The FinTech Hub
Source: The Verge According to the CSA listing, the Hub 3’s knob works for things like tweaking temperature on your smart thermostat or adjusting media volume — it says it’s compatible with “Apple TV, Spotify, and other streaming platforms for unified audio management.” The other physical controls include what looks like a home button, back…
Source: The Verge Amazon is discontinuing a feature that allowed users of some of its Echo smart speakers to choose not to send their voice recordings to the cloud. According to an email the company sent to users that was posted on Reddit, it will disable the feature that allowed select Echos to process Alexa…
Source: The Verge When I saw iRobot’s latest robot vacuums announced this week, my first thought was, “These don’t look like Roombas; they look like midrange models from Roborock, Ecovacs, and Dreame.” Of course, as the original robot vacuum manufacturer, iRobot’s products likely inspired the design of most of its competitors. But Roombas have always…
Source: The Verge Since taking out that loan from the Carlyle Group and facing increasing competition from Chinese manufacturers, iRobot has not found a way to become profitable again and says it expects to incur losses for “the foreseeable future.” With no clear path to paying off the debt, the future looks bleak for the…
Source: The Verge After a tumultuous 2024, in which iRobot lost its founder and CEO, Colin Angle, Amazon abandoned its acquisition plans, and the company laid off a large portion of its staff, iRobot is back with a major shake-up of its robotic vacuum line. This week, the company that invented the robot vacuum over…
Source: The Verge The company hasn’t announced pricing or availability, nor does it detail what technology the Artcool AI Air is using. Ideally it’s relying on mmWave radar sensing — similar to what Samsung may rely on to bring ambient sensing to its Smart Things devices — which is sensitive enough to even detect a…
Source: The Verge SwitchBot’s inexpensive, adjustable smart roller shades are finally here. First announced in September, the SwitchBot Roller Shades go on sale today at switch-bot.com, claiming to be the world’s first adjustable smart shades. This means you don’t need to worry about getting your measurements right before ordering, as you can adjust the width…
Source: The Verge Ikea has registered its first Thread device, a new Matter-supporting temperature and humidity sensor called the “Timmerflotte,” with the FCC, reports HomeKit News. A diagram from the filing, which was spotted by CybermodStudios, shows a circular device that’s powered by two AAA batteries and features a QR code and 11-digit number for…
Source: The Verge Amazon is gearing up to launch new hardware to go along with its AI-upgraded Alexa. During an interview with Bloomberg, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company has a “brand new lineup of devices that are coming in the fall that are beautiful.” On Wednesday, Amazon revealed Alexa Plus, a more conversational…
Source: The Verge Oh, Alexa, how you’ve changed. The long-awaited new Alexa, Alexa Plus, is set to bring a more conversational, context-aware, and capable assistant to your smart home. With a new voice (eight of them, in fact) and a new attitude, this is the biggest change to the voice assistant since it debuted in…
