behave after the first firmware update, how customer support responds to real problems, and whether the app that comes with a product is actually maintained. She's been burned enough times by products that launched well and degraded through bad software updates that she now considers long-term app support a primary buying criterion.

When she's not testing gear she runs half-marathons badly and collects mechanical keyboards with a specificity that other people find excessive. She lives in San Francisco.