Google’s elaborate video chat booths will soon exist as more than just a clever design exercise. Ars Technicareports the company will start installing Project Starline prototypes in some of its corporate partners’ offices for “regular” tests later this year. In other words, Google will see how its “magic windows” work beyond on-campus demos.
Program partners include Salesforce, T-Mobile and WeWork, among others. The in-house demos have included over 100 companies spread across healthcare, media and retailers.
Project Starline is effectively a bid to create a natural-feeling telepresence system. Each participant sits in a booth with an array of cameras and infrared projectors that create a realistic 3D depiction, with spatial audio capture making it seem as if the voice is coming from that digital persona’s mouth. Combined with head tracking and a 65-inch, 8K glasses-free display, the system makes it seem as if the other person is sitting in front of you. This theoretically leads to more effortless meetings than you’d get by staring at a computer monitor with a webcam.
The question, of course, is whether or not the early access program will lead to installations at your employer’s boardroom or the local store. While Google hasn’t outlined the cost of a Project Starline booth, the technology is inherently expensive and consumes a lot of space. Smaller businesses might have trouble justifying this when off-the-shelf computers may be good enough. The timing is also less than ideal. While remote and hybrid work have taken off, Starline is coming right as more people are comfortable returning to in-person interaction. The audience for the tech isn’t nearly as large as it might have been a year ago, and we wouldn’t count on it getting bigger.
Samsung has revealed more details about One UI 5, the updated user interface it will begin rolling out to devices later this month. Galaxy S22-series devices will be the first to get the update. The company is placing an even bigger focus on personalization, including on the lock screen. You’ll be able to select up to 15 photos and videos for the lock screen, with a different one appearing each time you turn on the display.
Alternatively, you can let Samsung handle the dynamic lock screen with a selection of curated images — you’ll see a different one each time. You can choose up to five image categories (such as dogs, cats, animals, landscapes and plants) and Samsung will refresh the collections every two weeks. You’ll also be able to tweak the wallpaper, clock style and notification pop-ups on the lock screen. Expect more color palette options to change the device-wide look of the UI and more customizable faces for Galaxy Watches.
Samsung
Samsung says it has redesigned notifications to make them more intuitive and easier to parse with a glance. There’s the promise of improved widget stacking on the home screen too. One UI 5 will also have “more defined answer and decline buttons” when you see the pop-up call display.
Speaking of calls, there’s a new feature called Bixby Text Call. You’ll be able to answer a call by typing a message and Bixby can read this to the caller. The voice assistant can convert what the caller says into text as well. This could come in handy if you’re in a noisy environment and wouldn’t be able to hear what the other person is saying. Bixby Text Call became available in Korean as part of One UI 4.1.1. An English version will arrive in early 2023.
One UI 5 will place an onus on modes and routines too. With routines, you can trigger several actions on your device based on your activities (such as starting a certain playlist when you leave home). In addition, you can have modes with custom settings for certain situations, such as when you’re sleeping, relaxing or working out. In relax mode, you might mute notifications so you can focus on watching a video or playing a game. And when it’s time for bed, perhaps turning off all sounds and reducing the screen brightness will do the trick.
Samsung
At the Samsung Developer Conference keynote, Sally Hyesoon Jeong said that your device will ask a series of simple questions to help you set modes up as you see fit. The company plans to launch modes on more devices (namely watches and tablets) in the near future
Elsewhere, Samsung is merging the “biometrics and security” and “privacy” settings from One UI 4 into a single security and privacy menu. You’ll be alerted to potential security issues and see possible solutions all on one screen.
You’ll see a new warning on the share panel if your phone believes you’re about to share an image that includes sensitive information, such as a photo of your credit card, driver’s license, Social Security card or passport. When it comes to IDs, Samsung noted that availability may vary depending on the language. At least for now, this feature will only be available when you set your system language to English (US) or Korean.
On the health front, Samsung worked with Google on a platform called Health Connect, a single set of APIs that should enable Android developers to create “richer health experiences,” Jeong said. There will be centralized privacy controls that will still enable you to sync data between various health and fitness apps.
As a result of Samsung’s partnership with Microsoft, when you set up a new Windows PC, you can use a QR code to link it to your phone. This will automatically add your mobile hotspot to your PC WiFi options. Jeong suggested that One UI 5 will deliver improved continuity across apps. You can switch from PowerPoint on phones to the desktop app and continue from where you left off, for instance. There are plans to enable similar features for non-Microsoft apps soon. Also on the productivity front, the Z Fold 4’s redesigned taskbar is coming to other Z Fold and Tab S8 devices as part of the Android 12L update. Moreover, you’ll be able to copy text from images and paste it elsewhere.
A new connected devices menu will include interoperability options for the likes of Quick Share, Smart View and Samsung DeX. Finally, you can expect easier access to a menu that will help you switch your Galaxy Buds from one device to another.
Samsung’s unified Wallet app will soon be available to many more people. The company says it will roll out Wallet to 13 more countries by the end of 2022. Most are in Europe, Scandinavia and western Asia, including Denmark, Finland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The functionality will also be available in key parts of the Middle East (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and UAE) as well as South Africa and Vietnam.
Wallet initially launched in just six countries, including the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. While the expansion still leaves much of the planet untouched, it makes Wallet considerably more commonplace and brings it to new continents.
As elsewhere, Wallet effectively merges Samsung’s Pay and Pass apps. You can use it to make payments with bank cards, of course, but it can also store content like IDs, boarding passes and digital car keys. On top of the usual data protection, the software stores the most sensitive data in “isolated” conditions to prevent hacks. It’s not much different than Apple’s equivalent in that regard, but that still makes it very helpful if you want a do-it-all wallet on your Galaxy phone.
One of the best places to start when building a smart home ecosystem is smart light bulbs. Not only are they relatively affordable compared to other IoT gadgets, often costing between $10 and $50 a bulb, but they can also completely change the feel of your home. You can go from boring and analogue to colorful and automated within minutes, and there are endless possibilities when it comes to using smart light bulbs to create funky-colored light scenes, setting schedules and more.
But like the rest of the smart home space over the last few years, there are now more players in smart lighting than ever before. We tested out some of the most popular smart lights on the market and found that most of them are quite good, but there are differences in compatibility, color quality and mobile app usability that are worth considering before deciding which smart bulb system will be right for your home.
One of the biggest appeals of smart lights is being able to control them from your phone. Most of them are able to do so by connecting to it via WiFi or Bluetooth, or via an external hub, which handles the connection for them. Bluetooth connectivity limits the range in which you’ll be able to control the light, so it’s only best for a limited number of bulbs and ones you don’t expect to control when you’re away.
WiFi smart lights are easy to set up and can be cheaper overall since they don’t require a hub to connect them. However, having something like a central Zigbee hub can make your whole system more reliable since its connection is separate from your home’s WiFi network. For that reason, hub-based bulbs tend to be more expandable, so we mainly recommend those if you want to eventually have dozens of smart lights around your home.
White or color?
Most smart bulbs you’ll find today are “white and color” bulbs, meaning they can glow in vibrant blues, pinks, greens and everything in between, as well as shine with different temperatures of white. But there are some white-only bulbs out there, and they are often a bit more affordable than their color counterparts. While we recommend springing for the white-and-color devices, if you’d prefer white only, make sure you’re getting a bulb that can span the temperature spectrum (typically from about 2000 to 5000 Kelvin), offering you various levels of warm and cool white light.
App features
One of the perks of smart lights is the amount of control you have over them thanks to their various app-connected capabilities. Most companion apps let you do things like set lighting schedules, group individual lights into room designations and create your own custom light “scenes” with different colors. But we have seen other features that aren’t as ubiquitous like vacation mode for automatically turning lights on and off to enhance your home security, and sync with media, which changes the colors of lights depending on the music you’re listening to or the game you’re currently live-streaming.
Smart home compatibility
If you use a virtual assistant like Amazon’s Alexa or the Google Assistant regularly, make sure the smart lights you get work with your favorite. All of the bulbs we tested supported both Amazon’s and Google’s virtual assistants, allowing you to use voice commands to turn lights on and off, dim them and more. The wildcard here is Siri and Apple’s HomeKit; while numerous smart bulbs have added HomeKit to their list of compatible connections, not all lights support Apple’s smart home framework.
Expandability
We alluded to this above, but you’ll want to consider how many smart lights you eventually want in your home. Some brands and systems are easier to expand than others, and we generally recommend going for hub-based bulbs if you plan on putting smart lights in every room in your home. If you’re only looking to deck out your home office or living room with some fancy lights, WiFi options should serve you well. Thankfully, these are some of the most affordable smart home devices you can get, so even if you don’t have a clear answer to this question now, you can reconsider your options down the line if you do decide to outfit your home with dozens of bulbs.
Best overall: Philips Hue White + Color Ambiance
Amazon / Philips
If you’ve done any research into smart lights, you’ve probably come across Philips Hue bulbs. The range is popular for a variety of reasons, and we agree they’re the best smart light bulbs you can get thanks to their wide compatibility, easy to use mobile app and their expandability. Particularly, if you know you want to outfit more than one room in your home with these IoT devices, Philips Hue is the way to go.
The first thing that’s important to know about Hue bulbs is that they are now Bluetooth enabled. That means you can buy a few to try out first, then easily expand your system with a hub when you want to add more lights to your home. Previously, the hub was required for any and all lights, but now it’s much easier to dip your toe into the range before fully taking the plunge.
Like all of the other smart lights we tested, you only need to screw in a Hue bulb, turn on your light, and follow the instructions in the Philips Hue mobile app to start using it. Even if you only have the lights in one room to start, we still recommend grouping them into their own “room” in the Hue app so you can easily control the entire space’s environment at once.
Hue’s White + Color bulbs provide a range of warm to cool whites and millions of colors to experiment with. Colors are rich and vibrant, and Philips’ pre-programmed scenes, such as Energize, Bright and Relax, let you quickly emulate your old “dumb” lights with different warmth levels of white light. You can pick from a number of color scenes in the app, too, but it’s also easy to create your own color temperature. So if you’ve always wanted to flood your office with a rainbow of colors while you’re live-streaming on Twitch, you can find the precise presets you want, save them and then turn them on with just a few taps in the app.
The Hue app is pretty easy to use, and the bulbs support voice commands from Amazon’s Alexa and the Google Assistant. That means you don’t even have to open the app to control your lights; you can simply say “Alexa, turn off the bedroom lights” and only the lights in that designated room will extinguish. You’ll be able to add up to 10 bulbs to your system using Bluetooth alone – at which point you’ll have to add a Philips Hue hub into the mix to support up to 50 lights. The hub also enables things like HomeKit connectivity, light schedules and automations, home and away modes and syncing with movies and music.
Arguably the most useful of those features is automations, which lets you set on/off schedules for your lights, including automatically turning the lights off when you leave the house. It’s understandable why Philips would make these few features exclusive to those with Hue hubs – adding a hub into the mix makes the system more reliable, allowing you to do more with increasing numbers of connected lights, plus it will encourage many to invest in a hub and more Hue bulbs over time. We like Hue’s hub not only for its reliability, but also because it allows finer and more flexible control over your devices. So if you’re on vacation and want to turn on your living room lights to see what’s going on, you can do that.
Expandability goes beyond the number of lights you have in your home: It also includes multiple smart bulbs you can install outside, too. The Hue range has a ton of indoor and outdoor bulbs to choose from, including recessed lights, outdoor pedestal and flood lights, light strips and more. It’s one of the few ranges available today that gives you a ton of options to make every bulb in and out of your home smart, which is important to consider if you know you want to go all in on the smart light front.
But that brings us to the biggest downside of Philips Hue, which is the price. Hue bulbs are on the expensive side, with a two-pack of White + Color Ambiance bulbs costing $80. If you’re looking for cheap bulbs to test out smart lighting, some of our other picks below, like the Kasa smart light bulb, will be better choices since most of them have lower prices per bulb. However, if smart lighting is something you want to invest in going forward, we recommend going with one of Philips’ Hue starter kits: the White + Color Ambiance starter kit, including three bulbs, a hub and a smart button, comes in at $180, which is cheaper than if you were to buy all of those components separately.
Overall, LIFX’s color smart lights are similar to Hue’s White + Ambiance bulbs in that they’re easy to set up, they offer striking, saturated colors and work with three major platforms: Alexa, Google Assistant and HomeKit. But the main difference is the LIFX bulbs are WiFi only, so you can’t connect them to a hub even if you wanted to, and some are slightly more expensive than Hue devices. The Color E26 bulb, which supports 1100 lumens, normally costs $50, but there’s an 800-lumen equivalent that’s a bit cheaper, coming in at $35 per bulb.
LIFX’s mobile app is also undoubtedly the slickest we tested. While that may not mean much to you, it’s worth mentioning because mobile apps are the way most people interact with their smart lights on a daily basis. The homepage features all of the room groups in your household, along with the names of the lights in each room. You can easily turn a whole room, or a specific light, on with just a tap, and do the same for all of the lights in your home.
LIFX lights support scheduling, so you can program lights to work for you so you rarely (if ever) have to control them manually, plus there are a plethora of scenes and effects to choose from. While all of the color lights we tried had pre-made scenes or presets ready to go in the app, Philips Hue and LIFX clearly had the most out of them all. Personally, I found LIFX’s scenes and additional effects to be a bit more fun and engaging than Hue’s. You can pick from scenes like “spooky” or “pastel” and use effects like “strobe” if you want to make your living room feel a bit more like a nightclub. While most people probably won’t use these niche scenes and effects on a regular basis, they’re great perks to have when you’re entertaining or just want to set the right vibe for your next movie night or game-streaming session.
LIFX has a number of products in its ecosystem, from standard A19 bulbs to lightstrips to candles. It has switches, too, so you can physically control your smart lights if you wish. But Philips Hue has all of those options too and more, including not just switches, but standalone floor lamps, outdoor spotlights, downlights, light bars and motion sensors. You’ll have more options with Hue if you want to convert all of your home’s lights to smart ones, and have multiple ways to control them, too.
TP-Link’s Kasa brand is known for its solid yet affordable smart home devices and its smart lights are no different. We tested out the WiFi-only multicolor smart light bulbs and found them easy to install and use, and they provide a bunch of features at an affordable price; a four-pack of multicolor bulbs will only set you back $40.
Besides having a simple installation process, Kasa’s multicolor smart lights stayed reliably connected the whole time we tested them and the companion mobile app is simple and clean. All of the main functions for each light live in that bulb’s dedicated page in the app, allowing you to change brightness, white levels, color, schedules and more without navigating through a bunch of different menus. Changing colors is nearly instantaneous, and the light changes as you drag your finger across the color wheel in the app. Editing the four presets you’re able to save takes only a few taps, as does grouping multiple bulbs into rooms and creating lighting schedules. For the latter, if you do set on/off schedules, the app will show you the next step in that schedule (i.e., off at 8:35pm) next to each individual light.
There’s also a handy “usage” section in each light’s page that shows you the bulb’s energy use over time, plus an estimate of how much energy you’re saving by using a smart light instead of a regular one. This is something that would be fun to observe over many weeks and months of using these bulbs, especially if conserving energy is one of the main reasons you invested in smart lights in the first place.
TP-Link claims you can connect “unlimited” smart devices to its mobile app, which technically means you can have as many Kasa smart lights in your home as you’d like. We only tested a few together, so we can’t say for sure how dozens of connected devices would affect app speed and light response time. These are WiFi-only bulbs, which means connecting them to a Zigbee hub isn’t an option, so keep that in mind before deciding to invest in a house-full of these gadgets. It’s also worth noting that these lights aren’t compatible with Apple’s HomeKit, although you can control them using Alexa and Google Assistant commands.
Maybe you don’t want to bother with colored lights. If that’s the case, LIFX’s White E26 is your best bet. You get all of the non-color features in the mobile app that we explained above, including schedules and virtual assistant controls, but in a more basic light bulb that only costs $10.
My biggest gripe is that it doesn’t span the cool-to-warm temperature range that other bulbs do. Rather, you’re stuck with just one shade of white: 2700K, which is on the warmer side. This makes it better for intimate settings like a bedroom or a living room, but since it’s not overly warm, it could work in a home office, too. It’s also dimmable, so you can control its brightness.
If you have a specific use case in mind for your smart lights that doesn’t involve a rainbow of colors, then a LIFX bulb will more than suffice. They would work well in a child’s room, for instance, allowing you to set wake-up and sleep schedules that gradually turn on and off the lights, or in a home office where you just want a bit more control over your lights without extra frills.
Sengled’s Smart Light Bulbs deserve a shout because they’re essentially more affordable versions of the best bulbs mentioned here, just with a few compromises. Key among those is that their colors are less nuanced than most others we tested and the mobile app is less polished.
That said, you’re still getting millions of colors out of Sengled’s smart lights and the app is easy to use. It also provides all of the features you’d want from a smart light bulb, including grouping, schedules and automations. The fact that the Sengled mobile app isn’t as slick as Hue’s or LIFX’s may actually work in its favor with newbies – the basic controls and labels will be very easy for smart home novices to understand.
The bulbs we tested were WiFi-based, so they do not require a hub. However, Sengled has a bunch of other smart lights that work via WiFi, Bluetooth or hub connectivity. A pack of four WiFi color bulbs will set you back $30, while a set of six Zigbee hub-based lights costs only $100. Overall, Sengled’s devices are much more affordable than Hue’s, making them a good budget option regardless of whether you want to stick to WiFi or invest in a smart home hub like Sengled’s own or a device like Amazon’s Echo with a built-in hub.
Signal is removing the option to send and receive SMS messages in its Android app. Folks who currently use Signal as their default SMS app will receive alerts advising them to switch to a different one. You’ll be able to export your SMS messages and import them into another app (as long as the other one supports that option).
The change won’t happen overnight. “You will have several months to transition away from SMS in Signal, to export your SMS messages to another app, and to let the people you talk to know that they might want to switch to Signal or find another channel if not,” Signal wrote in a blog post.
Signal said it included SMS support in the first place to make it easier to use — you wouldn’t have to convince friends to start using Signal before exchanging messages with them from the app. While the move may be inconvenient for those who have been using Signal for the bulk of their messaging, the company spelled out some practical reasons for the change.
For one thing, SMS messages don’t have end-to-end encryption. Also, given the shifting prices of data and text plans over the years, it may actually be more expensive to send an SMS message than a Signal one these days. “We’ve heard repeatedly from people who’ve been hit with high messaging fees after assuming that the SMS messages they were sending were Signal messages, only to find out that they were using SMS, and being charged by their telecom provider,” Signal’s blog post reads. “This is a terrible experience with real consequences.”
The third reason Signal gave is that it wants to avoid folks getting confused between SMS and Signal messages in the app. It said that making these distinct has “serious UX and design implications.” Furthermore, Signal said dropping SMS support will free up resources to work on other projects and features.
It made the decision following a data breach at its verification partner Twillio. Signal said the incident exposed around 1,900 of its users’ phone numbers and SMS codes. It’s unclear whether the call to end SMS support is directly connected to the breach.
Sony has unveiled the ZV-1F, its third and most affordable vlogging camera, designed for creators as a “step up” from smartphones. Priced at just $500, it’s slotted below the $700 ZV-1 compact and $750 mirrorless ZV-E10 (with a kit lens), and has a Type-1 Exmor 20.1-megapixel sensor, 4K video, and features that help novice users get up to speed quickly.
While using a similar Type-1 sensor to the ZV-1, it trades that models 24-70mm zoom for a wide-angle, 20mm equivalent prime lens. That extra field of view, plus the fully-articulating display, could actually make it better for vlogging or selfies than the ZV-1 — allowing folks to better fit themselves into the frame.
Sony
However, it also makes it less versatile for shooting products, other people and so on, though you can do a digital zoom of 2x in 1080p and about 1.5x in 4K. It has no built-in stabilization, instead relying on electronic stabilization that imposes a 1.23x crop, making the 20mm lens about 25mm.
You can shoot 4K at up to 30 fps, the same as the ZV-1, and 1080p at up to an impressive 120fps (with 8-bit video in all modes). That’s done by the “slow and quick” setting, which also supports 60x hyperlapse capture in HD. However, unlike most other Sony models, the ZV-1F has contrast-detect only autofocus, rather than phase detect that’s generally faster and more accurate.
Sony
Like the other vlogging models, the ZV-1F has a “product showcase” feature that lets you place a product in front of the camera and quickly get focus. It also has the same bokeh switch that lets you defocus the background with the click of a button. A nod to TikTok or Snapchat creators is the Shot Mark feature that lets you grab a 15-, 30- or 60-second clip and send it to a smartphone through Sony’s app.
On the audio side, it has a directional microphone that offers good-quality sound, with forward bias that isolates your voice, even outdoors. It also includes a removable “deadcat” to reduce wind noise.
Other features include a single UHS-1 slot, an ISO range of 125 to 12,800, vertical shooting, and a front facing tally light that shows when you’re recording. Sony says it weighs just 256 grams, just a bit more than the 203 gram iPhone 14. It arrives on October 24th for $500.
Following the release of the 2022 iPad Air and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S8 line earlier this spring, there hasn’t been a ton of movement in the tablet world. At IFA, Lenovo announced refreshed versions of the Tab P11 and P11 Pro featuring updated internals…
Earlier this summer, the US FDA greenlit the sale of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids, and now we’re seeing some from one of the largest audio companies in the world. Sony has announced the availability of its first OTC hearing aids, the $1,000 CRE-C10 and $1,300 CRE-E10, built in partnership with WS Audiology.
The devices are built for daily use for those with mild to moderate hearing loss. They’re controlled via Sony’s “Hearing Control” app that guides users through setup and allows them to personalize settings like volume control. It also allows a “self-fit” that adjusts to appropriate pre-defined hearing profiles “based on thousands of actual, real-life audiogram results,” Sony said.
Sony Electronics, Inc.
The CRE-C10 model (above) offers a battery life of up to 70 hours of continuous use. Sony says they’re one of the smallest OTC hearing aids on the market, offering a discreet design that’s “virtually invisible when worn” and “exceptional sound quality.” It goes on sale this month for $1,000 at Amazon, Best Buy, and select hearing-care professionals.
Meanwhile, the CRE-E10 (at top) has a more earbud-like design, powered by a rechargeable battery with up to 26 hours of life between charges. It’s Bluetooth compatible as well, so users can connect to devices and listen to streaming audio or music, though only on iOS, Sony says. Those will go on sale for $1,300 sometime this winter at Sony’s website.
Last year, Bose and Lexie unveiled their own OTC hearing aids with the SoundControl lineup, and launched the first B1 model for $900 a couple of days ago. Companies like Jabra have also leaped in. And last year, Sennheiser sold its consumer audio business to the hearing aid specialist Sonova. While the prices are still not what you’d call cheap, they’re far less than prescription hearing aids that can run $1,000-$4,000 per ear, according to Consumer Reports.
