With just five-and-a-bit months to go to Christmas, vendors are already plugging their product ranges for the annual spendathon. There have been no less than three press events events over the past few days showing products that vendors hope will be filling stockings on December 24.

Meccano is still a name to be reckoned with, for those of us of a certain age, and I am pleased to report that the brand is on my favourite gadgets among this year's Christmas crop … a little robot called Spyke.

He has a video camera, microphone, loudspeaker and two motors and can scurry about the house on his tracked wheels.  You can control him from a Wifi network, and even over the internet, so you can check whether the house is on fire or the wife is in bed with the milkman.

Spyke is a little sinister, I have to admit, but it sounds great fun and could be useful if it works as well as promised. It comes in kit form for £199.95, but sadly it does not use the old-style Meccano metal parts, with their proper nuts and bolts - a retro design surely long overdue for coming back in fashion. It's being sold by Firebox.

Firebox also has what looks like a reasonable kit for podcasting. It costs £89.95, including software, a mixer, and a microphone. No details on the type of mike but we hope to review the product soon.

Archos was showing off its latest portable media players (PMPs), including the Archos 605. This has a 4.3in 800 x 480 touch screen, with a choice of hard disks ranging from 4Gb to 160Gbytes, and prices starting at around £200. You can browse the web over Wifi, and like the iPhone (and Nokia's N800) flick through pages with your finger.

By contrast, the iPhone's 3.5in screen has a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels. Of course the Archos 605 does not carry a phone, but no doubt its owners will. PMP vendors appear confident that the iPhone hype will boost their own sales and I think they may be right.