GoKawiil
Tech News
Neakasa unveiled Riko, a countertop device shown ahead of IFA 2026 in Berlin that rehydrates and mixes freeze-dried cat food into fresh wet meals on a schedule set through an app. The unit holds a water reservoir and food compartment sized for about a week's worth of meals, and sells for $200 through Neakasa's website.
Aqara has unveiled a new range of smart home lighting products, including permanent outdoor lights and a stick-style floor lamp. The launch signals Aqara's push beyond its core sensor and hub business into the competitive smart lighting market.
Oura, the Finland-founded, San Francisco-based maker of health-tracking smart rings, has filed paperwork with the SEC to go public on Nasdaq. The company has built a leading position in the wearable ring market as it moves toward becoming a publicly traded stock.
Sonoff introduced a new Thermostatic Radiator Valve (TRV) at IFA 2026, a smart device that screws directly onto a radiator's valve pipe and connects via Wi-Fi to an app. Priced at $35, it displays temperature on a color screen and supports Celsius and Fahrenheit units.
Dutch phone maker Fairphone has launched its Gen 6+ device in the US market, built around a 6.31-inch OLED screen and designed so users can replace parts themselves rather than send devices out for repair. CTO Chandler Hatton says the company set out to prove that modular, long-lasting smartphones are achievable despite skepticism from the industry.
Apple's hardware engineering leader John Ternus is emerging as a frontrunner to eventually succeed Tim Cook as CEO. Unlike speculation that Apple's next leader would need to pioneer a device beyond the smartphone, reports suggest Ternus may simply continue steering the iPhone business that remains Apple's core product.
Aqara, known mainly for security sensors, revealed a broad new smart lighting range at IFA 2026 covering indoor lamps, LED strips, and outdoor lighting. The lineup includes a multicolor standing lamp with 18 controllable zones, a table lamp, a low-ceiling downlight, a dense LED strip, and both string and permanent weatherproof outdoor lights. Pricing and release dates were not disclosed.
Philips Hue has released the Play Screen Sync camera, a $119.99 device that mounts above a TV and uses a fisheye lens to read whatever is on screen—including native smart TV apps and live broadcasts—then adjusts connected Hue lights to match. Alongside it, the company introduced a slimmer $149.99 Play HDMI Sync Box 4K with a single HDMI input and output, supporting 4K at 60fps.
At IFA 2026 in Berlin, Xiaomi introduced the Smart Band 11, a successor to last year's Smart Band 10 that trims the device down to 9.99mm thick and boosts screen brightness to 2,000 nits from 1,500 nits. The tracker keeps its 1.72-inch, 212x520 pixel display and offers metal or ceramic casing options, along with new color choices, HyperOS 4 software, 5ATM water resistance, and claimed improvements to heart rate and SpO2 sensing.
The Verge's editorial team, including news editor Dom Preston and smart home reviewer Jen Tuohy, spent the week at IFA in Berlin testing new products firsthand. They opened a subscriber-only Q&A session to field reader questions about the devices they tried, with answers rolling out live starting at 12PM ET.
RugOne, part of Ulefon, unveiled the Xsnap 7 Pro, a rugged smartphone featuring a magnetic, removable camera module that doubles as an action cam. The 39-gram module shoots up to 2.7K/30fps, holds 64GB storage, runs 40 minutes per charge, and streams a preview to a companion app up to 50 meters away. The phone itself includes a 50MP main camera, a 64MP infrared night-vision sensor, a 6.67-inch 120Hz display, IP68/IP69K durability ratings, and a MediaTek Dimensity 8400 chip.
Ugreen, best known for chargers and NAS storage devices, debuted its HomeAgent smart home system at IFA, combining camera storage, on-device AI processing, and home automation controlled by a new voice assistant called Uliya. The flagship MasterAgent MA100 hub doubles as a NAS device and smart home brain, using an Nvidia Jetson Thor T5000 chip capable of up to 2,070 TFLOPS of AI performance, with three hub tiers available.