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The Nest Cam with floodlight comes in just one color, so hopefully white goes well with your home’s exterior. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

If you’re looking for a nice discount on a great outdoor smart home camera right now (and you don’t mind Google’s ecosystem) look no further than the Google Nest Cam with floodlight. It’s on sale for $209 ($70 off) at Amazon or $209.99 at Best Buy. It’s possible that it may dip to an even lower price during Black Friday / Amazon Prime Day, but today’s deal is a good value if you’re currently sprucing up the homestead with a bit of security in mind.

The Nest floodlight brightly illuminates your yard, driveway, or walk-up when it detects motion and syncs up with the Google Home app to show captured clips of the activity. It supports 1080p video with night vision, two-way audio for communicating with people outside, and IP54-rated weather resistance. Its fanciest features — like recognizing familiar faces or 24/7 recording — are locked behind subscription tiers, but even if you don’t pay a monthly fee, you can get notifications to your phone when it sees a person, vehicle, or animal, and save any clip logged within the last three hours. You can even set up designated zones to trigger your notifications and recordings, so you’re not pestered every time a car passes by.

I wanna take you for a ride (to more deals)

Fanatical is offering a preorder discount for the digital version of Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics on Steam — offering the game for $40.99 ($9 off). If you’re interested in the remasters of iconic 2D fighting games like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, this is a nice value that allows you to jump in at launch on September 12th. The collection also includes five other Capcom-made Marvel titles of the ‘90s and 2000s, with added online play.
A couple of Anker Qi2 multi-chargers are discounted to their second-best prices to date, each available at Amazon. You can get the Anker MagGo 2-in-1 15W Qi2 magnetic charging stand (for compatible iPhones and AirPods) for just $37.49 when you click the on-page coupon, or opt for the 3-in-1 version (which adds Apple Watch charging) for $74.99 when you click the coupon for $25 off.
The USB-C version of the Razer Kishi V2 mobile game controller is $59.99 ($40 off) at Amazon while the Lightning version for older iPhones is $69.99 (around $30 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. The clamp-style controller may be slightly rougher around the edges compared to the latest Backbone One, but it’s a great value for playing mobile and streaming games with console-like controls (especially when on a sale like this one). Plus, Razer added some nifty functionality allowing you to map touchscreen-only game controls to its physical buttons and sticks.

The Nest Cam with floodlight comes in just one color, so hopefully white goes well with your home’s exterior. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

If you’re looking for a nice discount on a great outdoor smart home camera right now (and you don’t mind Google’s ecosystem) look no further than the Google Nest Cam with floodlight. It’s on sale for $209 ($70 off) at Amazon or $209.99 at Best Buy. It’s possible that it may dip to an even lower price during Black Friday / Amazon Prime Day, but today’s deal is a good value if you’re currently sprucing up the homestead with a bit of security in mind.

The Nest floodlight brightly illuminates your yard, driveway, or walk-up when it detects motion and syncs up with the Google Home app to show captured clips of the activity. It supports 1080p video with night vision, two-way audio for communicating with people outside, and IP54-rated weather resistance. Its fanciest features — like recognizing familiar faces or 24/7 recording — are locked behind subscription tiers, but even if you don’t pay a monthly fee, you can get notifications to your phone when it sees a person, vehicle, or animal, and save any clip logged within the last three hours. You can even set up designated zones to trigger your notifications and recordings, so you’re not pestered every time a car passes by.

I wanna take you for a ride (to more deals)

Fanatical is offering a preorder discount for the digital version of Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics on Steam — offering the game for $40.99 ($9 off). If you’re interested in the remasters of iconic 2D fighting games like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, this is a nice value that allows you to jump in at launch on September 12th. The collection also includes five other Capcom-made Marvel titles of the ‘90s and 2000s, with added online play.
A couple of Anker Qi2 multi-chargers are discounted to their second-best prices to date, each available at Amazon. You can get the Anker MagGo 2-in-1 15W Qi2 magnetic charging stand (for compatible iPhones and AirPods) for just $37.49 when you click the on-page coupon, or opt for the 3-in-1 version (which adds Apple Watch charging) for $74.99 when you click the coupon for $25 off.
The USB-C version of the Razer Kishi V2 mobile game controller is $59.99 ($40 off) at Amazon while the Lightning version for older iPhones is $69.99 (around $30 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. The clamp-style controller may be slightly rougher around the edges compared to the latest Backbone One, but it’s a great value for playing mobile and streaming games with console-like controls (especially when on a sale like this one). Plus, Razer added some nifty functionality allowing you to map touchscreen-only game controls to its physical buttons and sticks.

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Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The next generation of Bluetooth could make it easier to track down lost tech. On Tuesday, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the release of Bluetooth 6.0, which includes a new precision tracking feature that could improve the Find My networks from companies like Apple, Google, and Tile.
Bluetooth is the protocol that controls wireless communication between devices. The Bluetooth SIG, which oversees the standard, periodically releases updates with new capabilities. Bluetooth’s last major update took place in 2016.
Bluetooth 6.0 introduces a feature called Channel Sounding, which can determine the distance between two devices with “centimeter-level accuracy,” according to the Bluetooth SIG. To do this, it uses phase-based ranging to send radio signals between two devices — say your iPhone and your AirTag — at different frequencies, allowing it to calculate the distance between them. Developers will soon be able to incorporate this into Find My devices, making location tracking more precise.
Additionally, Bluetooth 6.0’s Channel Sounding is supposed to address some of the security concerns that come with digital keys that are used to unlock your car or hotel room. With more precise tracking information, developers can make sure a device only unlocks when a digital key is within a specific range. This could help prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, in which a bad actor intercepts communications between your phone and lock, potentially giving them access to your vehicle.
The Bluetooth SIG says there are several other ways developers can use Channel Sounding to improve user experience as well, including by having Bluetooth mice, keyboards, game controllers, and other devices “automatically switch between active and inactive states based on their distance from a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.”
It will likely take a while for devices to adopt Bluetooth 6.0, but it sounds like it could bring some noticeable improvements to the way we find and switch between wireless devices.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The next generation of Bluetooth could make it easier to track down lost tech. On Tuesday, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the release of Bluetooth 6.0, which includes a new precision tracking feature that could improve the Find My networks from companies like Apple, Google, and Tile.

Bluetooth is the protocol that controls wireless communication between devices. The Bluetooth SIG, which oversees the standard, periodically releases updates with new capabilities. Bluetooth’s last major update took place in 2016.

Bluetooth 6.0 introduces a feature called Channel Sounding, which can determine the distance between two devices with “centimeter-level accuracy,” according to the Bluetooth SIG. To do this, it uses phase-based ranging to send radio signals between two devices — say your iPhone and your AirTag — at different frequencies, allowing it to calculate the distance between them. Developers will soon be able to incorporate this into Find My devices, making location tracking more precise.

Additionally, Bluetooth 6.0’s Channel Sounding is supposed to address some of the security concerns that come with digital keys that are used to unlock your car or hotel room. With more precise tracking information, developers can make sure a device only unlocks when a digital key is within a specific range. This could help prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, in which a bad actor intercepts communications between your phone and lock, potentially giving them access to your vehicle.

The Bluetooth SIG says there are several other ways developers can use Channel Sounding to improve user experience as well, including by having Bluetooth mice, keyboards, game controllers, and other devices “automatically switch between active and inactive states based on their distance from a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.”

It will likely take a while for devices to adopt Bluetooth 6.0, but it sounds like it could bring some noticeable improvements to the way we find and switch between wireless devices.

Read More 

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

We’ve been talking a lot about the future of the web on Decoder and across The Verge lately, and one big problem keeps coming up: huge chunks of the web keep going offline. In a lot of meaningful ways, large portions of the web are dying. Servers go offline, software upgrades break links and pages, and companies go out of business — the web isn’t static, and that means sometimes parts of it simply vanish.
It’s not just the “really old” internet from the ’90s or early 2000s that’s at risk. A recent study from the Pew Research Center found that 38 percent of all links from 2013 are no longer accessible. That’s more than a third of the collected media, knowledge, and online culture from just a decade ago — gone. Pew calls it “digital decay,” but for decades, many of us have simply called it linkrot.
Lately, that means a bunch of really meaningful work is gone as well, as various news outlets have failed to make it through the platform era. The list is virtually endless: sites like MTV News, Gawker (twice in less than a decade), Protocol, The Messenger, and, most recently, Game Informer are all gone. Some of those were short-lived, but some outlets that were live for decades had their entire archives vanish in a snap.

But it’s not all grim. For nearly as long as we’ve had a consumer internet, we’ve had the Internet Archive, a massive mission to identify and back up our online world into a vast digital library. It was founded in 1996, and in 2001, it launched the Wayback Machine, an interface that lets anyone call up snapshots of sites and look at how they used to be and what they used to say at a given moment in time. It’s a huge and incredibly complicated project, and it’s our best defense against linkrot.
Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, joins me on the show this week to explain both why and how the organization tries to keep the web from disappearing. (A quick note: the Internet Archive just lost an appeal in a lawsuit over a short-lived book-lending initiative it launched at the start of the covid-19 pandemic. We don’t get into the details of that in this episode, since it happened after we recorded, but we wanted to mention the news.)
The answers are fascinating. There’s the literal hardware side, where you’ll hear Mark explain how the Internet Archive goes through pallets of hard drives. And then there are the choices that go into preservation: not everything necessarily merits preserving, and not everything is technically accessible, especially now as more of the online world moves to private platforms and communication.
Making those choices — not just preserving the internet, but curating it — is a complicated proposition that hits on every Decoder theme there is. The idea of running a library that stores the internet’s history is a puzzle worth solving.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

We’ve been talking a lot about the future of the web on Decoder and across The Verge lately, and one big problem keeps coming up: huge chunks of the web keep going offline. In a lot of meaningful ways, large portions of the web are dying. Servers go offline, software upgrades break links and pages, and companies go out of business — the web isn’t static, and that means sometimes parts of it simply vanish.

It’s not just the “really old” internet from the ’90s or early 2000s that’s at risk. A recent study from the Pew Research Center found that 38 percent of all links from 2013 are no longer accessible. That’s more than a third of the collected media, knowledge, and online culture from just a decade ago — gone. Pew calls it “digital decay,” but for decades, many of us have simply called it linkrot.

Lately, that means a bunch of really meaningful work is gone as well, as various news outlets have failed to make it through the platform era. The list is virtually endless: sites like MTV News, Gawker (twice in less than a decade), Protocol, The Messenger, and, most recently, Game Informer are all gone. Some of those were short-lived, but some outlets that were live for decades had their entire archives vanish in a snap.

But it’s not all grim. For nearly as long as we’ve had a consumer internet, we’ve had the Internet Archive, a massive mission to identify and back up our online world into a vast digital library. It was founded in 1996, and in 2001, it launched the Wayback Machine, an interface that lets anyone call up snapshots of sites and look at how they used to be and what they used to say at a given moment in time. It’s a huge and incredibly complicated project, and it’s our best defense against linkrot.

Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, joins me on the show this week to explain both why and how the organization tries to keep the web from disappearing. (A quick note: the Internet Archive just lost an appeal in a lawsuit over a short-lived book-lending initiative it launched at the start of the covid-19 pandemic. We don’t get into the details of that in this episode, since it happened after we recorded, but we wanted to mention the news.)

The answers are fascinating. There’s the literal hardware side, where you’ll hear Mark explain how the Internet Archive goes through pallets of hard drives. And then there are the choices that go into preservation: not everything necessarily merits preserving, and not everything is technically accessible, especially now as more of the online world moves to private platforms and communication.

Making those choices — not just preserving the internet, but curating it — is a complicated proposition that hits on every Decoder theme there is. The idea of running a library that stores the internet’s history is a puzzle worth solving.

Read More 

Govee’s chip-on-board strip light is just one of its many new colorful Matter lights coming soon. | Image: Govee

At IFA 2024, Govee revealed launch dates for a veritable rat king of Matter-enabled decorative lighting. These include smart string lights, curtain lights, and Govee’s first icicle-style smart lights. The company also has two sets of strip lights to follow up its M1 Matter strip, and… listen, it’s a lot of lights.
‘Tis (sort of, almost) the season, so let’s start with Govee’s new holiday lights. The company says all are IP65 waterproof-rated, so they should be good for indoor or outdoor installation, and they’re all Matter-compatible, meaning you can use them with any smart home ecosystem that uses the one smart home standard to rule them all. All are coming to the US and the EU.

Image: Govee
Govee says its new curtain lights have improved custom effects.

Coming first are the Govee Curtain Lights 2 on September 20th. Govee says these will be brighter than the previous version and that custom effects such as user-provided animated GIFs or those picked from Govee’s library have been improved. They also sport Govee’s “AI Lighting Bot,” which lets you create effects by describing them either in text or with your voice. You will be able to pick them up in packs of one ($149.99), two ($259.99), or three ($399.99).
Govee is also releasing a follow-up to our last year’s pick for cheap smart holiday string lights. The company says its Christmas String Lights 2 use RGBW beads and come with a new “Smart Mapping” feature for setting up effects. They will start at $99.99 for a 20-meter string going up to $399.99 for 100 meters and will be released September 25th.
Govee is also releasing new icicle-style lights in 10-meter ($139.99) and 20-meter ($249.99) versions. These are a new style for the company and will be available on September 29th.
Govee Strip Lights

Image: Govee
Govee’s new Strip Light 2 Pro gets a new chip to drive its colors.

Govee is also releasing two new strip lights, following the company’s M1 LED strip light that The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy found to be bright, colorful, and broadly compatible, thanks to its Matter support. The new Strip Light 2 Pro and COB Strip Light Pro also work with the new smart home standard. The Strip Light 2 Pro uses RGBWW LEDs and gets a new chip that offers more color depth. It costs $59.99 for two-meter strips, $99.99 for five meters, and $149.99 for 10 meters.
The COB Strip Light Pro uses a chip-on-board LED design encased in silicon to diffuse the light, which ought to make light transitions along the strip smoother — more gradient, less obviously individual diodes. The COB Strip Light Pro will be $99.99 for three meters and $149.99 for a five-meter version. Both strip lights are out on September 10th.
Govee’s other intros

Image: Govee
The Star Light Projector (Aurora) makes your walls quite spacey.

Okay, so it’s not all string-shaped. Govee also announced its Star Light Projector (Aurora) and AI Sync Box 2. The $79.99 Aurora beams 16-million-color “customizable aurora effects” onto surfaces up to 650 square inches and features a built-in Bluetooth speaker that’s also got 18 white noise sounds.
And finally, on October 14th, Govee will release the AI Sync Box Kit 2. This one is the latest ambient TV backlighting gadget that the company has been playing around with for a few years. (See our Govee Immersion review from 2021.) Announced at CES this year, the new Sync Box uses HDMI 2.1 passthrough to produce AI-generated effects for things like video games. It can pass up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K at 120Hz — a step up from the 4K-limited HDMI 2.0 of the previous AI Sync Box Kit.

Govee’s chip-on-board strip light is just one of its many new colorful Matter lights coming soon. | Image: Govee

At IFA 2024, Govee revealed launch dates for a veritable rat king of Matter-enabled decorative lighting. These include smart string lights, curtain lights, and Govee’s first icicle-style smart lights. The company also has two sets of strip lights to follow up its M1 Matter strip, and… listen, it’s a lot of lights.

‘Tis (sort of, almost) the season, so let’s start with Govee’s new holiday lights. The company says all are IP65 waterproof-rated, so they should be good for indoor or outdoor installation, and they’re all Matter-compatible, meaning you can use them with any smart home ecosystem that uses the one smart home standard to rule them all. All are coming to the US and the EU.

Image: Govee
Govee says its new curtain lights have improved custom effects.

Coming first are the Govee Curtain Lights 2 on September 20th. Govee says these will be brighter than the previous version and that custom effects such as user-provided animated GIFs or those picked from Govee’s library have been improved. They also sport Govee’s “AI Lighting Bot,” which lets you create effects by describing them either in text or with your voice. You will be able to pick them up in packs of one ($149.99), two ($259.99), or three ($399.99).

Govee is also releasing a follow-up to our last year’s pick for cheap smart holiday string lights. The company says its Christmas String Lights 2 use RGBW beads and come with a new “Smart Mapping” feature for setting up effects. They will start at $99.99 for a 20-meter string going up to $399.99 for 100 meters and will be released September 25th.

Govee is also releasing new icicle-style lights in 10-meter ($139.99) and 20-meter ($249.99) versions. These are a new style for the company and will be available on September 29th.

Govee Strip Lights

Image: Govee
Govee’s new Strip Light 2 Pro gets a new chip to drive its colors.

Govee is also releasing two new strip lights, following the company’s M1 LED strip light that The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy found to be bright, colorful, and broadly compatible, thanks to its Matter support. The new Strip Light 2 Pro and COB Strip Light Pro also work with the new smart home standard. The Strip Light 2 Pro uses RGBWW LEDs and gets a new chip that offers more color depth. It costs $59.99 for two-meter strips, $99.99 for five meters, and $149.99 for 10 meters.

The COB Strip Light Pro uses a chip-on-board LED design encased in silicon to diffuse the light, which ought to make light transitions along the strip smoother — more gradient, less obviously individual diodes. The COB Strip Light Pro will be $99.99 for three meters and $149.99 for a five-meter version. Both strip lights are out on September 10th.

Govee’s other intros

Image: Govee
The Star Light Projector (Aurora) makes your walls quite spacey.

Okay, so it’s not all string-shaped. Govee also announced its Star Light Projector (Aurora) and AI Sync Box 2. The $79.99 Aurora beams 16-million-color “customizable aurora effects” onto surfaces up to 650 square inches and features a built-in Bluetooth speaker that’s also got 18 white noise sounds.

And finally, on October 14th, Govee will release the AI Sync Box Kit 2. This one is the latest ambient TV backlighting gadget that the company has been playing around with for a few years. (See our Govee Immersion review from 2021.) Announced at CES this year, the new Sync Box uses HDMI 2.1 passthrough to produce AI-generated effects for things like video games. It can pass up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K at 120Hz — a step up from the 4K-limited HDMI 2.0 of the previous AI Sync Box Kit.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The partnership announced by Samsung, Qualcomm, and Google last year is developing a pair of mixed reality smart glasses that link to the wearer’s smartphone, according to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon. “It’s going to be a new product,” Amon told CNBC in a recent interview.
“What I really expect to come out of this partnership, I want everyone that has a phone to go buy companion glasses to go along with it,” said Amon. “I think we need to get to the point that the glasses are going to be no different than wearing regular glasses or sunglasses. And then with that, we can get scale.”

Information about the project has been extremely slim since the XR partnership was announced back in February 2023. While the companies never specified what type of device they were working on, most rumors suggested it would be a Samsung mixed reality headset pitched as an affordable competitor to Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro. Google has also teased a pair of prototype AR glasses running its upcoming Project Astra multimodal AI assistant at the Google I/O event in May.
Amon tells CNBC he’s “incredibly pleased” with the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses released last year, which are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip, and said that generative AI was the “ingredient that was missing” for expansion in the mixed reality market. “AI is going to run on the device. It’s going to run on the cloud,” said Amon. “It’s going to run some in the glass, some in the phone, but at the end of the day, there’s going to be whole new experiences.”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The partnership announced by Samsung, Qualcomm, and Google last year is developing a pair of mixed reality smart glasses that link to the wearer’s smartphone, according to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon. “It’s going to be a new product,” Amon told CNBC in a recent interview.

“What I really expect to come out of this partnership, I want everyone that has a phone to go buy companion glasses to go along with it,” said Amon. “I think we need to get to the point that the glasses are going to be no different than wearing regular glasses or sunglasses. And then with that, we can get scale.”

Information about the project has been extremely slim since the XR partnership was announced back in February 2023. While the companies never specified what type of device they were working on, most rumors suggested it would be a Samsung mixed reality headset pitched as an affordable competitor to Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro. Google has also teased a pair of prototype AR glasses running its upcoming Project Astra multimodal AI assistant at the Google I/O event in May.

Amon tells CNBC he’s “incredibly pleased” with the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses released last year, which are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip, and said that generative AI was the “ingredient that was missing” for expansion in the mixed reality market. “AI is going to run on the device. It’s going to run on the cloud,” said Amon. “It’s going to run some in the glass, some in the phone, but at the end of the day, there’s going to be whole new experiences.”

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Roborock’s Q-Revo Curv is a complete redesign of the company’s robot vacuum and dock. | Image: Roborock

With the ability to lift itself up to get over room transitions as high as 40mm, fluffy rugs, and other possible obstacles, Roborock’s new Qrevo Curve could be a sign that the stair-climbing robot vacuum is almost here.
To be clear, Roborock hasn’t said this, but based on how fast this company — and others — are innovating in this space, it feels like we’re really not that far away. SharkNinja also announced a new robot vaccum with lifting capabilities this week, and the other companies are likely not far behind.
Whether we need stair-climbing robovacs is a question I’m not sure I have the answer to yet.

Image: Roborock
the Qrevo Curv has a sleeker, curvier dock that can auto=empty the bin and clean and refill the mop.

Furturecasting aside, the Qrevo Curv is a significant change for the company. The robot features a completely redesigned multifunction dock that’s shapelier and smaller than its other models, a new dual anti-tangle brush system that splits the brush in half, allowing hair to roll off it, and a whopping 18,500 pa suction power.
Its signature self-raising feature — called AdaptLift Chassis — automatically lifts the robot’s front wheel and independently adjusts its main wheels to raise the robot 10mm, enabling it to go over standard thresholds up to 30mm and double-layer thresholds up to 40mm.
As well as helping the robot get around your house more easily and avoid getting stuck, the new mobility means the Curv can now clean mid-to-long pile carpets.
The redesigned brush system comprises two shorter brushes with spiral blades and bristles that should push the hair off the role and into the vacuum and a curved FlexiArm Arc side brush that stops hair from getting tangled in it.
The Qrevo Curv features Roborock’s reactive AI obstacle avoidance tech, which uses a built-in camera to avoid common household clutter. It’s launching this month for €1499.99 (US pricing is still TBD) alongside the Qrevo Edge, which sports the same features but a more traditional-looking base station in black.

Image: Roborock
The Qrevo Slim is just 3.3 inches tall.

Roborock is also launching a super slim robovac that it says is designed to get under low furniture better. The LiDAR tower on the new Qrevo Slim has been removed from the top, and the vacuum is just 3.3 inches high. Its new navigation system uses dual-light 3D time of flight technology, deploying lasers and an RGB camera for navigation and obstacle recognition. It works with a multifunction dock, has 11,000 pa suction power, and is launching this month for $1,399.

Roborock’s Q-Revo Curv is a complete redesign of the company’s robot vacuum and dock. | Image: Roborock

With the ability to lift itself up to get over room transitions as high as 40mm, fluffy rugs, and other possible obstacles, Roborock’s new Qrevo Curve could be a sign that the stair-climbing robot vacuum is almost here.

To be clear, Roborock hasn’t said this, but based on how fast this company — and others — are innovating in this space, it feels like we’re really not that far away. SharkNinja also announced a new robot vaccum with lifting capabilities this week, and the other companies are likely not far behind.

Whether we need stair-climbing robovacs is a question I’m not sure I have the answer to yet.

Image: Roborock
the Qrevo Curv has a sleeker, curvier dock that can auto=empty the bin and clean and refill the mop.

Furturecasting aside, the Qrevo Curv is a significant change for the company. The robot features a completely redesigned multifunction dock that’s shapelier and smaller than its other models, a new dual anti-tangle brush system that splits the brush in half, allowing hair to roll off it, and a whopping 18,500 pa suction power.

Its signature self-raising feature — called AdaptLift Chassis — automatically lifts the robot’s front wheel and independently adjusts its main wheels to raise the robot 10mm, enabling it to go over standard thresholds up to 30mm and double-layer thresholds up to 40mm.

As well as helping the robot get around your house more easily and avoid getting stuck, the new mobility means the Curv can now clean mid-to-long pile carpets.

The redesigned brush system comprises two shorter brushes with spiral blades and bristles that should push the hair off the role and into the vacuum and a curved FlexiArm Arc side brush that stops hair from getting tangled in it.

The Qrevo Curv features Roborock’s reactive AI obstacle avoidance tech, which uses a built-in camera to avoid common household clutter. It’s launching this month for €1499.99 (US pricing is still TBD) alongside the Qrevo Edge, which sports the same features but a more traditional-looking base station in black.

Image: Roborock
The Qrevo Slim is just 3.3 inches tall.

Roborock is also launching a super slim robovac that it says is designed to get under low furniture better. The LiDAR tower on the new Qrevo Slim has been removed from the top, and the vacuum is just 3.3 inches high. Its new navigation system uses dual-light 3D time of flight technology, deploying lasers and an RGB camera for navigation and obstacle recognition. It works with a multifunction dock, has 11,000 pa suction power, and is launching this month for $1,399.

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Neo can take off and land in the palm of your hand. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Priced for mass adoption, you still get a surprisingly capable 4K 30FPS drone that can launch and land in the palm of your hand. The HoverAir X1 may have popularized easy to use selfie-drones, but it’s DJI’s new $199 Neo we’ve been testing that looks set to dominate sales. It’s launching globally today and does almost everything the $350 X1 can do and so much more.
Like the X1, DJI’s new Neo is a drone you primarily buy to record yourself doing things for social media. It flies itself, no controller necessary — you simply push a button on the drone to cycle through a list of predefined flights like follow, hover in place, orbit overhead, and zoom in and out. It launches in seconds, begins recording, then returns to land in the palm of your hand without requiring previous flying experience.
The Neo can and will crash if you fly it near obstacles, but like the X1, its flexible frame can survive a beating.

GIF: Thomas Ricker / The Verge
DJI’s Neo does a full 360 and keeps flying after hitting some tree branches. It then completed the predefined flight pattern by returning exactly to its starting point. Not pictured: the times it crashed and fell to the ground.

Unlike the X1, the Neo has return to home (RTH) capabilities, and if you add a controller it can fly much farther away given its dual antennas (one transmitter, two receivers) which offer a maximum video transmission distance of 10km (6 miles). It can be paired with DJI’s $129 RC-N3 Remote Controller to capture sweeping panorama shots with confidence that it’ll return when the battery is low. It can also pair with DJI’s $499 Goggles 3 and the company’s latest motion controller or FPV controller to perform acrobatic stunts in an immersive first-person view. Just don’t expect the Neo to compete with DJI’s more powerful and capable drones that feature obstacle avoidance, better stabilization, and improved optics.

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My colleague Sean Hollister and I have been testing the Neo in a variety of scenarios over the last few weeks. While the folding X1 remains more pocketable, seems to keep a lock on its subject better, and is generally less buggy and easier to use, the Neo has proven to be a very capable challenger as you’d expect from the world’s leading maker of drones. It’s also easy to forgive Neo’s faults given its price, but we’ll issue a final verdict when we publish a review in the coming weeks.

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

The Neo still fits easily into running shorts.

One major shortcoming of the Neo for use as a selfie-drone is its lack of a portrait video mode. When asked why the feature was omitted, DJI’s European spokesperson Matt Bailey said that the company “will consider user feedback on this.” Weird.
DJI’s Neo does, however, shoot in 4K @ 30fps which is something the X1 can’t do (but newer, even more expensive HoverAir drones can). Its half-inch sensor shoots video in a 16:9 aspect ratio with the option to record at 60fps in 1080p mode. It can also capture 12-megapixel stills in 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios, and features the bare minimum of single-axis mechanical gimbal stabilization alongside some software stabilization tricks. DJI says it’ll also shoot video in 4:3 but that option wasn’t available in the firmware we tested.
Neo has 20GB of onboard storage and — like the X1 — lacks any expansion option, but that doesn’t seem to present any issues as the 4K videos usually only last between 10 and 30 seconds. DJI’s battery lasts longer at up to 18 minutes, but that also helps to make it slightly heavier than the X1. Still, at 135g it’s well below the all important 250g threshold making it exempt from the most onerous of drone licensing requirements.

The Neo is also sold in a very attractive $289 Combo bundle that includes three batteries and a USB-C charging hub. The two-way charging hub will charge all three batteries simultaneously in about an hour when used with a 45W charger. Neo has a built-in USB-C port that also lets you charge its removable battery in about 50 minutes from a 15W charger, though we’ve seen this stop working a few times in our pre-release firmware.
Neo does not offer any gesture controls, but it can be controlled with voice commands after saying “Hey! Fly!” It can also be controlled from the DJI Fly app on a phone over a direct Wi-Fi connection. And like the HoverAir X1, Neo can record audio from your phone’s built-in mic which DJI will automatically overlay onto your recorded video without any swarming-bee propeller sounds. Neo can also record audio through DJI’s Mic 2 when paired over Bluetooth. 4K video files, ranging from 80MB to 200MB, transfer quickly to phones over direct Wi-Fi connection or to laptops over USB-C cable.
DJI’s Neo looks like a direct response to the HoverAir X1 that’s overtaken social media over the last year — at least according to my own recommendation algorithms. Let’s see if Zero Zero Robotics lowers its HoverAir prices in response. Regardless, at $199 in the US, the Neo stands a very good chance at turning selfie-drones into a mainstream gadget — for better or worse.
In Europe, DJI’s Neo is priced at a tax-inclusive £169 / €199. There’s also a £299 / €349 Neo Fly More Combo that bundles the Neo drone together with DJI’s RC-N3 Remote Controller, three batteries and charging hub, and spare parts.
DJI is not bundling any controllers in the US, and the Neo is unfortunately not compatible with DJI’s older sets of goggles or motion controllers for FPV flight, only the latest ones. For FPV flight, that means DJI’s Avata Explorer Combo is currently a better deal; in Sean’s early tests, it also offers a more stable first-person flying experience than the Neo.

Neo can take off and land in the palm of your hand. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Priced for mass adoption, you still get a surprisingly capable 4K 30FPS drone that can launch and land in the palm of your hand.

The HoverAir X1 may have popularized easy to use selfie-drones, but it’s DJI’s new $199 Neo we’ve been testing that looks set to dominate sales. It’s launching globally today and does almost everything the $350 X1 can do and so much more.

Like the X1, DJI’s new Neo is a drone you primarily buy to record yourself doing things for social media. It flies itself, no controller necessary — you simply push a button on the drone to cycle through a list of predefined flights like follow, hover in place, orbit overhead, and zoom in and out. It launches in seconds, begins recording, then returns to land in the palm of your hand without requiring previous flying experience.

The Neo can and will crash if you fly it near obstacles, but like the X1, its flexible frame can survive a beating.

GIF: Thomas Ricker / The Verge
DJI’s Neo does a full 360 and keeps flying after hitting some tree branches. It then completed the predefined flight pattern by returning exactly to its starting point. Not pictured: the times it crashed and fell to the ground.

Unlike the X1, the Neo has return to home (RTH) capabilities, and if you add a controller it can fly much farther away given its dual antennas (one transmitter, two receivers) which offer a maximum video transmission distance of 10km (6 miles). It can be paired with DJI’s $129 RC-N3 Remote Controller to capture sweeping panorama shots with confidence that it’ll return when the battery is low. It can also pair with DJI’s $499 Goggles 3 and the company’s latest motion controller or FPV controller to perform acrobatic stunts in an immersive first-person view. Just don’t expect the Neo to compete with DJI’s more powerful and capable drones that feature obstacle avoidance, better stabilization, and improved optics.

My colleague Sean Hollister and I have been testing the Neo in a variety of scenarios over the last few weeks. While the folding X1 remains more pocketable, seems to keep a lock on its subject better, and is generally less buggy and easier to use, the Neo has proven to be a very capable challenger as you’d expect from the world’s leading maker of drones. It’s also easy to forgive Neo’s faults given its price, but we’ll issue a final verdict when we publish a review in the coming weeks.

One major shortcoming of the Neo for use as a selfie-drone is its lack of a portrait video mode. When asked why the feature was omitted, DJI’s European spokesperson Matt Bailey said that the company “will consider user feedback on this.” Weird.

DJI’s Neo does, however, shoot in 4K @ 30fps which is something the X1 can’t do (but newer, even more expensive HoverAir drones can). Its half-inch sensor shoots video in a 16:9 aspect ratio with the option to record at 60fps in 1080p mode. It can also capture 12-megapixel stills in 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios, and features the bare minimum of single-axis mechanical gimbal stabilization alongside some software stabilization tricks. DJI says it’ll also shoot video in 4:3 but that option wasn’t available in the firmware we tested.

Neo has 20GB of onboard storage and — like the X1 — lacks any expansion option, but that doesn’t seem to present any issues as the 4K videos usually only last between 10 and 30 seconds. DJI’s battery lasts longer at up to 18 minutes, but that also helps to make it slightly heavier than the X1. Still, at 135g it’s well below the all important 250g threshold making it exempt from the most onerous of drone licensing requirements.

The Neo is also sold in a very attractive $289 Combo bundle that includes three batteries and a USB-C charging hub. The two-way charging hub will charge all three batteries simultaneously in about an hour when used with a 45W charger. Neo has a built-in USB-C port that also lets you charge its removable battery in about 50 minutes from a 15W charger, though we’ve seen this stop working a few times in our pre-release firmware.

Neo does not offer any gesture controls, but it can be controlled with voice commands after saying “Hey! Fly!” It can also be controlled from the DJI Fly app on a phone over a direct Wi-Fi connection. And like the HoverAir X1, Neo can record audio from your phone’s built-in mic which DJI will automatically overlay onto your recorded video without any swarming-bee propeller sounds. Neo can also record audio through DJI’s Mic 2 when paired over Bluetooth. 4K video files, ranging from 80MB to 200MB, transfer quickly to phones over direct Wi-Fi connection or to laptops over USB-C cable.

DJI’s Neo looks like a direct response to the HoverAir X1 that’s overtaken social media over the last year — at least according to my own recommendation algorithms. Let’s see if Zero Zero Robotics lowers its HoverAir prices in response. Regardless, at $199 in the US, the Neo stands a very good chance at turning selfie-drones into a mainstream gadget — for better or worse.

In Europe, DJI’s Neo is priced at a tax-inclusive £169 / €199. There’s also a £299 / €349 Neo Fly More Combo that bundles the Neo drone together with DJI’s RC-N3 Remote Controller, three batteries and charging hub, and spare parts.

DJI is not bundling any controllers in the US, and the Neo is unfortunately not compatible with DJI’s older sets of goggles or motion controllers for FPV flight, only the latest ones. For FPV flight, that means DJI’s Avata Explorer Combo is currently a better deal; in Sean’s early tests, it also offers a more stable first-person flying experience than the Neo.

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Of course, when you’re plugged into your charger, that’s probably the one time you definitely don’t need to track it. | Image: Twelve South

We all misplace our keys or wallets from time to time, but how many times have you lost your laptop charger? If the answer is even just once, then Twelve South may have the wall charger for you.
The $69.99 PlugBug 50 and $119.99 PlugBug 120 are the first USB-C wall chargers to include Find My support, allowing Apple users to track their charger just like they do an iPhone, iPad, or AirTag. Furthermore, each charger can also beep to help you locate it or alert you if you leave it behind at home or the office.

The chargers themselves are capable of, as their names imply, 50W and 120W of total output. The PlugBug 50 offers two USB-C ports, and the PlugBug 120 has four. The former should have enough power to simultaneously charge a smartphone and a tablet or slow-charge a laptop. The bigger charger’s 120W output is more apt for keeping up with bigger, more powerful laptops while they’re being used or juicing up four smaller devices at the same time.

Twelve South is also offering travel versions of both chargers, each for $10 more, which include interchangeable prongs for the US, UK, European Union, Australia, South Korea, and China, all in a travel-ready case.

Your own travel readiness (and likeliness) seems like a bit of a prerequisite for these chargers to make much sense because if your bigger wall plugs never leave the house, it’s doubtful you need to track their location. But if you’re a jet-setter or everyday commuter, one of the PlugBugs could present a nifty way to keep track of your belongings on your way to the office since it’s going to act as your bag’s location tracker until you reach your destination and take it out to charge something.
I can’t say one of these chargers seemed that alluring to me until I thought about that exact use case (for the very rare times I go to the office), but let’s not forget that slipping an AirTag into a hidden pocket of your bag may be just as reliable, and one of those costs just $25 or so.

Of course, when you’re plugged into your charger, that’s probably the one time you definitely don’t need to track it. | Image: Twelve South

We all misplace our keys or wallets from time to time, but how many times have you lost your laptop charger? If the answer is even just once, then Twelve South may have the wall charger for you.

The $69.99 PlugBug 50 and $119.99 PlugBug 120 are the first USB-C wall chargers to include Find My support, allowing Apple users to track their charger just like they do an iPhone, iPad, or AirTag. Furthermore, each charger can also beep to help you locate it or alert you if you leave it behind at home or the office.

The chargers themselves are capable of, as their names imply, 50W and 120W of total output. The PlugBug 50 offers two USB-C ports, and the PlugBug 120 has four. The former should have enough power to simultaneously charge a smartphone and a tablet or slow-charge a laptop. The bigger charger’s 120W output is more apt for keeping up with bigger, more powerful laptops while they’re being used or juicing up four smaller devices at the same time.

Twelve South is also offering travel versions of both chargers, each for $10 more, which include interchangeable prongs for the US, UK, European Union, Australia, South Korea, and China, all in a travel-ready case.

Your own travel readiness (and likeliness) seems like a bit of a prerequisite for these chargers to make much sense because if your bigger wall plugs never leave the house, it’s doubtful you need to track their location. But if you’re a jet-setter or everyday commuter, one of the PlugBugs could present a nifty way to keep track of your belongings on your way to the office since it’s going to act as your bag’s location tracker until you reach your destination and take it out to charge something.

I can’t say one of these chargers seemed that alluring to me until I thought about that exact use case (for the very rare times I go to the office), but let’s not forget that slipping an AirTag into a hidden pocket of your bag may be just as reliable, and one of those costs just $25 or so.

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I want this to be me. | Image: TCL

TCL is launching two new midrange Nxtpaper phones with matte displays designed to be easy on your eyes. The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G and 50 Nxtpaper 5G follow a couple of budget models launched earlier this year with one important feature update: a button that puts the display into — and I quote — “Max Ink Mode.” Hell yes, gimme that quasi-E Ink mode to the max. They’re launching in Europe first, and I have my fingers crossed that they’ll come to the US later, too.
The “Nxtpaper key” is a two-stage slider that puts the display into a reader-friendly monochrome mode mimicking e-ink. Flipping Max Ink Mode on also silences notifications and renders app icons in a wireframe style as if you were using an E Ink display, which is friggin’ adorable. This mode also extends battery life, and TCL claims you can get up to seven days’ worth of reading out of it — almost like carrying around a regular phone that you can turn into a Boox Palma with the flip of a switch.

Image: TCL
Honestly, the blue looks pretty rad.

Outside of Max Ink Mode, both phones offer a big 6.8-inch 1080p screen with up to 120Hz refresh rate. They both include a 108-megapixel main rear camera and a generous 5,010mAh battery. The Pro model includes an upgraded 32-megapixel selfie camera and 512GB of storage, while the non-Pro version features an 8-megapixel selfie camera and 256GB of storage. The 50 Pro is also offered with a couple of optional accessories: a flip case and a stylus. Outside of those few differences, the two devices seem to be basically the same.
The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper will be available in Europe and Latin American markets for €299 with the optional accessories. The TCL 50 Nxtpaper costs €229 and will be available in Europe.

I want this to be me. | Image: TCL

TCL is launching two new midrange Nxtpaper phones with matte displays designed to be easy on your eyes. The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G and 50 Nxtpaper 5G follow a couple of budget models launched earlier this year with one important feature update: a button that puts the display into — and I quote — “Max Ink Mode.” Hell yes, gimme that quasi-E Ink mode to the max. They’re launching in Europe first, and I have my fingers crossed that they’ll come to the US later, too.

The “Nxtpaper key” is a two-stage slider that puts the display into a reader-friendly monochrome mode mimicking e-ink. Flipping Max Ink Mode on also silences notifications and renders app icons in a wireframe style as if you were using an E Ink display, which is friggin’ adorable. This mode also extends battery life, and TCL claims you can get up to seven days’ worth of reading out of it — almost like carrying around a regular phone that you can turn into a Boox Palma with the flip of a switch.

Image: TCL
Honestly, the blue looks pretty rad.

Outside of Max Ink Mode, both phones offer a big 6.8-inch 1080p screen with up to 120Hz refresh rate. They both include a 108-megapixel main rear camera and a generous 5,010mAh battery. The Pro model includes an upgraded 32-megapixel selfie camera and 512GB of storage, while the non-Pro version features an 8-megapixel selfie camera and 256GB of storage. The 50 Pro is also offered with a couple of optional accessories: a flip case and a stylus. Outside of those few differences, the two devices seem to be basically the same.

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper will be available in Europe and Latin American markets for €299 with the optional accessories. The TCL 50 Nxtpaper costs €229 and will be available in Europe.

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The Magic V3 is barely thicker than a standard slab phone. | Image: Honor

Honor is releasing its Magic V3 foldable in Europe following its debut in China earlier this summer. It’s not hard to spot the V3’s headline feature, which is its incredibly slim profile. It’s all the more striking in a category stacked with thick, bulky devices, but like so many other interesting foldable phones, it won’t be sold in the US.
When folded, the Magic V3 measures 9.2mm thick. That’s not a whole lot more than a traditional slab phone like the Galaxy S24 Ultra (8.6mm) or an iPhone 15 Pro (8.3mm). It’s a lot thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 6, which is 12.1mm when it’s folded, and it just beats the 10.5mm Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Impressive.
The Magic V3 offers a sizable 6.43-inch outer screen and 7.92-inch inner screen, a massive 5,150mAh battery capacity, and fast charging up to 66W wired and 50W wireless. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto, and a 40-megapixel ultrawide. It comes with all the stuff you’d want in a high-end Android phone, foldable or otherwise.

The V3 won’t make it to the US, but our foldable options are getting more interesting at least. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold comes in a dramatically improved shape compared to its predecessors, and OnePlus even launched its very good Open foldable in a stylish red option. Who knows? Maybe Samsung will start to feel the pressure and innovate the format it seems to have settled into. We’ve gotta dream big, people.

The Magic V3 is barely thicker than a standard slab phone. | Image: Honor

Honor is releasing its Magic V3 foldable in Europe following its debut in China earlier this summer. It’s not hard to spot the V3’s headline feature, which is its incredibly slim profile. It’s all the more striking in a category stacked with thick, bulky devices, but like so many other interesting foldable phones, it won’t be sold in the US.

When folded, the Magic V3 measures 9.2mm thick. That’s not a whole lot more than a traditional slab phone like the Galaxy S24 Ultra (8.6mm) or an iPhone 15 Pro (8.3mm). It’s a lot thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 6, which is 12.1mm when it’s folded, and it just beats the 10.5mm Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Impressive.

The Magic V3 offers a sizable 6.43-inch outer screen and 7.92-inch inner screen, a massive 5,150mAh battery capacity, and fast charging up to 66W wired and 50W wireless. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto, and a 40-megapixel ultrawide. It comes with all the stuff you’d want in a high-end Android phone, foldable or otherwise.

The V3 won’t make it to the US, but our foldable options are getting more interesting at least. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold comes in a dramatically improved shape compared to its predecessors, and OnePlus even launched its very good Open foldable in a stylish red option. Who knows? Maybe Samsung will start to feel the pressure and innovate the format it seems to have settled into. We’ve gotta dream big, people.

Read More