Ring is rebranding its subscription products, ditching Ring Protect in favor of Ring Home, and to celebrate it’s bringing some new features along. The most notable change is the addition of 24/7 recording if you own select wired video cameras, ensuring you don’t miss anything if a motion alert wasn’t triggered. You’ll also get video clip previews sent through push notifications, rather than having to wait for the app to open.
In addition, users can now get Extended and Continuous Live View options for their cameras, letting them keep an eye on what’s going on when they need it. Extended Live View, for instance, will up the time limit on watching a camera from 10 minutes to 30, while Continuous removes the limit altogether. You’ll also get Doorbell Calls, which triggers a phone call that’ll connect straight to your smartphone when someone’s at the door.
The prices for each of the new Ring Home tiers will remain the same as their Ring Protect predecessors, at last for now. Home Basic is $4.99 a month, while Home Standard is $9.99/month, and Home Premium is $19.99/month. Unsurprisingly, Extended Live View and Doorbell Calls are available at the Standard tier, while the Continuous Live View and 24/7 recording are unlocked at the Premium level.
As for why the tiers were changed, it's to enable users to bolt-on additional packages from Ring's growing ecosystem of security products. It says that, when the change kicks in on November 5th, you'll be able to add Virtual Security Guard and Alarm Professional Monitoring to the same plan.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/ring-brings-247-recording-to-some-of-its-wired-cameras-130003545.html?src=rss
A digital photo frame shouldn’t be complicated. At its best, it’s just a good-looking screen that can be set up quickly that reliably shows the photos you care about. Unfortunately, that’s not always how things play out. The market is flooded with cheap digital frames that promise simplicity but end up delivering washed-out displays, clunky apps and a frustrating experience — leading you to abandon it after a week.
That’s a shame, because a good digital frame can be really enjoyable. Most of us have thousands of photos sitting on our phones that never make it beyond the camera roll, even though they’re exactly the kind of moments worth seeing every day. A solid frame gives those images a permanent home, whether it’s family photos cycling in the living room or shared albums updating automatically for relatives across the country. We’ve tested a range of smart photo frames to separate the genuinely useful options from the forgettable junk, and these are the ones that are actually worth putting on display.
Best digital picture frames for 2026
What to look for in digital picture frames
While a digital photo frame feels like a simple piece of tech, there are a number of things I considered when trying to find one worth displaying in my home. First and foremost was screen resolution and size. I was surprised to learn that most digital photo frames have a resolution around 1,200 x 800, which feels positively pixelated. (That's for frames with screen sizes in the nine- to ten-inch range, which is primarily what I considered for this guide.)
But after trying a bunch of frames, I realized that screen resolution is not the most important factor; my favorite photos looked best on frames that excelled in reflectivity, brightness, viewing angles and color temperature. A lot of these digital photo frames were lacking in one or more of these factors; they often didn't deal with reflections well or had poor viewing angles.
A lot of frames I tested felt cheap and looked ugly as well, which isn’t something you want in a smart device that sits openly in your home. That includes lousy stands, overly glossy plastic parts and design decisions I can only describe as strange, particularly for items that are meant to just blend into your home. The best digital photo frames don't call attention to themselves and look like an actual “dumb” frame, so much so that those that aren’t so tech-savvy might mistake them for one.
Perhaps the most important thing outside of the display, though, is the software. Let me be blunt: a number of frames I tested had absolutely atrocious companion apps and software experiences that I would not wish on anyone. One that I tried did not have a touchscreen, but did have an IR remote (yes, like the one you controlled your TV with 30 years ago). Trying to use that with a Wi-Fi connection was painful, and when I tried instead to use a QR code, I was linked to a Google search for random numbers instead of an actual app or website. I gave up on that frame, the $140 PixStar, on the spot.
Other things were more forgivable. A lot of the frames out there are basically Android tablets with a bit of custom software slapped on the top, which worked fine but wasn't terribly elegant. And having to interact with the photo frame via touch wasn't great because you end up with fingerprints all over the display. The best frames I tried were smart about what features you could control on the frame itself vs. through an app, the latter of which is my preferred method.
Another important software note: many frames I tried require subscriptions for features that absolutely should be included out of the box. For example, one frame would only let me upload 10 photos at a time without a subscription. Others would let you link a Google Photos account, but you could only sync a single album without paying up. Yet another option didn't let you create albums to organize the photos that were on the frame — it was just a giant scroll of photos with no way to give them order.
While some premium frames offer perks like unlimited photos or cloud storage, they often come at a cost. I can understand why certain things might go under a subscription, like if you're getting a large amount of cloud storage, for example. But these subscriptions feel like ways for companies to make recurring revenue from a product made so cheaply they can't make any money on the frame itself. I'd urge you to make sure your chosen frame doesn't require a subscription (neither of the frames I recommend in this guide need a subscription for any of their features), especially if you plan on giving this device as a gift to loved ones.
How much should you spend on a digital picture frame
For a frame with a nine- or ten-inch display, expect to spend at least $100. Our budget recommendation is $99, and all of the options I tried that were cheaper were not nearly good enough to recommend. Spending $150 to $180 will get you a significantly nicer experience in all facets, from functionality to design to screen quality.
Digital frames FAQs
Are digital photo frames a good idea?
Yes, as long as you know what to expect. A digital picture frame makes it easy to enjoy your favorite shots without printing them. They’re especially nice for families who want to display new photos quickly. The key is understanding the limitations. Some frames have lower resolution displays or need a constant Wi-Fi connection to work properly, so they’re not a perfect replacement for a high-quality print on the wall. But if you want a simple way to keep memories on display and up to date, they’re a solid choice.
Can you upload photos to a digital frame from anywhere?
Most modern digital frames let you do this, but it depends on the model. Many connect to Wi-Fi and use apps, cloud storage or email uploads, so you can add photos from your phone no matter where you are. Some even let family members share directly, which is great for keeping grandparents updated with new pictures. That said, a few budget models only work with USB drives or memory cards, so check how the frame handles uploads before buying.
Georgie Peru contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/best-digital-frame-120046051.html?src=rss
Microsoft is discontinuing production of its HoloLens 2 headset, according a report from UploadVR. The company has no plans for a follow-up device, telling customers this will be the last chance to purchase the headset before stock runs out. At launch, it was advertised as a device for enterprise consumers, so it never really entered the mass market. The move isn’t that surprising, considering Microsoft scrapped plans for a HoloLens 3 headset back in 2022. We’re waiting for the official line from the company.
It’s not exactly indicative of a death knell for VR and AR, though. Apple’s Vision Pro isn’t yet a year old, while Meta and Snap have both announced new glasses hardware in the last month. However, those last two companies’ take on AR are substantially smaller (and lighter) than the HoloLens — if not exactly subtle.
Netflix has finally shared a full-length trailer ahead of Squid Game’s second season premier on December 26, calling for viewers to “Get back in the game.” It centers on the mysterious salesperson from the start of the series, reprised by Gong Yoo — and he wants to play again.
reMarkable’s new ‘pro’ e-paper tablet has a color screen, creating a best-in-class distraction-free writing experience. Combined with a stylus and a folio keyboard, it’s built for ideas and writing. Is it as powerful as an iPad? No. Is it expensive? Yes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-microsoft-is-killing-off-hololens-2-111629324.html?src=rss
Juno, a widely praised (unofficial) YouTube app for Vision Pro, has been removed from Apple’s App Store after complaints from Google, according to an update from Juno’s developer Christian Selig. Google, Selig says, suggested that his app violates their trademark.
It’s the latest setback for Selig, who shut down his popular Reddit client Apollo last year after the company changed its developer policies to charge for use of its API. The shutdown of Apollo and other apps like it ignited a sitewide protest from Reddit users and moderators.
This time, Selig says he doesn’t want drama, noting the $5 app was a “hobby project” for him to tinker with developing for visionOS. “I really enjoyed building Juno, but it was always something I saw as fundamentally a little app I built for fun,” Selig wrote on his website. “Because of that, I have zero desire to spin this into a massive fight akin to what happened with Reddit years ago.”
It’s unclear what aspect of Juno may have been the issue. Selig says that Google referenced its “trademarks and iconography” in a message to Apple, “stating that Juno does not adhere to YouTube guidelines and modifies the website” in a way that’s not permitted. “I don’t personally agree with this, as Juno is just a web view, and acts as little more than a browser extension that modifies CSS to make the website and video player look more ‘visionOS’ like,” Selig explains. “No logos are placed other than those already on the website, and the ‘for YouTube’ suffix is permitted in their branding guidelines.”
Google hasn’t made its own YouTube app for Vision Pro, though the company said in February such an app was “on our roadmap.” The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Selig says that people who have already paid for the app should be able to keep using it for the time being, though there’s a chance a future YouTube update could end up bricking it.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/google-allegedly-got-the-juno-youtube-app-removed-from-the-vision-pro-app-store-232155656.html?src=rss
Meta has been steadily improving Threads’ compatibility with the fediverse over the last year. Now, the company is taking another significant step with an update that allows users to see more details about their followers and interactions with people from other servers across the fediverse.
Up to now, Threads has surfaced replies from Mastodon and other servers, and has alerted users to likes on their posts from other fediverse apps. But there was no way for a Threads user to see details about their followers from those services. That’s now changing, Adam Mosseri explained in a post.
With the update, anyone who has opted-in to fediverse sharing on Threads will be able to see a detailed list of their followers from other servers and view their profiles. This will give people on Threads a better sense of their reach and audience on Mastodon and other apps.
Threads’ fediverse support is still somewhat limited overall. Users still can’t reply to replies that originate on apps outside of Threads, and there’s no way to search for people on other servers from Threads. There’s also still a delay in cross-posting; it will now take 15 minutes for a post from Threads to appear as Meta also expanded the edit window for posts.
Elsewhere, third-party developers are also making it easier for users who want to post on multiple decentralized services. A new app called Croissant enables cross-posting to Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky all at once. The paid app, first spotted byTechCrunch, aims to replicate the functionality of enterprise social media management apps like Buffer.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/threads-will-show-how-many-followers-you-have-in-the-fediverse-215441432.html?src=rss
Nintendo has shuttered another emulator, this time putting an end to Ryujinx. The program was an open-source emulator for playing Nintendo Switch games on Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems. A message shared today with the emulator's Discord server stated that the developer was contacted by Nintendo with a deal to cease work on the project. No additional details were given about the conditions of that agreement. The same message was also posted on X:
The emulator will still function for anyone already running it, but the Github repository has been removed. Ryujinx also made some headlines last month for running the newLegend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom game at more than 120 frames per second, vastly outstripping the Switch's capabilities.
Nintendo has taken an aggressive stance on emulators, even teaming up with a cybersecurity firm in 2023 to try and curb game piracy. Ryujinx is one of the more popular emulators it has taken on, but the game company also reached a $2.4 million settlement with the emulator Yuzu in March. It issued a whopping 8,535 DMCA takedowns in May to try and remove all the Yuzu code hosted across different Github repositories.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/switch-emulator-ryujinx-is-kaput-after-nintendo-pressure-211524968.html?src=rss
A new joint venture between Serve Robotics sidewalk delivery robots and Alphabet’s Wing flying drone service will do a dual test run. Both tech companies hope that flying and sidewalk drones can cover areas its counterpart can’t and speed up delivery times.
TechCrunch reported that Serve Robotics and Wing will start making deliveries in Dallas sometime in the coming months. The test will include a select number of customer orders being delivered by a combination of sidewalk robots and flying drones.
One of the biggest challenges for drone delivery is coverage. Flying drones can only travel a certain distance away from its headquarters. Sidewalk drones can find it hard to navigate densely populated areas and certain rocky terrains. Drone companies often have to upgrade their facilities to meet these distances and obstacles.
Wing
Serve Robotics and Wing’s idea is to use both types of robots for delivering orders to cover areas traditional delivery services cannot. A road-based Serve bot picks up the order from a restaurant and carts the food to an “AutoLoader” where the Wing drone, a flying drone that can carry five pounds and fly at speeds up to 65 mph, picks up the order and completes the delivery.
It’s not known which restaurants or merchants will be part of the test, the areas in Dallas where the drones will deliver orders and any post-test plans for the new drone delivery fleet. Serve Robotics already makes deliveries for 300 restaurants in Los Angeles. Wing also works with Walmart in Dallas and participated in a pilot program with DoorDash and Wendy’s in Virginia.
Correction, October 2 2024, 1:00PM ET: This story originally stated that Serve Robotics was an Uber company. Originally, Serve Robotics was part of Uber but was spun out into an independent company several years ago. We apologize for the error.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/serve-robotics-and-wing-will-partner-for-drone-delivery-pilot-in-dallas-205628612.html?src=rss
It’s wild to think the reMarkable 2 debuted in March 2020, a time now more famous for other reasons. A lot has changed in the four-plus years since, and now it’s time for its successor, the reMarkable Paper Pro. The third-generation, distraction-free writing slate gets a color e-paper display as well as a raft of other equally notable improvements. That includes a bigger screen, faster internals and an active stylus for a more paper-and-pen-like experience. But this much more tech comes at a higher price, so let’s answer the question: Is it worth it?
reMarkable is the standard bearer for devices straddling the gap between the analog and digital. It’s an e-paper slate with a stylus (and optional keyboard) that lets you read, write and edit your own documents and PDFs. The focus is on giving you a tool that’ll act like paper and pen or a word processor rather than anything more fully-featured. That way, you can focus on whatever you’re doing without the distractions a full computer, tablet or phone offers. If there was a way to make “medium tech” sound not like an insult, I’m sure reMarkable would wear it proudly.
Hardware
The new reMarkable Paper Pro measures 196.6 x 274.1 x 5.1mm, making it roughly an inch taller and a quarter-inch wider than its predecessor, the reMarkable 2 (188 x 246 x 4.7mm). But it doesn’t feel that much bigger, thanks to plenty of effort made to shrink the bezels around the display. And the left band (the chin when using the device in landscape mode) has been eliminated altogether here. All of that room has been made to accommodate the Paper Pro’s headline feature: an 11.8-inch Canvas Color screen.
I prefer tablets that have a slightly more austere design than where the industry has been for the last few years. The reMarkable 2 was one of many slates aping the then-current iPad’s rounded off corners and sides that never felt right. The Paper Pro is a delightful correction, with sharper lines and squarer corners that gives the device some much-needed visual rigidity. The edge band is also inlaid with grooves that, designer Mats Solberg explained, has two useful benefits beyond looking good. First, it evokes the idea you’re holding a sheaf of paper in your hand, and second, it adds some grip to a device that’s surprisingly thin.
The inside of the Paper Pro has been given a thorough upgrade as well, with a new 1.8GHz Cortex A53 processor paired with 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. This is underpowered compared to any smartphone from the last decade, but don’t forget the reMarkable doesn’t need that much grunt. It’s still a big leap ahead of the rM2, which was packing a 1.2GHz dual-core chip with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. The battery’s a lot beefier, too, leaping up from the 3,000mAh of the rM2 to 5,030mAh here. It needs to be, given this is also the first reMarkable with a backlight, making it the first model you can use in dark rooms without a lot of grief.
Daniel Cooper for Engadget
To be clear, the new size and the switch from a passive stylus to an active one means none of your existing reMarkable accessories are compatible with Paper Pro. The accessory connector is on the backplate rather than the edge, and the new stylus is magnetically charged. So when you’re pricing one of these up, bear in mind that you’ll need a whole new set of extras, too.
In use
As soon as you turn on the Paper Pro, you’ll notice the leap in performance compared to its predecessor. At the risk of damning this thing with faint praise; If the reMarkable 2 felt like a fancy ereader, then this feels more like a slow tablet. The faster internals and display mean the experience is a lot more responsive and snappy, with far less delay between action and result. There are even little animations during the setup process and unlocking the device with a six-digit code feels like you’re unlocking a phone.
The Paper Pro uses a modified version of E Ink’s Gallery 3 technology called “Canvas Color.” Each pixel in the display holds a series of particles: White, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. These can be combined to make eight solid colors (Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, White and Black) or, with dithering, up to 20,000 different shades therein. The analogy the company uses is in the CMYK inks found in most printers and newspaper presses.
Daniel Cooper for Engadget
The end result is a display with visible, if muted, color reproduction with some limitations you’ll need to work around. If you’re making handwritten amendments to a document, you’ll need blue, cyan, magenta or red. Because yellow, green, gray and cyan are irritatingly faint when you write with a thin nib on existing text. The inverse is true for highlighting, where the gentler colors are better.
There’s no big difference in readability between the Paper Pro (229 ppi) compared to its predecessor (226 ppi). But I can’t quite shake the nagging feeling that the smaller, older device has sharper text when I’m looking at it. Your mileage may vary.
Because of how much new tech has been crammed inside the Paper Pro, you’ll find scrolling speeds are much faster. When I used the reMarkable 2, I felt I could see its processes taking place in real time. You know, “Identify input, process input, send command to screen, refresh screen,” with a notable delay. Here, any lag feels more like a result of the e-paper display’s natural limitations and slow refresh rate rather than slow processing speed.
Plenty of work has been done by the reMarkable team to reduce the latency between the pen and the display. Even after the addition of the color screen, which necessitated some compromise, the input lag was cut from 22ms on the rM2 to 12ms here. Similarly, there’s no lag when you’re typing as there could sometimes be when you were using the older slate. If there’s one thing I’m still not sure about, it’s that when writing in color, the text doesn’t initially render in the color you’ve chosen. Your first blast of scrawling pops up in gray and it’s only after the screen refreshes that it reloads in the correct color.
Daniel Cooper for Engadget
There’s one other thing that I want to draw attention to, and it’s a subtle thing but well worth pointing at. A lot of time and effort has gone into ensuring that handwritten notes and highlights can work seamlessly with text inputs. For instance, if I’m typing something and feel the need to highlight, underline or draw a ring around the word with the pen, I can. If I then have to go back and amend that text later, it’s easy enough to expect the handwritten additions to become unmoored from the text. But reMarkable has done the hard work to ensure that it all remains in place — it’s a subtle piece of engineering, but one I deeply appreciate.
Backlight
Paper Pro is the first reMarkable with a backlight, and its inclusion here is very much “better late than never.” I’ve often enjoyed writing notes with the reMarkable 2, but found it frustrating that it’s unusable in darker environments. That both the slate and the new Type Folio are now backlit – activated by tapping the top right corner of the screen — means that’s no longer an issue. The light emitted from both is in my experience gentle rather than eye-searing, even when I pushed everything to maximum. Fundamentally, you’ll be able to use this in a dark room or on an airplane with the cabin lights dimmed without any stress or eye strain.
Marker
Like its predecessors, the Paper Pro comes with a choice of stylus. What separates the Marker and Marker Plus is that the latter, as before, has an active surface on top, allowing you to use it as an eraser. Make an error, and all you have to do is flip it over to get rid of your boo-boo, whereas with the Marker you’ll need to select the erase tool from the menu.
Daniel Cooper for Engadget
But while you might not notice much of a difference at first blush, plenty has changed on the inside. The older reMarkable styluses were passive, enabling you to use a number of compatible third-party styli in their place. This time around, both versions are active — full of technology to help orient the pen and communicate with the tablet for faster processing. It connects magnetically to the “right” hand side, wirelessly charging from the slate like the Apple Pencil.
Ironically, a lot of effort has gone into ensuring that, despite the raft of changes between this model and its predecessor, you’ll struggle to notice the difference. I’ve seen some folks saying that the new Marker has a harder tip and that as the display is rougher, it’s less fun to use. I’m not sure my experience matches that, and every time I compare the two, I feel like it’s more or less the same.
As for the Marker’s battery life, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get this thing to run out of juice under what I’d describe as normal use. An hour or two a day for more than a week and I never managed to run the stylus flat — hell, I barely got the Paper Pro’s battery to half in that time.
Type Folio
reMarkable has launched a new Type Folio for the Paper Pro, which is about 1.1 inches wider and deeper than its predecessor. That extra space affords you a palm rest and a bigger margin around the outside of the keyboard, but nothing too dramatic in terms of changes to the keys. You do now get an Escape key, which exits a document and goes back to the homepage. There’s also a new Icon Toggle, which when activated will remove the icons from the screen to further reduce distractions.
Daniel Cooper for Engadget
Now, I’m a big fan of the old Type Folio, finding that it made the right compromises for a travel keyboard. Its main keys were properly sized and spaced so my muscle memory carried over from my regular keyboard to this one and back again. The compromises, like the half-height function row and narrow non-character keys, were the right ones to make. Given the Paper Pro’s bigger size, its Type Folio can spread those extra keys out a little further to give the whole thing room to breathe. It’s better than it was before, but what we had before was no slouch.
Price and availability
The reMarkable Paper Pro is available to order today, priced at $579 with the standard Marker and $629 if you want the Marker Plus. You can add a case from $89, but a full leather version will set you back $179. If you want to add the Type Folio, which I’d say is a key way of making the reMarkable truly useful, you’ll need to pay an additional $229.
The company has, however, decided to keep the reMarkable 2 around as a lower-cost option, selling it for $379 with a standard Marker. Given the reMarkable 2 has topped our e-ink tablet buyer’s guide for several years, it’s still a solid choice if the Paper Pro is too rich for your blood.
The competition
There are a decent number of e-paper tablets floating around the market right now, with the majority of them offering monochrome screens. In our e-ink tablet Buyer’s Guide, we named the reMarkable 2 the best option for most people. If you’re looking for a slate with a color display, your options are the Paper Pro, or the Kobo Libra Color and the elegantly named Onyx Book Tablet Note Air 3 C.
Kobo’s device is much more portable than the Paper Pro, but that’s because the Kobo is primarily designed to be an ereader. Its smaller seven-inch screen is squarely in ereader territory, and while there’s a notebooks feature that allows you to write freehand as much as you want, it’s never going to be able to compete with the Paper Pro’s 11.8-inch screen on that front. The Libra Color will be a better option for those who primarily want to take notes in and mark up ebooks — Kobo’s library is nearly as robust as Amazon’s Kindle library, and you can digitally mark up any book you buy from Kobo without restriction.
Onyx’s Boox Note Air 3 C is more akin to the Paper Pro in size, but it’s decidedly not suitable if you want to work in a more distraction-free environment. The Note Air 3 C, like most other Boox devices, are full Android tablets with E Ink screens, so nothing’s stopping you from going online or even attempting to watch a YouTube video. Even if distractions aren’t an issue for you, the Paper Pro’s streamlined interface makes it much easier to use — for both newbies and those familiar with these devices. Boox devices will appeal more to tinkerers and the most tech-savvy among us because there are a lot of settings you can play around with to make a device like the Note Air 3 C as capable as you need it to be. The Paper Pro keeps things relatively simple, making it more approachable overall.
Wrap-up
Daniel Cooper for Engadget
Look, you just know that there are some folks who’ll look at the Paper Pro’s price and spec list, compare that to a base-model iPad and laugh themselves into a coma. The point is that this isn’t a generic tablet but a device that’s been consciously designed to do fewer things better. So, we’re going to judge this thing on and by its own merits, rather than as a typical tablet.
I’m a big fan of reMarkable’s devices because they offer a way for me to focus in a way that my ADHD brain struggles to do otherwise. If I’m feeling overwhelmed and need to eliminate distractions, then stealing myself away with a device like this really can help. There’s no easy way for me to swipe away from my work to check Reddit or YouTube, helping me stay on track. And given how popular these devices are, I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels this way.
If, however, you’d still like to dip a toe into this water but don’t want to spend that much, then there is good news. reMarkable is keeping the 2 around as an entry-level unit, priced at $379 with the standard marker and because for all of the good things the Paper Pro does, none diminish the long list of good qualities the reMarkable 2 has.
On one hand, you have a device that’s whip-fast, eminently capable at the things that it can do and now has a bigger screen that renders colors. On the other, I cannot pretend that it’s not a pricey piece of kit, especially when you bundle in the Type Folio. Naturally, if your budget can stretch to that sort of cash and you really do need a way to work without distractions, I think it’s worth it.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/remarkable-paper-pro-review-writing-in-color-is-nice-but-itll-cost-you-173024590.html?src=rss
Bose launched a new wireless portable speaker on Tuesday. The SoundLink Home is a relatively small addition to the lineup with “premium sound” and around nine hours of battery life for $219.
The SoundLink Home is quite “mini” for a home-branded speaker: 8.5 inches high, 4.4 inches wide and 2.3 inches deep. It weighs 1.93 lbs (0.88 kg). It shouldn’t be hard to tote it from room to room or find an open spot on a desk or table.
A small size often means compromised audio, but Bose promises its dual passive radiators will produce “deep bass that fills any room.” The company also says it has “premium sound” with “great acoustics.” The company can squeeze surprisingly powerful sound into small packages, as evidenced by its SoundLink Flex lineup (more on that in a second).
Bose
The SoundLink Home forgoes Bose app access, so you’ll need to tweak your source audio if you want to adjust EQ levels. In addition to Bluetooth 5.3 (including multipoint!), it lets you attach a USB-C cable for wired input. The speaker also has a built-in mic to use for voice assistant access or as a speakerphone for calls.
You can use its bundled USB-C cable for charging, too, and Bose says it will go from empty to full in around four hours. You can link it wirelessly with a second unit for a stereo setup.
As its photos indicate, it’s a snazzy-looking little speaker. Its body is made from anodized aluminum, and it has a “high-quality” fabric grille and a built-in stand.
The Bose SoundLink Home is available now exclusively on the company website. You can buy it in gray and silver colorways. The speaker costs $219 and (at least for me) shows shipping available immediately.
Bose SoundLink Flex
Bose
The company recently updated its SoundLink Flex, a pill-shaped portable speaker that’s one of Engadget’s picks for the best Bluetooth speakers. Unlike the first version (and the SoundLink Home), this second-gen model now connects to the Bose app. There, you can make EQ adjustments and store stereo pairing connections with other compatible Bose speakers. The new version supports AAC and aptX audio codecs and comes in a new Alpine Sage colorway.
The new model also gains a shortcut button (similar to the one on the SoundLink Max). Like that model, the button on the Flex is customizable through the app.
The second-gen SoundLink Flex is available now for $149.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/the-bose-soundlink-home-brings-premium-audio-to-a-small-and-portable-package-171006213.html?src=rss
Amazon Prime Day is getting really close now and the deals spigot has been turned on. Case in point? There’s an Echo Pop bundle that includes a TP-Link Tapo smart light bulb for just $18. This is a discount of more than 70 percent.
The Echo Pop is Amazon’s latest entry-level device in the smart speaker category. It typically costs $40 on its own, adding more luster to today’s sale. The semi-spherical speaker is a great fit for small spaces, like dorm rooms and bedrooms. The Echo Pop includes Amazon’s AZ2 Neural Edge processor for on-device machine learning tasks which, of course, allows full access to Alexa.
The speaker also pairs with Eero mesh routers to extend a home network’s range by “up to 1,000 square feet.” This is a decent smart speaker for beginners, with one caveat. The Echo Dot is available in multiple colors, and some are quite fetching, but this deal is only for the standard black/charcoal model.
Of course, this bundle also includes a Tapo smart light bulb. This is another entry-level device, though it’s not exactly bare-bones. The bulb can display 16 million different colors, which makes for unique lighting effects. Once connected, users can ask Alexa to dim the lights, raise the lights or change colors.
A single light bulb doesn’t make for a smart home, per se, but this will allow consumers to experiment with some adjacent features. It’s also a good way to gauge how much energy will be saved by going with smart appliances, as Tapo bulbs use around 60 percent less power when compared to standard bulbs.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/prime-day-deals-include-an-echo-pop-bundle-with-a-smart-light-bulb-for-only-18-163317796.html?src=rss