The Pebble Time 2 requires initial setup time to pick a watch face from thousands available, drawing on Pebble's legacy library, but proves easy to use afterward thanks to its tall display suited for scrolling menus and reading text. It includes basic health tracking—steps, sleep, and heart rate via a PPG sensor—presented through simple graphs rather than computed scores. The device runs on PebbleOS, now fully open-source after Google released it and the Rebble community maintained it following Fitbit's earlier abandonment of the platform.
Qualcomm has revealed that its upcoming flagship Snapdragon processor will be the first smartphone chip to run at 5GHz. Alongside this, the company introduced Oryon FlexCache, an architecture that lets Prime cores dynamically access a shared pool of cache memory rather than being limited to a fixed allocation.
A public showcase event in Shanghai let visitors interact directly with humanoid robots, part of China's broader effort to promote and accelerate its robotics industry. Organizers say such events matter because hands-on exposure builds public familiarity, even as humanoid robot development globally remains slow and uneven.
Samsung's latest foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold8, refines the design but still forces buyers to choose between competing priorities like thinness, durability, battery life and camera quality. Rather than solving foldables' core engineering tensions, it shifts which trade-offs users accept.
A bug disrupted voice-activated alarm setting on Google Home devices, including Nest speakers, displays, and third-party hardware like Lenovo smart displays, for several days in August. Users found that commands like asking for an alarm at a specific time were ignored unless they used odd workarounds, such as saying an exact hour or prefacing the request with an unrelated phrase. Google has now confirmed the issue is resolved across both Google Assistant and Gemini for Home.
CNET published a guide recommending smart devices to upgrade home desks and offices, starting with a smart surge protector like Tapo's model that lets users label, remotely control, and track energy use of connected devices. The guide also highlights smart speakers, such as Google's newest model, for hands-free reminders, timers, and voice commands while working.
Smart ring maker Oura is said to be planning a U.S. IPO as soon as next month, aiming to raise up to $3 billion at a valuation exceeding $16 billion, according to Bloomberg. That figure would nearly double the $10.9 billion valuation the company received in its September Series E round, with existing investors expected to sell a significant portion of shares in the offering.
A free iPhone app called Zuckoff scans Bluetooth signals to alert users when Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Snap Spectacles, or similar wearable cameras are nearby, estimating their distance. It's part of a growing set of privacy tools, including Antizuck and Nearby Glasses, built in response to concerns that smart glasses can record video without visible warning.
Samsung has introduced My FanCam, a Galaxy AI feature that lets users crop and follow a specific person in a video after it's already been recorded, rather than adjusting the frame live like Auto framing does. Because it works after the fact, users are advised to shoot wider scenes so the AI has more room to track and reposition the subject.
Reports found that some LG monitors have been quietly installing an app called LG Monitor App Installer onto connected PCs through Windows Update, disguised as a driver update. That app has been used to surface pop-up ads for third-party software like McAfee, prompting Microsoft to force LG to remove the ads. LG says the installer is meant to enable monitor-specific features, but the covert delivery method has raised alarm.
Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, built with EssilorLuxottica, are facing criticism after users were found photographing and filming strangers without consent, then posting the footage online. Critics have dubbed the devices 'pervert glasses' amid mounting concerns about privacy and ethical misuse.
Apple, Samsung, and Google are ending update cycles for a number of their established smartwatch lines, meaning those devices will no longer receive the same software attention going forward. The move affects wearables many consumers still actively use, even if the hardware itself keeps functioning.
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