Precisionscalereplicas

Using the ASUS P16 with RTX Spark reminded me of the first time I turned on a MacBook Pro with an M-series chip: Everything about it feels lightning fast. I was up and running in no time, and I felt unstoppable as I downloaded several massive files simultaneously to start my benchmarking process. But of course, for a $7,000 system with 128GB of RAM, it damn well better feel speedy.

I’ll admit, I was a bit surprised by the ASUS P16’s initial benchmark scores: Its PCMark 10 (Applications) figure was 3,000 points lower than the ultra-slim ASUS A16 I tested earlier this year, which was powered by a Snapdragon X2 Elite chip. The RTX Spark system also lagged behind slightly in Geekbench 6’s single-threaded CPU test, which is a sign that Qualcomm’s chips just have more capable CPUs.

But really, the star of the RTX Spark’s design is its GPU, NPU and unified memory, and those all stood out in other tests. The ASUS P16 RTX Spark was 4,700 points higher than the MacBook Pro with M5 Max in Geekbench 6’s GPU benchmark, which tests overall graphics performance. The ProArt P16 also scored 3,895 points in UL Procyon’s AI Computer Vision 2 benchmark, compared to 3,267 points from that same MacBook. Its 1,519 score in Procyon’s AI Image Generation test was also 600 points higher than Apple’s. Those Procyon benchmarks all clearly benefitted from the RTX Spark chip’ s beefy graphics power.

Beyond benchmarks, the ASUS P16 was able to run OpenClaw and the large Qwen3.8 27B model, which alone takes up 42GB of RAM, while still leaving me with a ton of RAM for other tasks. At the same time, I was even able to play Control: Resonant and Cyberpunk 2077 at high quality settings without breaking a sweat. Sure, the fans sounded like they were about to lift the P16 off my desk, but there was never any noticeable slowdown in performance.

NVIDIA has previously said that the RTX Spark’s graphics hardware is about on-par with the RTX 5070 mobile GPU, while also drawing much less power, and that held true in my testing. I was able to play Control Resonant at 70 fps while rendering the game in 1,440p with “ultra” graphics settings, ray-tracing set to medium and 4x frame generation. That’s a game where the overall fidelity matters more than a triple-digit framerate, but I could get the ProArt P16 to 120 fps by lowering the graphics settings.

While I didn’t have much trouble running other games, including Star Wars: Galactic Racer and Gears of War: E-Day, there’s a chance you’ll have trouble with some titles. Since RTX Spark is based on an Arm CPU, it has to rely on Microsoft’s Prism emulator to handle most games. That introduces an immediate performance drop, as well as potential issues. There are native Arm64 builds for popular titles like Fortnite, DOTA 2, Marvel Rivals and the upcoming World of Warcraft: Forever, so there’s a chance that compatibility concerns will melt away in a few years. But if you don’t want to worry about emulation troubles at all, you’re better off with a standard gaming laptop running an Intel or AMD chip.

There are also similar compatibility concerns for older Windows software in general, though I didn’t encounter any weirdness during my testing. The whole Windows on Arm experience received a huge upgrade when Copilot+ systems launched two years ago, and since then, it seems like Microsoft has worked to make its x86 emulation even more seamless.

The ProArt P16’s 16-inch “Lumina Pro” OLED screen was perfect for Control Resonant: It was able to show off dark black levels and extreme contrast in darker environments, but it also seared my eyeballs at times with its peak 1,600-nit luminance. It’s definitely one of the brightest OLED screens I’ve seen on a laptop, and it directly competes with Apple’s Mini LED MacBook Pro displays, which also top out at 1,600 nits. That extreme brightness also made the ProArt P16 perfect for getting work done outside in the sun, as I try to eke out every bit of warmth I can before winter arrives.

I was similarly impressed by every other aspect of the ASUS ProArt P16. Its wide keyboard and luscious key depth made typing a dream, and it also has one of the best haptic touchpads I’ve ever seen on a Windows PC. While it would have been nice to have a quad-speaker setup, which has become increasingly common in large premium laptops, the ProArt P16’s dual speakers still sounded solid. They also offer a bit of spatial audio support, thanks to Dolby Atmos.

The only major downside to the ProArt P16, like most jet-black PCs, is that it’s a horrendous fingerprint magnet. Marks start appearing the instant you touch it, and heaven forbid you eat anything oily while using it. It takes just a few minutes for the P16 to start looking like a gross mess, and it’s a bit annoying to keep clean. It’d be great to see ASUS adopt an anti-fingerprint material in the future. 

The ProArt P16 lasted ten hours and 51 minutes in the PCMark 10 Applications battery benchmark, which is well below the 15-plus-hour range we’ve seen on many premium machines. It was also bested by Dell’s latest XPS 16, which disappointed me when it clocked nearly 12 hours on the PCMark battery test. You’ll at least be able to do more with the P16 on battery: I noticed that benchmarks and game performance didn’t waver at all when I yanked the power cord. According to NVIDIA, the overall efficiency of RTX Spark allows for a high performance curve without burning too much power.

It’s the first state to sue the social media company on these allegations.

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Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha has filed a lawsuit against Meta over the company’s handling of scam advertisements. The suit alleges that the social media business does not do enough to prevent fraudulent ads on its platforms. It further claims that Meta has not taken stronger action against those scams because they generate revenue for the company.

“For a company that engages so many Rhode Islanders and Americans, maintaining high standards for consumer safety should be of the utmost importance,” Neronha said. “As alleged, Meta knowingly exposed vulnerable users to fraud and scams, and made enormous profits in doing so. When companies, big or small, take advantage of Rhode Island consumers, this Office will do everything within our authority to hold them to account.”

In a statement to Reuters, which first reported on the state lawsuit, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the company has removed more than 159 million scam ads from its platforms. “The attorney general refused to engage with us on ways we protect Rhode Islanders from scams, and has instead hired an out-of-state ⁠private law firm to concoct a lawsuit that ignores the full range of actions we take to combat scams every day,” Stone said.

The release from the AG’s office says Rhode Island is the first state to take action over the alleged inaction, although it isn’t the first time the social media company has been sued on this subject. The Consumer Federation of America filed a lawsuit in April and Santa Clara County in California did the same in May.

A 2025 report from Reuters found that scam advertisements across its networks could be providing billions of dollars for Meta, possibly as much as 10 percent of its revenue. The company has engaged in actions to shut down the bad actors behind some of those phony ads and sue the creators of other ones. It also added some user protections for suspicious messages earlier this year.

He expects the agent will generate more revenue per user than the company’s apps.

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It’s only been a few weeks since Meta introduced Muse, but the company’s personal agent is already becoming central to Meta’s plan to start making money off its massive investment in AI. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company is already working on monetizing the agent, and that he expects Muse to eventually generate more revenue per user than Facebook and Instagram.

Even though Muse is only available in the US and Canada, Meta has already seen significant adoption of the agent. Zuckerberg said that more than 10 million people have started using it since its early September rollout. “Now that Muse has clear product market fit, we are entering a new phase and a more operational phase that is focused on scaling it,” Zuckerberg said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday. “We expect to grow Muse to serve billions of people.”

Muse is also significantly more expensive for Meta to operate compared with its other services, and Zuckerberg said the company was already working on its plans to monetize the agent. Meta plans to build “commerce tools” that will allow it to charge businesses fees for transactions facilitated by its agent, the CEO said. He noted that shopping is currently the “most common” use case for the agent, and that people are spending an average of $200 per purchase with Muse. Meta will incorporate its AI subscriptions for people and business owners who use the agent more heavily as well.

Zuckerberg predicted that revenue from Muse could eventually surpass the money it currently makes from its apps, at least by some metrics. “The average revenue per American user for our existing family of apps users is several hundreds of dollars annually, and we expect that Muse will reach an even higher level over time due to the amount of commerce that we already see taking place,” Zuckerberg said.

Muse is also “central” to Meta’s plans to make more money from its AI glasses, according to Zuckerberg. While the company doesn’t currently “make a large profit on the hardware” it sells, adding Muse to the product will help Meta sell more AI subscriptions, Zuckerberg predicted.

Meta previewed Muse on its smart glasses last month during Connect. The company said users will be able to talk to their agent in much the same way they can currently chat with Meta AI, and will be able to check in on tasks or add items to their agent’s to-do list. Meta didn’t specify if Muse on its glasses would require a separate subscription, but Zuckerberg’s statements suggest that at least some Muse features will be paywalled on the glasses. (The company has contemplated upcharging for other glasses features, including its upcoming hearing enhancement ability.) Muse will be available on Meta’s glasses “next month,” Zuckerberg said.

The decision came because of the EU’s new emissions and driver-assistance rules.

Subaru

Subaru will halt the sale of gas-powered vehicles in favor of an all-electric lineup in Europe no later than 2027, the automaker confirmed to Auto Motor und sport. Though not a high-selling brand in the bloc by any means (with just 23,000 sales and a 0.2 percent market share last year), Subaru models like the Outback and WRX have cult followings among off-road and tuning aficionados. The loss of those and other ICE engine models using Subaru’s famous “boxer” engines will thus carry some symbolic weight, at the least. 

The first gasoline model to be discontinued in Europe will Subaru’s emblematic Outback at the end of this year. That will be followed in 2027 by the Impreza, Crosstrek and Forester. Starting in 2028, Subaru will offer just three models in the EU, all electric: the Solterra, E-Outback (Trailseeker in the US) and Uncharted. Those were developed in collaboration with Toyota, based on the latter’s bZ4X, bZ4X Touring and C-HR+ EVs. 

Subaru said the reason for the switch is Europe’s restrictive regulations around CO2 fleet emission limits and required driver assistance and safety systems. The EU recently mandated that cars built between 2025 to 2034 must average 93.6 grams of CO2 per km, a 15 percent reduction from 2021 levels. The bloc also requires all passenger cars and vans to feature Advanced Driver Distraction Warning (ADDW) systems and enhanced emergency braking as of July 7, 2026. 

Subaru revealed on Sunday that it will be developing its own EV tech separately from Toyota for its next-gen electric cars. Its next-gen platform consists of a new battery, electric motor tech and integrated control unit for over-the-air updates. “By developing vehicles in-house and having EV technologies on our own, we can quickly deliver to our customers the peace of mind and driving pleasure that define Subaru, even in this era of change,” said Subaru’s VP of engineering, Takatomo Watamori. 

It feels like Spotify is trying to have its cake and eat it here. It says it’s pulling slop and spam from recommendations at the same time that it’s been adding genAI features to its platform. Spotify allows users to remix and cover songs with AI tools, for instance.

Some “artists” that are widely believed to be fake — such as Sienna Rose and The Velvet Sundown — have more than 100,000 monthly listeners on the platform. Another called Breaking Rust topped a Billboard digital downloads chart last year and currently has around 700,000 monthly listeners. A report in July stated that the top 10 most-listened-to AI artists on Spotify had raked in about $2.4 million, siphoning money away from the human musicians that Spotify claims it’s trying to promote.

The company is aware that a significant proportion of its users do not want to hear genAI garbage, but it only confirmed that it removed “slop and spam” tracks from recommendations, not necessarily the platform as a whole. Deleting all of that crap should be an easy decision if your aim is genuinely to put “human artistry first.”

Nor does Spotify offer users an easy way to block this gunk. This month, Deezer said it would give users an option to filter out genAI audio (I bristle at the idea of calling it music) entirely by the end of the year. Great! Bandcamp largely forbids genAI audio, while Tidal doesn’t pay royalties for tracks that are entirely AI generated. 

It would be nice to see Spotify giving users a way to opt out of hearing AI-generated audio. However, a spokesperson told the BBC earlier this year its “priority is addressing harmful uses [of AI] like spam and impersonation, rather than trying to filter music based on how it was made.” Still, it could at least offer users a toggle to entirely block tracks identified as slop and spam, and a way to filter out those that have disclosed AI use in the credits.

Speaking of which, Spotify says artists are submitting tens of thousands of AI credits per day to clarify what role the technology played in their uploads. It added that users can see these credits in the Now Playing view on mobile and it’s adding more ways for them to “quickly and easily see when an artist has disclosed AI use as part of the song’s creative process.” Thousands of virtual artists now have an AI Persona label too, and tracks from these phonies won’t appear in editor-curated playlists or, by default, in your recommendations (unless you follow them, for instance).

Spotify claims its threshold of 1,000 streams before it pays royalties on a track is helping to stem the flood. “Tracks with indicators showing a high probability of being AI-generated are 10 times more likely to fall below the threshold, making it harder for bad actors to attempt to siphon royalties away from real artists by generating music at scale,” it said.

In addition, the company noted more than 300,000 human artists are now verified on the platform, covering more than 99 percent of those that users actually search for. Spotify is also expanding a tool that lets musicians approve what songs appear on their profile and list them as an artist. It will be available to all artists by the end of the year.

Because you probably don’t want your stereo on at full blast the moment you start your car.

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If you’ve ever started your car only to be blasted by music you didn’t ask for, you already know the headache of Android Auto’s autoplay quirk. The moment your phone connects, by USB or wirelessly (even if you use an adapter), your last playlist, podcast or audiobook picks up where it left off at whatever volume you had set the last time you were in the car. It’s an unwelcome surprise during a morning commute and a real distraction if you prefer a few quiet seconds before pulling out of the driveway. Depending on what music or audiobooks you were listening to, it may also not be content you want the kids to hear when you’re driving them to school.

In the past, fixing this problem was quite difficult and required a ton of workarounds, extra apps and jumping through hoops you really shouldn’t have to. Now, it often just requires flipping a toggle.

How do I stop audio from auto-playing on Android Auto?

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You’ll need to start with Android Auto’s own settings. You’ll need to go to Settings > Connected devices > Android Auto and look under the Startup section. That’s where you’ll find the toggle for the Start music automatically feature. If you have trouble finding it, try searching for Android Auto in your settings. Switching this feature off tells Android Auto not to resume playback the moment it connects to your car. For loads of drivers, this single step solves the problem, and it’s the first fix mentioned on Spotify’s support forums.

If the toggle doesn’t help, the issue may be happening at the Bluetooth level rather than inside Android Auto. Android Auto uses Bluetooth to route phone calls and to create the initial handshake between phone and car. One workaround to test is removing your phone from the car’s Bluetooth memory and reconnecting with USB only, if your setup allows it. In some vehicles, that can reduce unwanted playback triggers, though results vary by car, phone and connection type.

Why does Spotify keep auto-playing in my car?

Google

If you’ve already disabled Start music automatically and Spotify still starts on its own, you’re not imagining things. Spotify users have reported this exact issue across community forums for years, with threads dating back to 2022 that remain active today. But it’s worth noting that sometimes your car may not even be to blame at all. Any Bluetooth device paired with your phone, like headphones and speakers, can affect autoplay. According to Spotify’s support team, the behavior depends on how a given Bluetooth device interacts with Spotify’s API.

That distinction matters because Spotify cannot always prevent a connected device from sending a “play” command when it reconnects, powers on or resumes a media session. Before blaming your phone or reinstalling the app, check whether autoplay happens only with one Bluetooth device and test it with another speaker, headset or vehicle if possible. Keeping Spotify, your phone’s operating system and the device firmware updated may reduce connection glitches, but there is no guaranteed universal fix when the command originates from the Bluetooth accessory.

Since Spotify prioritizes easy connections across thousands of hardware combinations, a universal fix isn’t guaranteed anytime soon. Some drivers find success through Android Auto’s settings, others through Spotify’s app permissions and plenty report that neither option works consistently for their specific car or phone. If nothing pans out, you could just remove Spotify from Android Auto entirely, but that means that you won’t be able to access Spotify from your car’s display.

The bottom line is that you should start with Android Auto’s Start music automatically toggle since it resolves the issue for many drivers. If music still plays uninvited, try the Bluetooth unpairing trick before removing the app from Android Auto entirely. Given how inconsistently Bluetooth behaves across car models, expect some trial and error.

Depending on their colors, most of those flashing lights are a good sign.

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The front of a Netgear router, like many routers, is dotted with a wide array of lights and symbols. Though some of the symbols like the power indicator are straightforward, the lights themselves can be much less clear. They often vary in color; sometimes they’re blinking and other times they’re solid. If you’ve never picked up the manual, deciphering what each of the many lights means doesn’t come naturally.

Understanding what each of the indicators on your Netgear router signify is important for troubleshooting, as well as making sure everything is running as it should. Although some lights are usually more important than others, they all serve a purpose. Whether you have a standard router or one of the company’s mesh Wi-Fi systems, this is how to better understand what your Netgear device is telling you.

The most important lights on your Netgear router

These are the lights on a router that are generally the most important to pay attention to, as they’re indicators of the most impactful stats like power and overall internet connection status.

The power LED

Represented by the typical power symbol, this indicates information about your device’s firmware, as well as its power status. Unsurprisingly, this will be off if your router has no power.

• Solid green or white: The router is on and ready.
• Solid amber: The router is turning on.
• Blinking amber: The router’s firmware is upgrading, or you pressed the reset button.
• Blinking white: The router’s firmware is corrupted.
• Blinking white and amber: The router is in access point mode, which means it’s acting as a connection point for other devices instead of handling its normal router functions. Some features like VPN and remote management will be unavailable.

If your router isn’t working properly, restart it first. In case it’s fully unresponsive, you may need to do a factory reset. 

Internet LED

The icon and light with a small circle orbiting a larger one shows your general connection status:

• Off: The router is not connected to a modem; check the Ethernet cable to make sure it’s fully inserted and not damaged.
• Solid green or white: The internet connection is ready.
• Solid amber: An Ethernet cable connection to the modem has been detected.
• Blinking white: The port is sending and/or receiving traffic.

Wi-Fi LED

Represented by a small dot with two curves on each side, this light shows general Wi-Fi traffic.

• Off: The router’s Wi-Fi radios are off.
• Solid white: The router’s Wi-Fi radios are operating.
• Blinking white: The router is sending and/or receiving Wi-Fi traffic.

Other lights on your Netgear router

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Further lights on your Netgear router are more useful for specific troubleshooting, or if you’re plugging additional devices into the router.

Wi-Fi band LEDS

Every modern router should have lights for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, as these have long been the standard. For a Wi-Fi 6E model or newer, you’ll also see a 6GHz light for that modern band. The lights will differ depending on the bands currently in use, but the lights have the same meanings for each band.

• Off: This particular Wi-Fi radio is off.
• Solid white: The Wi-Fi radio in question is operating.
• Blinking white: The router is sending and/or receiving traffic over the corresponding Wi-Fi radio.

USB LEDs

Your router will have one of these lights for each USB port it includes, represented by the trident USB symbol or the text “USB 3.0.”

• Off: No USB device is connected to the port, or the Safely Remove Hardware button was pressed and you’re clear to remove the attached device.
• Blinking: A USB device is trying to connect.
• Solid green or white: A USB device is connected and ready to use.

Ethernet LEDs

These are labeled by numbers, with each representing an Ethernet port on the router. The color represents the speed of the connection: white or green for 1 Gbps connections, and amber for slower 100 Mbps or 10 Mbps Ethernet.

• Off: Nothing is connected to the port.
• Solid: A powered-on device is connected to the port.
• Blinking: The port is sending and/or receiving traffic.

WPS LED

Represented by what looks like a router with signals coming out of it, this light indicates the success of a WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) connection, which allows you to add devices to your network without entering the network name and password. For the best router security, you should disable this.

• Off: No WPS connection.
• Blinking: A WPS connection is in progress.
• Solid: The WPS connection was successful.

Reading the lights on a Netgear Orbi mesh system

The lights on Netgear’s Orbi Wi-Fi mesh system are minimalist compared to a typical router’s, and represent key statuses slightly differently. There’s a light in the bottom-front of the device, plus one at the back. The light in the front represents the connection status, while the one at the back is tied to the device’s power and firmware.

The front LED lights

• Solid blue light: The connection between the router and satellite is strong.
• Solid amber light: The connection between the router and satellite is OK, but not great.
• Solid magenta light: There’s no backhaul connection or no internet connection.
• No light: The Orbi is not receiving power.

The back LED light

• Solid green light: The router and satellite are powered on.
• Solid amber light: The device is rebooting.
• Pulsing amber light: The device is updating its firmware or resetting to factory settings.
• Pulsing red light: Possible hardware issues or connectivity failure.
• No light: The Orbi is not receiving power.

Understanding the difference between decimal and binary.

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Device storage is extremely valuable these days. The rabid appetite of AI datacenters is inflating drive pricing so badly that companies like Apple and Valve have jacked up the prices of some products by hundreds of dollars. Even if that wasn’t happening, though, the size of apps, media and operating systems is continually growing, filling up the storage we do have. Some PC and console games can top 100GB, especially if they’re live service titles with a lot of downloadable content.

All this is to say that if there’s a gap between the amount of storage you’re promised for an internal or external drive versus what’s actually usable, the disappointment may be palpable now more than ever. Recently, for example, we discovered that a 512GB drive only registered as offering 477GB accessible to Windows. On paper, that 35GB difference might be enough to fit someone’s entire photo library, or maybe a converted 4K HDR movie.

In most instances, the root of these discrepancies boils down to how different companies calculate data, rather than a naked attempt to rip you off. At other times, it may be a matter of a device being unusable without some of that space going to pre-installed software.

The harsh impacts of math

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Frequently, storage makers calculate storage capacity using a base-10 (decimal) system. In that arrangement, a kilobyte is 1,000 bytes, a gigabyte is 1 billion bytes, and so forth. And that probably makes sense to you, given how measurements work in most other areas of life, especially if you live in a country using the metric system for weights and distances. It’s a lot easier to market to the average consumer.

The thing is, software platforms like Windows often gauge capacity in binary terms. That transforms a kilobyte into 1,024 bytes, and a gigabyte into 1,073,741,824 bytes. As figures get larger, the gap between binary and decimal calculations becomes vast. A 1TB drive may show as holding just 931GB in Windows, despite nothing actually being lost. You will see the full 1TB available on a Mac, where decimal reigns supreme.

This is obviously problematic if you’re expecting storage marketed in binary terms versus the way hardware makers label it. To our knowledge, Microsoft doesn’t have any intention of switching Windows from binary to decimal, and Apple isn’t planning to revert the Mac, iPad, iPhone or other products back to binary. You can expect this inconsistency to exist in the market for a while longer.

There have been attempts to make the situation clearer by using binary-specific terms such as “kibibyte” (KiB) and “gibibyte” (GiB). As you’ve probably noticed, though, these haven’t caught on, even within binary-based platforms. If you check the file size of something in Windows 11, you’ll see KB or GB instead. 

The operating system complication

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A complaint you’ll run into occasionally is that the new phone, tablet, laptop or console they bought doesn’t have as much usable space as they expected. This can potentially be linked to the binary-decimal split we just talked about, but the bigger culprit tends to be the device OS, which has to be pre-installed for anything to work. iOS 27 consumes over 22GB (decimal) on a 128GB iPhone 16 Pro, and on one of our gaming laptops, Windows 11 occupies over 81GB (binary). It’s no wonder that 64GB devices are effectively extinct, and that even 128GB is becoming impractical.

As if things weren’t complicated enough, operating systems tend to grow every year as new features are added. And to run smoothly, most devices need additional cache and swap space for temporary files. This space isn’t necessarily marked off-limits. If it isn’t, though, you can accidentally harm performance by downloading too many files or installing too many apps. Vanishing swap space bogs down performance, and can lead to apps crashing or freezing.

To cope with this unfortunate scenario, all you can really do is be conservative with your usage and shopping habits. If you avoid waste and overestimate the amount of storage you need, even a few dozen gigabytes can be an acceptable sacrifice. Don’t panic if you notice this when planning your next electronics haul. 

Your smart devices don’t have to stop working when your Wi-Fi does.

Nanoleaf

With Apple finally developing new smart home products, now’s a great time to remind everyone that though the technology can improve your home’s look and convenience, there are also a few hazards involved. If you’re overly ambitious with your routines, for example, smart bulbs might switch off when people need them. Once, while we installed a smart thermostat, the heat ran dangerously out of control until we fixed an obscure flaw.

For many of you, the biggest issue is going to be offline resilience. When internet access goes down, some smart home accessories can go “dumb,” either maintaining their last state or failing to work at all. Usually, this is just an inconvenience. If you’re counting on an accessory for health or security, however, this can become a legitimate crisis.

Thankfully, there are ways of building a smart home around offline automation without investing in the custom systems you find in mansions. It’s just a matter of anchoring your gear around the right peripherals and protocols. And if you caught the pun just now, you’re one step ahead.

Let the hubs do the talking

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The reason so many accessories turn dumb is that they connect directly to Wi-Fi to fetch instructions from a cloud server. Wi-Fi accessories are often the easiest to set up — if the internet goes down, however, or if your Wi-Fi router encounters hiccups, they may have no way of storing and triggering automations on their own. They may not even switch on or off at scheduled times, which you’d think would be dead simple.

Whenever possible, then, it’s best to turn to accessories that route everything through a local hub. These hubs still connect to the internet, but they can store and process many automations locally as long as everything still has power. The only major exceptions are automations that depend on live data, like current weather conditions, or involve sharing data remotely. If you’re going to install a smart security system and internet outages are a regular issue, cellular backup is a must.

These hubs can take many forms. If you’re using Apple Home, for example, HomePods and Apple TVs can act as home hubs, enabling both remote access and local automations. Some security cameras can record to local hub storage, even if they have to go online to trigger alerts or perform advanced functions. Matter-enabled smart speakers and displays are capable of executing offline commands, though in practice, companies like Amazon and Google don’t really exploit this. We discovered this the hard way.

The most bulletproof hubs tend to be those that link local hardware not through Wi-Fi, but through Thread, Zigbee or Z-Wave radios. All three are low-power, low-bandwidth mesh standards. A hub can often connect many compatible accessories simultaneously, and the mesh aspect means that accessories farther away from the hub won’t drop off. Thread is preferable, since some Wi-Fi accessories can act as Thread “border routers,” but we’ve had great experiences with Zigbee-based hubs like the Philips Hue Bridge. The only real problem with these technologies is that their low bandwidth limits them to things like lights, locks and sensors.

What about the power problem?

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The ideal setup would involve using an entirely hub-based smart home ecosystem paired with whole-home power backup. That’s not realistic for most people, unfortunately. Some accessories don’t exist in a hub-compatible form, and more importantly, whole-home battery systems cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Assuming that’s in your budget, it might still not be worth the outlay unless your job or safety is at stake. You can deal with your soundbar or light panels being down for 30 minutes.

A workable compromise involves hunting for accessories with their own redundancy, whether that means batteries, backup controls or both. The Philips Hue Go, for example, can connect to a Hue Bridge, but includes a battery to operate as a portable lamp as well. It can keep shining for hours when it loses AC power, and it cycles through some basic effects using an onboard button or app-based Bluetooth commands. Smart thermostats will always keep operating on their last schedule as long as your HVAC system is powered.

You won’t be able to secure redundancy for every smart home accessory. But if you think ahead when shopping, at least some of them should keep running 24/7. Don’t just pick the cheapest or slickest options at hand.

Tesla dominated the headlines on Thursday thanks to a very cool stunt. In announcing the redesigned Roadster at its October 15 event, the electric car company put some jet fuel in the mix. After driving up a C-shaped ramp on a suction rig until it was upside-down, the Roadster floated to the ground on rocket boosters. We also learned that the new sports car is targeting a 2028 production window and that it will cost $250,000 to reserve the “Thrust” trim level with cold-gas thrusters. “We enter production in 2028,” Musk said during the event. “Actually, for real.”

If you’re feeling a bit of deja vu, don’t worry  — you’re firmly within your faculties. This is not the first time Tesla has announced the second-generation Roadster, and the company hasn’t exactly drawn attention to that fact with this re-announced version. Still, the question on many minds is whether this is another paper launch for Tesla’s embattled second-gen sports car.

The first Roadster was a milestone for Tesla in its early days. Released in 2008 and produced in very limited numbers, the car was ideated by one of Tesla’s original founders, Martin Eberhard, before current CEO Elon Musk had bought Eberhard and his partner, Marc Tarpenning, out of the company. It was the idea of the Roadster which initially drew Musk to the fledgling startup in 2004 and prompted his initial investment in the company. He would go on to oversee the production of that sports car. Crammed inside the chassis of a Lotus Elise, it was truly impressive at the time to see a battery-powered vehicle able to reach 244 miles on a charge.

The redesigned Roadster was first unveiled in November 2017, promising to be the apex of Tesla’s innovations in electric vehicle manufacturing. Musk called it “a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars.” Targeted for a 2020 release, it was shown off alongside the Tesla Semi, a Class 8 electric semitruck which also stalled in production. In Feburary 2018, Musk promised a “SpaceX” package that would “include ~10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around the car” and would “dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking and cornering.”

Then the delays began. With Tesla still accepting deposits starting at $50,000 and extending up to $250,000, the initial 2020 production window came and went. In a July 2020 earnings call for Tesla, Musk said production would begin within the following year to 18 months. With the globe engulfed in a public health crisis, the delay wasn’t the most shocking of developments. Ironically, Musk noted in an interview with Joe Rogan that same year that he wanted to build the Cybertruck first  — a mission accomplished after years of that vehicle’s own delays.

But a year and a half after the initial delay, there was no Roadster in sight. Musk delayed the car to 2022 in early 2021, but by the end of the year, that projection had slipped to 2023. The CEO announced further delays in 2023 and 2024.

And those years have been bizarre for Musk and Tesla, to say the least. The CEO has undergone a public transformation from public environmentalist to far-right political kingmaker, a period which culminated in a slash-and-burn of the Federal government as he headed up president Donald Trump’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency. By July 2025, The Lancet had published a study projecting the cuts could lead to more than 14 million deaths by 2030. Musk has disputed those numbers, but the reputational damage his stint in government caused spilled over to Tesla, leading to widespread global protests against the company. As Musk stepped down from DOGE in May 2025, dogged by allegations of substance abuse and family drama, the Roadster may not have been near the top of the billionaire’s priority list.

By the time Tesla recommitted to releasing the Roadster this past April, many had given up hope that the sports car would ever make it to market. Tesla’s failure to deliver the vehicle had long ago become pop-cultural joke fodder, and even Tesla owners such as YouTuber Marques Brownlee, who had interviewed Musk multiple times on his MKBHD channel, fretted on his Waveform podcast in September 2025, “Tesla has been sitting with my 50 grand for eight years and hasn’t done anything with it.” Another high-profile figure to complain about their Roadster reservations included Musk’s erstwhile business partner and current rival Sam Altman of OpenAI.

It’s worth noting that a launch event without a firm launch date isn’t much of a launch. Even after Tesla’s impressive October event, Musk and company will need to convince potential customers that putting down a deposit for the Roadster is a better investment than burning a pile of money with a Boring Company flamethrower.

The company’s flagship over-ear wireless headphones are light on compromises, but enter a competitive market.

James Trew for Engadget

RATING : 8.9 / 10

Pros

• Superb sound
• Excellent ANC
• Comfortable design
• Solid battery life

Cons

• Pricey
• Finicky multi-point Bluetooth

When Technics announced the EAH-A1000 over-ear Bluetooth headphones, everything seemed fairly ordinary. Another set of premium cans entering an already crowded category. Sure, they have a few standout features on the spec sheet — magnetic fluid drivers and three-device multipoint Bluetooth, for example. At $450, they are directly taking on Sony’s popular WH-1000XM6, and almost enter the same territory as Sennheiser’s audiophile-friendly HDB 630.

It’s a confident move from Technics, to place its flag in the lucrative, but risky, territory between high-end consumer and “affordable” specialist headphones. I’ve had the A1000 on the testing bench (a.k.a. my head) for a couple of weeks and my initial assessment of how “ordinary” they are might have been a little hasty.

What’s new on the Technics EAH-A1000?

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The feature Technics is making the most noise about is the “Magnetic Fluid” technology, but it’s not new to the A1000. The AZ100 true wireless earbuds also use it, but these are the first over-ears from Technics to include it. The idea is that it reduces unwanted vibrations in the driver, in turn reducing distortion.

One other feature that stands out is the three-device multipoint Bluetooth. Seamless connection with your phone and PC can now include one more device, like a gaming console or TV. There is a slight limitation here: If you listen via LDAC (which the A1000 also supports), that will limit you to two devices maximum.

Of course there’s adaptive active noise cancellation (ANC) coupled with a beamforming microphone for clearer phone calls. Other features you’d expect at this price point, such as Dolby Atmos with headtracking, wear detection, EQ/app control, a healthy 45-hour battery life (with ANC on) and lossless playback via USB-C and 3.5mm cables (both provided) are all present and correct. Cosmetically, the A1000 offers smooth lines and a stylish, but understated, design. They could pass for a Sony or Bose model at a glance.

Audio and ANC performance

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Headphone marketing materials are like gourmet menus: There are a lot of decorative adjectives to describe beef. Or, in the case of headphones, 40mm drivers. I can’t put my hand on my heart and say that the magnetic fluid technology Technics mentions is making a difference, but I was immediately impressed when I first put the A1000 on and pressed play on Spotify.

My music tastes skew electronic, so bass really matters. On the A1000, the low frequencies are some of the tightest I’ve heard. That’s the best word I can find for it. The bass is present, I can feel it, but it’s not vibrating in my eardrums at all. It sounds like it’s firmly attached to the song with glue, in a good way. Kick drums in dance music offer a gentle thwack, in turn providing a good sense of space and dynamic range in the mix.

Pop and rock genres do a good job at exposing the mid and high frequencies. BTS’ Dynamite, for example, sounds much more robust and balanced in the A1000 than it does in my car on the school run when I’m trying to animate the kids. I even heard parts of the bassline I barely knew existed. If there’s a minor criticism, it’s at the higher end. Listening to AC/DC or the Arctic Monkeys, the guitars sound authentic, but my ears wanted a teeny-tiny bit more sizzle out of them.

I regularly use the Sennheiser HDB 630 and the Technics A1000 surprised me with a slightly bigger sense of space and soundstage. The tight balance and well-rounded bass make them one of the strongest pairs I’ve tried for a long time.

The stellar sound wasn’t the first thing I noticed when I put them on, the adaptive ANC is also extremely good. I’m a little fussy with noise cancellation; it’s a feature I appreciate but I prefer good audio chops over superior ANC if I have to choose. With the A1000, that’s not really an issue. The noise cancellation is effective for both steady sounds like fans, yet it’s adaptive enough that I can’t hear people talking when my spouse has guests and I’m working. I prefer it to the ANC on the HDB 630 and I’d say it’s good enough to be in the same room with Sony and Bose.

App and controls

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I have a folder on my phone that’s a graveyard of unused headphone apps. Technics Connect hasn’t made it there, yet. As control apps go, it’s easy to navigate and you’ll find extra settings like choosing between LDAC compatible multipoint Bluetooth (remember: max two connections) or even turning it off. There’s the aforementioned EQ section, the option to choose how long before the headphones auto-turn off and a toggle to disable wear detection, among other fine helpful tools.

A note on the multipoint feature: I’ve never really had a good experience with it on any headphones, with my Mac usually connecting via the hands-free profile. That was my experience with the A1000, too. Even switching between my phone and my Windows laptop was unreliable. I can’t confidently blame these headphones, but I didn’t have much luck with two devices, let alone three.

There are no touch controls on the A1000, instead you get two buttons and a clickable volume rocker. Despite everything being on the right earcup, it doesn’t feel cramped. The volume rocker is easy to find, but you click “back” for volume up, which feels counter intuitive to me. Media controls are navigated by multiple clicks on the same rocker. It’s practical and works, but sometimes the button lightly sticks, turning three clicks into two, which is the difference between a skip forward and skip back.

The competition

The $449 pits the A1000 directly against Sony’s WH-1000XM6, and I do think it competes well on sound quality and ANC. The choice will come down to secondary details like design and battery life and app features, with the latter being where Sony really stacks the deck. I’ll come right out and say that I personally prefer the A1000 to the $500 Sennheiser HDB 630. Technics might not quite beat them on sound, but it’s really close. For ANC, comfort and build quality, for me Technics takes the win. Sonos’ Ace Ultra matches the A1000 for price, and Engadget rated them highly, in part for their compatibility with Sonos speakers.

Wrap-up

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For a legacy hi-fi brand, Technics has taken the long road when it comes to consumer headphones. The true wireless AZ100 made a big impression, thanks in part to those Magnetic Fluid drivers, and the A1000 builds on that success with equally impressive sound. Truly, they’re a joy to wear and to listen to. There are also enough extra details, like a beam-forming microphone that destroys background noise with what feels like witchcraft (even if the mic itself is just so-so).

The sticking point for some will be the price. Sennheiser can ask more for the HDB 630 thanks to its long, unbroken record with good consumer headphones. You also get the $60 BTD 700 dongle thrown in. Meanwhile, Sony has built a steady reputation with its 1000X line over the last few years. Technics doesn’t have the same recent pedigree, yet, but the A1000 does a really good job at kicking that off.

Representative Ritchie Torres wants the FTC to establish regulations ensuring you can play the games you’ve purchased.

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Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has announced plans to introduce a bill calling on the Federal Trade Commission to protect people’s ability to own and play the video games they’ve purchased. The Power to the Players Act hasn’t been introduced in Congress yet — but at least in spirit, it sounds like it lines up with the Stop Killing Games campaign, a movement lobbying for protecting game ownership in a landscape dominated by digital software licenses that can be revoked at a moment’s notice.

The announcement for Torres’ bill specifically mentions NBA 2K25, which serves as a good example of what’s at stake. The basketball game launched in 2024 for $70, and is now being removed from digital storefronts on October 30, just two years after it was released. While games getting delisted isn’t uncommon, 2K’s decision to also shut down the servers supporting the game’s online modes in December effectively means players won’t own the same game they paid for by the end of the year.

The Power to the Players Act would direct the FTC to prevent similar situations from happening by making it so players own games rather than license them, and forcing companies to offer an offline mode if a game’s servers are being taken down. In an interview with Kotaku, Torres said enforcing the protections would be a “restoration to the historical norm” that existed before games were primarily sold digitally. He suggested it could also inspire calls for similar protections to be extended to digitally purchased books, movies and music.

Of course, there are several potential obstacles that could get in the way of that happening. Torres’ bill could die in committee, just like a California bill that offered similar protections at the state level did in June. Relying on the FTC to regulate is also far less of a sure thing than it used to be. Following a 2024 Supreme Court decision to overturn Chevron deference, a legal doctrine that directed courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of potentially ambiguous legislation, the FTC and other agencies have far less power. Under this new understanding of the law, the commission’s attempts to regulate the game industry could be blocked in the same way its ban on noncompete clauses was — by one judge deciding it lacks the authority to set rules.

Engadget has asked Torres to share a draft of the bill and comment on the possibility of the FTC being blocked by the courts. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

The lawsuits cover everything from the design of ChatGPT to the company’s recent issues with rogue agents.

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In a coordinated effort, eight states have filed lawsuits against OpenAI alleging the company has violated state-level consumer protection laws and endangered children. As Reuters first reported, Attorneys General from Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho and Montana each filed in their respective state courts, but with the shared goals of changing how OpenAI develops its models and advertises their capabilities, and forcing the company to pay for the harm it’s allegedly caused.

The lawsuits claim OpenAI is misleading customers about the safety of its AI products, not just in their capacity to provide incorrect information or potentially enable users to harm themselves and others, but also because AI agents themselves are capable of breaking the law. For example, both Iowa and Nebraska cite OpenAI’s now multiple instances of rogue agent behavior, including the Hugging Face hack. They also point to instances of ChatGPT allegedly enabling a teen’s death by suicide and the chatbot providing incorrect medical information that led to a user’s overdose, incidents that have also led to separate wrongful death suits against the company. Some states also take issue with OpenAI retaining data from underage users.

Engadget has asked OpenAI to comment on the state lawsuits. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

The desired remedies for OpenAI’s behavior vary from state to state due to the patchwork nature of consumer protection and child protection laws in the US. Outside of financial penalties, the states want OpenAI to clearly disclose the risks of its products, stop practices the states consider deceptive and comply with existing laws. Some states, like Arkansas, are also asking the court to halt “testing of advanced AI models until adequate safeguards are implemented.”

OpenAI has rolled out a series of parental controls and child protection features to try to address some of the most immediate risks posed by its chatbot. It also backed the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that, if made law, could introduce several mandatory design changes to the company’s products. The company’s efforts to address the potential for its AI to break rules and “escape containment” have been harder to pin down, though. OpenAI announced it would slow the development of its frontier models in August to ensure their safety and the company signed on to a voluntary safety pact with other AI companies organized by the White House in September. It’s not clear if either of these changes have actually made the company’s AI development process safer.

It’s basically a pre-order opportunity before the pre-order window opens.

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Apple announced the iPhone Duo last month, but it won’t hit stores until October 23. However, pre-orders for the highly anticipated foldable iPhone begin this week on October 16. And if you really can’t wait, here’s some good news: you can already get a head start on your pre-order on Apple’s website. Not only that, but carriers and retailers are already advertising their special offers for the iPhone Duo — which will probably be helpful since it isn’t exactly cheap. So here’s how to secure your iPhone Duo with as little hassle as possible.

Securing your iPhone Duo for launch day

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If you’re planning to buy the iPhone Duo directly from Apple, the company has launched a tool called Get Ready, which is the best way to speed things up. Starting today (October 12), you can already choose which model you want. Go to the Apple Online Store or use the Apple Store app and look for the iPhone Duo. Choose a color (Star White or Night Sky) and storage capacity (from 256GB to 2TB). Then, choose your carrier, decide whether or not you want to trade in your old phone and maybe add a few accessories to your purchase as well — you’ll probably want to protect your new $2,000 phone with a case. AppleCare+ is also a good deal, and you can sign up for it from the purchase screen.

When all that’s set, Get Ready saves you some pre-order anxiety by letting you set up a payment method and your shipping address now, before the purchase window opens on Friday. As soon as it does, Apple will place your order and ensure that you receive your new iPhone in time for launch day. Waiting until Friday to pre-order your iPhone could end up delaying shipping if you aren’t quick enough, since there’s usually strong demand for new products. Also, rumors suggest that there won’t be many iPhone Duo units available at launch. If you use Apple’s Get Ready, your chances of receiving the iPhone Duo on October 23 increase considerably. 

Where to buy the iPhone Duo

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Once again, you can buy your iPhone Duo directly from Apple — it’s usually the easiest option, especially if you don’t want to buy it tied to a specific plan or carrier. Apple is offering up to $885 in credit when you trade in an eligible iPhone, so giving up your old iPhone might be a good way to make the Duo a little less expensive. The full price starts at $1,999 for the 256GB model and can go as high as $3,199 for the 2TB model.

You can also split payments over up to 24 months, so buying the 256GB model would cost you $83.29 per month. If you sign up for the new Apple Upgrade program, the cost drops to $57.99 per month. Just now that after two years, you’ll have to hand your iPhone back to Apple, pay the remaining balance to keep it or upgrade to a new device and keep paying.

Carriers are also already announcing their deals for the iPhone Duo. AT&T, for example, offers up to $1,200 in eligible trade-ins, and if you order online, you’ll also earn an extra $200 per line on your plan. Best Buy will also have special deals for the iPhone Duo launch, with prices starting at $55.96 per month on an installment plan with AT&T. It’s worth comparing each of these offers side by side to see which one works best for you.

The company is using LLMs for algorithm personalization.

Meta

If you’ve ever scrolled through your Facebook feed and wondered why you’re suddenly flooded with weird AI-generated celeb bait and posts from cast iron pan enthusiasts (just me?), Meta has a new tool that might help. The company is rolling out a new algorithm personalization feature that aims to make it easier for users to explain exactly what they do and don’t want to see in their recommendations.

With the update, you can dive into specific feed posts and Reels to access a new “your algorithm” menu. From there, you can add specific topics to your interests and to your “not interested in” list. There’s also a box where Meta prompts you to describe in your own words what you want to see in your feed.

The update mirrors a similar change that landed on Instagram earlier this year. The update is possible, Meta says, because it now uses large language models in its ranking systems. Instead of simply “inferring what you’re into from what you engage with on Facebook,” the company explains, “LLMs can incorporate the interests, context, and intent behind natural language, unlocking an algorithm you can actually talk to.”

The change has yet to roll out on my app, so I haven’t been able to try it yet. The Instagram version of the feature had some limitations, though. It didn’t allow me to add “posts from people I follow” as one of my interests or request fewer ads. Given Meta’s previous efforts to clean up the amount of spam and engagement bait in the Facebook feed, I am curious whether users will be able to request more holistic changes, like “less AI-generated content” or “no more Reddit copypasta.” At the very least, I am looking forward to finally telling Facebook that I actually have no special interest in cast iron pans.

What good is a phone that can’t keep up with the average person’s day-to-day needs?

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You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on an Android phone, even if it’s brand-new. You can find plenty of great cheap Android phone options for $300 or less, if you know what to look for. And that’s the biggest thing to consider: knowing what features are crucial to have and where you can make concessions. Paying less for a phone that doesn’t have a sleek titanium frame, for example, is totally fine; you probably will (and should) put a case on it, anyway. But getting a phone with insufficient RAM, horrible battery life, poor cameras, a bad processor, or a small screen is where you want to draw the line.

In some cases, what you’re willing to sacrifice is an individual decision. If you’re a casual content creator, for example, the cameras need to be at least above average. But if you’re getting a secondary phone for basic messaging, you may be fine with just decent cameras. Nonetheless, there are some non-negotiable limits that anyone seeking out a cheap Android phone should focus on, no matter how you plan to use it.

Screen and RAM minimums

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Remember when phones had tiny screens? The original iPhone’s 4.5-inch screen seemed groundbreaking at the time, but by today’s standards, that just doesn’t cut it. A phone should have at least a 5.6-inch screen, though most nowadays are at least 6.1 inches. This allows you to enjoy a comfortable experience when holding the phone and typing two-handed while still being able to clearly see the content on it. That screen should also be an AMOLED panel with HD resolution and a decent peak brightness of at least 1,000 nits, so it’s viewable in direct sunlight.

Memory is another factor to consider. You’ll want at least 6GB RAM; otherwise, multitasking, video streaming, and casual gaming could be slow or inconsistent, and the phone won’t respond quickly enough to your demands. If you play a lot of mobile games, consider even going up to 8GB. Also, if there’s no expandable storage (which is a rarity nowadays), 128GB is the minimum you should consider. For peace-of-mind, go with at least 256GB. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a “phone full” message before you know it, and you’ll be forced to clear out the device or sign up for cloud storage.

Finally, the processor matters. While you might not need the best, fastest, most up-to-date processor, you don’t want one that’s slow as molasses. Check the age of the processor, as well as reviews for its performance, and factor this into your decision. There’s no value in getting a cheap device if it’s slow and laggy when you want to stream a movie, and a great processor is vital for gaming on an Android phone.

Don’t skimp on the battery and cameras

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Battery life and cameras are also important. A battery that’s at least 4,500mAh is sufficient, especially if the phone doesn’t handle heavy AI processing. But 5,000mAh is a better starting point nowadays to keep you going all day, even with moderate use. With cameras, you want a phone that can at least take photos that are good enough for sharing on social media and keeping for posterity. This means having at least a 32MP sensor for the rear camera, but also a large sensor that can capture more light and yield better photos overall, even if the megapixels are lower in one camera versus another. Don’t discount the front sensor and resolution as well, as this is what you’ll use to take selfies. Look for at least a 12MP front camera with, again, a good sensor size.

Consider other basics like NFC for tap-to-pay and more recent Bluetooth versions for reliable connectivity to headphones and speakers. For older models, confirm that there’s at least a few years left of software and security support. This sounds like a lot, but you’ll find plenty of devices that fit, like Samsung’s Galaxy A series phones (see our review of the Samsung Galaxy A17, for example) and phones from brands like Nothing and Motorola. 

Even older-model Google Pixel phones can fit the criteria. You can find a renewed Google Pixel 8a for just over $300 nowadays, and it comes with just about every vital feature mentioned previously. Ideally, wait for seasonal promotions to find a decked-out mid-range phone for the price of a budget one. You’ll have to make compromises to go cheap, but there are many phones in the $300 range that meet or exceed non-negotiable features and specs.

There’s a lot to consider before buying a new phone from abroad.

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There are plenty of smartphone options to choose from in the US, from the iPhone to the Pixel. But there are also really interesting phones you’ll never find in an American store. Xiaomi’s foldables like the Mix Fold, Honor’s Magic series and OPPO’s Find X phones are a few examples that offer unique designs or features not generally seen in the US. 

While phones like these are harder to find in the country, it’s possible to import them, but bringing a phone from abroad has its downsides. You may have problems using your phone with local carriers or getting warranty coverage, among other trouble. If you’re considering an imported phone, always check a few points first.

What you should know before buying a phone from another country

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Buying an imported phone has become a lot easier in recent years. Most smartphones are now designed to work globally on most cellular bands. Still, some phones may not work with those used by your US carrier. Start by checking whether the phone you’re considering is compatible with your carrier’s frequency bands. Buying the wrong version could leave you stuck on the LTE network with no 5G support.

Carrier-specific features can cause issues too. Features like Wi-Fi calling, VoLTE and visual voicemail usually require certification for each device. So even if your imported phone works fine on your carrier’s 5G network, it might not be able to access all these features in the US. Network requirements may also change, so a model that works fine today may run into problems in the future. It’s worth checking forums like Reddit to see what people who’ve bought the phone you want have to say. 

Then there are software updates; the rollout of Android updates may be tied to carriers or regions. Also, some Chinese phones are not compatible with Google Play Services, which are a core part of the Android experience most people expect. You may have to install updates manually, and the software might include Chinese apps and services that aren’t relevant to you (or readable).

Additionally, getting warranty service in the US for these phones may not be easy. Some of these brands have no official representation in the country, which also means no customer support. Dealing with problems like a dead battery or a cracked screen may require taking your phone to a third-party repair shop with no official authorization from the manufacturer. 

The benefits of importing a smartphone

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If you’re okay with all these hassles, importing a phone from abroad can be a lot of fun and open you up to new hardware that isn’t available in the US. There are a lot of Chinese companies putting out exciting products, like three-screen foldables, flagships with DSLR-quality cameras and devices with massive batteries. The Xiaomi 18 Fold is a new foldable phone that looks similar to the iPhone Duo, but it has a bigger battery and better cameras. It also costs less (the equivalent of about $1,640 currently), but you’ll need to buy it abroad if you want to use it in the US.

For those who want the latest releases, importing a phone often gives you the chance to get it before the official US launch. Also, many international models still support two physical SIM cards — a feature that most phones sold in the US have already ditched in favor of eSIM. If you don’t mind the potential drawbacks, it can be a rewarding experience. But if it’s important that you have official support nearby and know all features will work properly on your network, it’s easier to buy a phone that’s officially supported in your country.

There are a load of features tucked away in Google’s ‘other’ mapping app.

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There are some services that become most people’s default simply by doing many things right, and Google Maps is one of them. Its coverage across different countries and reliable navigation make it difficult to replace. Apple Maps has long since recoverd from its disastrous launch, but most people looking for an alternative will tend to gravitate toward Waze — which Google has owned since 2013. The app still looks and feels a lot different from Google Maps, though, with a stronger emphasis on the real-time driving experience.

Since Waze is a crowdsourced navigation app, it relies on real road users to report things like accidents, potholes, traffic congestion and police activity as they encounter them. Beyond navigation, Waze offers a surprisingly useful set of features that many users may not be aware of, since these options are often buried inside the app’s menus. For starters, if you’re traveling to a friend’s place and you have their address saved on your phone, Waze makes it easier to start navigating there without having to manually enter the address every time.

Open Waze, swipe up and scroll to the very bottom where it says “Drive to friends & family.” You’ll need to grant Waze access to your contacts for this feature to work. Once enabled, simply type your friend or family member’s name in the search box. As long as you have an address saved for that contact, Waze will let you begin navigation with a tap.

It’s understandable if you’re uncomfortable sharing your entire contacts list with Waze. If you want to revoke this permission, navigate to Settings > Apps > Waze > Contacts and tap on None on an iPhone. For Android, head to Settings > Apps > See all apps > Waze > Permissions > Contacts and tap on “Don’t Allow.”

Use your own voice for directions

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Waze is already known for being more customizable than its competitors. For instance, you can select a “Mood” by navigating to Settings > View profile > Mood. This lets you pick how your avatar shows up for other Waze users, so if you’re in a particularly bad mood, you can pick an avatar that matches your energy. You can also select a sidekick, which adds a little bit of personality to the navigation experience by changing your vehicle’s icon, avatar and even the voice that guides you along your route.

What’s even cooler is that Waze lets you record instructions in your own voice. You can, of course, have a friend or family member do the voice lines for you. A TikTok user shared how they used this Waze feature to capture their kid’s adorable voice to make every drive a little more special. You can change voice packs on Waze by heading to Settings > Voice and sound > Current voice. There is a vast selection of presets you can choose from, or you can tap “New voice” to record your own set of navigation prompts.

Waze lists a total of 39 (yes, I counted) different prompts for you to record, with a maximum recording length of six seconds. There are voice lines for everything from basic turn instructions to warnings about hazards and speed cameras. If you don’t record a phrase in your own voice, Waze will play the default navigation voice for that instruction instead. Although, if you don’t want to be caught off guard when a completely different voice suddenly chimes in, it might be worth recording all 39 prompts.

Plan a drive with Waze

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Another useful Waze feature that often goes underutilized is the ability to plan your trips ahead of time. If there’s a commute you need to make later in the day or an appointment you have scheduled for another date, Waze can recommend when you should leave based on the expected traffic along the route. There are two ways to schedule trips using Waze. The easiest is to search for your destination as usual and tap on the “Leave later” button instead of “Go now.“

This will let you pick your arrival time in increments of 15 minutes. Waze also displays the expected traffic levels next to the selected arrival time. You can change your starting location as well as the day of the week if you want to schedule a drive further in advance. Tapping on “Save” will add the trip to your planned drives. You can view this list by tapping on the hamburger menu and heading to “Plan a drive.” Here, Waze also lets you connect your calendar so any upcoming events that have a location attached can automatically show up as planned drives.

If you want to dig even deeper into Waze, there’s another hidden trick worth exploring — secret codes that can be entered into the search bar. They let you access a couple of the app’s diagnostic tools and toggle certain features. For instance, entering “##@morph” unlocks a secret monster mood avatar for your profile and “##@cctts” clears the app’s text-to-speech cache, which can fix certain issues you’re having with voice navigation. There are other Waze search codes you can try, but it’s best not to mess with ones that are intended for troubleshooting.

Keep your kid from ordering a five-pound bag of candy.

Ruslan Lytvyn/Shutterstock

Handing your phone to your kid for a few minutes of game time shouldn’t mean they end up three menus deep in your banking apps, emails or texts. That’s a common enough worry that plenty of Galaxy owners go searching for a simple way to lock their apps, much like iPhone users can do. Well, Samsung doesn’t offer one.

On an iPhone, the fix is a quick long-press and selecting Require Face ID. The app then won’t open without a face or fingerprint scan. Samsung takes a different approach to this whole situation. Instead of a single toggle, Galaxy phones split the job between two tools: Secure Folder and app pinning. Neither one is a direct copy of Apple’s version, but together they cover more ground. At the end of the day, the important part is that you’ll be able to keep prying eyes away from apps they shouldn’t have access to.

Why Samsung skipped the simple app lock

Framesira/Shutterstock

Samsung phased out a basic app lock option in favor of Secure Folder, a more robust system built on Samsung Knox, the company’s security platform. Rather than just gating an app behind a password, Secure Folder creates an entirely separate, encrypted space on the phone. Apps placed there run as isolated copies, with their own data and sign-ins kept apart from the rest of the device.

That’s quite the difference from how Apple does things since iOS locks an app in place, while Secure Folder essentially duplicates it inside a vault. The trade-off is setup time, because Secure Folder takes quite a few extra steps. Given the complexity of the task, there’s been quite a bit of pushback over the years as users argued a lighter-weight lock would suit everyday needs like keeping kids out of TikTok. For quick, temporary restrictions, Samsung offers a second option called app pinning. This one works more like a makeshift version of Apple’s screen-lock tools.

How to lock apps using Secure Folder

Samsung

If you want to keep sensitive information safe on your phone, Secure Folder is the way to go. This won’t just protect your data from your kids, but also from thieves and nosy relatives. It’s the best place to put your banking apps, messaging tools, private photos and anything else worth encrypting. Here’s how to set it up:

1. Open Settings > Security and privacy > More security settings > Secure Folder.

2. Sign in with your Samsung Account.

3. Choose a lock type: PIN, password, pattern or biometric scan.

4. Choose whether the apps can still run in the background when the Secure Folder is closed.

5. Tap the plus icon inside Secure Folder and select the apps you want to add.

Apps moved there will be inaccessible until you unlock Secure Folder using your authentication method of choice. The best part is that you can hide the folder icon from the home screen for extra discretion, which you can do from the quick panel by turning off the Secure Folder app. The apps in Secure Folder won’t continue to work in the background or create notifications when the folder is hidden, so be sure to unhide it when you’re ready to use the apps therein. Just another something extra to consider when you’re customizing your Samsung Galaxy phone. 

How to use app pinning for quick restrictions

Samsung

For all those situations where full encryption isn’t called for, like letting a kid play one game without slipping into the Play Store to install some random app, app pinning gets the job done faster. So, before you hand your phone over, here’s what you have to do:

1. Go to Settings > Security and privacy > More security settings and turn on Allow apps to be pinned.

2. Tap on the Recents button (the three vertical bars at the bottom of the screen) or, if you use swipe gestures, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold.

3. Tap on the icon above the app you want to pin and select Pin this app or Pin to screen.

   1. To unpin the app, you have to hold the Recents and Back buttons at the same time.

So, if you’re letting your kid use your phone for one specific game, just open their game and pin the app. They won’t be able to switch to a different app. Pinning doesn’t encrypt anything, so it’s not the right pick for financial or private apps, but it works just fine as a fast and temporary lockdown. Truth be told, this one will work best if your kids don’t know how to read yet because you get on-screen directions on how to unpin the app when you tap on the bottom buttons.

For sensitive apps that need real protection, Secure Folder’s Knox-backed encryption is the stronger option, even if it takes a few minutes to set up. For quick and low-stakes restrictions, like keeping a toddler inside a single game, app pinning gets the job done with almost no setup at all.

The company has essentially confirmed it’s releasing another fitness tracker.

Studio-95/Shutterstock

Previous leaked images revealed the name and design of Google’s rumored “Fitbit Edge” fitness tracker and now the company has essentially confirmed both in new posts on Instagram and X. The wearable is rumored to fit between the screenless Fitbit Air Google launched earlier this year and the more premium Pixel Watch 5.

Google’s posts include an image of what appears to be a side button on the new wearable, and the following caption: “Get an Edge on your health. 10.12.26.” The choice to capitalize “Edge” seems to confirm the name of the wearable, and October 12 is likely the day Google plans to reveal it.

Get an Edge on your health. 10.12.26 pic.twitter.com/1zRU0eoAS7

— Google Health (@googlehealth) October 9, 2026

Images of this new Fitbit device have been kicking around since at least August, when 9to5Google spotted an unnamed fitness tracker in some of Google’s Pixel 11 marketing. But the name of the wearable wasn’t revealed until Android Headlines shared images of the Fitbit Edge and details of its built-in apps and health tracking features earlier this week. Those details were further fleshed out in a report from French magazine Dealabs, which confirmed the device’s design and name, and included additional information on its battery life and possible price. The Edge will reportedly last for up to seven days on a charge if its always-on display is disabled, and two days if it’s on, and could cost €179 (about $200) when it goes on sale in Europe. But considering the Fitbit Air starts at $99 in the US and €99 in Europe, the new tracker could wind up being closer to $180 in the US.

The last similarly-sized fitness tracker Google introduced was the Fitbit Charge 6 in 2023, so the company is due for a new release. If it’s everything reporting has described it to be, the Fitbit Edge seems like a natural step up from the Fitbit Air, and another way to push people to a Google Health Premium subscription. We’ll just have to wait until October 12 to see if Google follows through.

And the data it provided sheds light on the origins of fast radio bursts.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Nanayakkara (USYD). Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI)

Back in 2024, scientists detected the farthest fast radio burst we’ve ever seen to date, thanks to observations by the MeerKAT ground telescope array. Fast radio bursts are ultra-fast radio waves from deep space, which last a fraction of a second but release as much as energy as what the sun emits in three days. They were first discovered in 2007, and not much is known about them. Now, astronomers have used the James Webb telescope to pinpoint the origin of the burst detected in 2024, and it could shed light on the phenomenon’s origins. 

Webb’s near-infrared instruments detected a galaxy in the right location from where the burst had come. Based on measurements from the way its light stretches, the fast radio burst occurred just 3 billion years after the Big Bang. Its origin galaxy existed way back when star formation was at its peak in the universe. In addition, the galaxy that produced it is also 1,000 times smaller than expected. The previous fast radio bursts we’ve detected took place billions of years later in massive, star-forming galaxies. 

There are a couple of theories on how fast radio bursts are produced. One proposes that they’re generated by the merger of two neutron stars. But it takes billions of years before two neutron stars — the collapsed cores of massive supergiant stars — collide, which means that bursts can only come from older galaxies. 

Another theory suggests that the bursts can come from massive stars exploding in a supernova and leaving behind magnetars, which are rare type of neutron stars that have highly powerful magnetic fields. “Our work suggests that it’s very unlikely that this [fast radio burst] was produced by a merger,” said Manisha Caleb from the University of Sydney, Australia, who served as lead author on the study published in Science. In other words, their work shows that the origin of this burst was likely a supernova, providing support for the theory that fast radio bursts can come from a certain type of star explosion.

The racing game’s first expansion will also be available early next year.

Playground Games

PlayStation 5 owners will be able to join the Forza Horizon 6 festival early next year, as the racing game will land on that console on January 26. Xbox-owned developer Playground Games initially said it would hit PS5 this year, but it’ll arrive a few weeks after that window — perhaps to give it some breathing room from Grand Theft Auto 6.

As is the case on Xbox and PC, Playground will offer PS5 players a Premium Edition of Forza Horizon 6, which includes up to five days of early access. A trailer notes that the game’s first expansion will arrive alongside the PS5 version. Those with the Premium Edition (which you can upgrade to from the standard version) will have access to the expansion. Otherwise, you can buy it separately.

Forza Horizon 6 debuted on Xbox and PC in May and it’s a pretty great game. Playground took the formula it honed so well in Forza Horizon 5 and adapted that to a different and long-awaited setting in Japan.

The studio is bringing Forza Horizon 6 to PS5 a month or so before its next game, Fable, arrives. That’ll be available on Xbox Series X/S, PC and PS5 on February 23. However, Xbox’s current leadership has signaled a change in exclusivity strategy, so Fable might be one of the last Xbox games that hits PlayStation (at least outside of Call of Duty and perhaps StarCraft).

Keep an eye on your furry, feathered or scaly friends when you leave the car.

Rivian

Rivian’s latest software update is one many pet parents will be very pleased to see. Following the latest 2026.36 update, R2 vehicle models will have the option to put a Pet Cam on your phone’s lock screen in case you need to step away from the car while your critter is still inside. This feature leverages the high-definition interior camera in R2 models to show the vehicle’s interior in the Rivian app. You’ll be able to see a full livestream if you don’t want to miss a minute of whatever your pet gets up to, or just see a regularly refreshed snapshot in the app dashboard or on your lock screen for a quick check. The Pet Cam can be stopped with a tap on the vehicle’s main display.

The next software update also has further improvements coming to the Pet Mode that Rivian already made available for animal-friendly climate control when you’re not on board. Now you can enable Pet Mode from the Rivian app, in case you forget to turn it on before leaving the vehicle. There will also be a confirmation prompt when toggling Pet Mode on or off from the app to avoid accidental changes that could put your canine companion, feline friend or awesome avian at risk. These controls will be available in all models from the company. 

In non-pet news, R2 vehicles will also be seeing the debut of Rivian Assistant. The AI voice assistant is already available in R1 models, and it can be directed to handle simple tasks around navigation, entertainment and climate in the vehicle.

Jaguar shocked everyone in 2024 when it revamped its classic cat logo and introduced the polarizing Type 00 concept EV that was incredibly long and low. Now, that much-anticipated car has arrived in production form as the Type 01, with the same zany design that made the original concept so, er, interesting. The company said that controversy was a deliberate way to attract an affluent younger market more open to new things.

The Type 01 doesn’t look quite as long as the concept, but it’s still incredibly long at 17.1 feet, a bit less than the Rolls Royce Spectre. The low roofline and incredibly stretched-out hood, along with the curved fastback, give the same gangster vibes as a 1940s Mercury coupe. The front and back ends are also highly unusual, with slab-like profiles that house ultra-thin LED projector headlights up front and full-width taillights hidden in the rear grating. 

Jaguar

There’s no rear window and it’s too long for a UK parking space, as The Guardian notes. Instead, the Type 01 has cameras that feed to a screen at the base of the windshield. It’s more maneuverable than you’d expect with a 37.7-foot turning circle, thanks to rear wheels that can turn up to six degrees. The aerodynamic drag is just 0.23 Cd with the optional 21-inch wheels. 

Jaguar’s design angered some people, but the company wanted it to be radical. “The person making this purchase will be choosing the car because it’s a bold choice,” Jaguar’s managing director Rawdon Glover said at the car’s launch in New York, adding that it appeals to younger, richer buyers than the company’s current “men in their ’50s” market.

Jaguar

The powertrain would be grabbing more attention if everyone wasn’t so focused on the design. With an 850-volt architecture and 118 kWh battery, the Type 01 delivers 450 miles of WLTP range (about 385 miles EPA), and Jaguar claims it’ll travel up to 320 miles on a charge at sustained highway speeds. You can go a lot faster than “sustained,” though, as the three electric motors (one at the front and two behind) deliver 1016 horsepower and 1,007 pound-feet of torque, enough to propel this EV from 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds. 

The Type 01 features a double-wishbone front and integral-link rear suspension system, with Dynamic Air Suspension. Five drive modes are available: Jaguar, Dynamic, Efficient, Ice & Snow, and Curated, with Dynamic being the sportiest. The vehicle also offers active aerodynamics, including active vanes at the front for cooling the powertrain and brakes, plus an active three-stage rear spoiler that can generate 165.3 pounds of downforce and lower the car 0.59 inches. 

Inside, the Type 01 is not very spacious despite its vast size. It retains the same minimalist design as the concept, with a big central compartment that divides the driver and passenger. You can forget physical controls (other than a few on the steering wheel), as everything is controlled through a seven-inch central console and a 24-inch touchscreen. 

The new Jaguar will likely run in the low- to mid-$100,000 range, but the company has yet to say when it will go on sale. Like Ferrari’s first EV, the Luce, it’s bound to attract and repel buyers in equal measure. 

The city’s police department did not renew its contract due to data privacy concerns.

Aaron of L.A. Photography/Shutterstock

The Los Angeles Police Department has suspended its use of controversial surveillance tech from Flock Safety. The city’s law enforcement had signed a three-year deal with Flock in 2023 that expired over the weekend.

Flock operates 138 cameras in LA, and they are ostensibly used to check vehicle license plates. While that information could help law enforcement to find cars that are stolen or registered to fugitives, city leaders questioned the privacy controls for the data collected by the company. Flock has reportedly shared its data with state and federal authorities, including the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, even though California has legislation to restrict what details companies can share with government officials.

“The sticking point is around having very clear terms about who owns the data, what happens with the data once they collect it,” LAPD Chief Information officer Dean Gialamas told the Los Angeles Times. He said the department will stop using Flock “Until we can get those data, privacy, security and sharing concerns ironed out through a contractual relationship.”

In addition to the privacy issues around Flock sharing data with immigration authorities, the company’s cameras have also been exposed as having multiple cybersecurity flaws.

Try the new Siri AI and system-wide performance improvements.

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Apple

Siri and Apple Intelligence

 

Apple

The headliner of iOS 27 is the long-awaited Siri AI. The new version transforms from a basic voice-command system into a modern AI assistant. It can hold natural conversations, understand follow-ups, answer questions about the content on the screen and perform multi-step actions inside apps. On recent Apple devices, you can even customize the expressiveness of the assistant’s voice. There’s also a dedicated Siri app that stores your history.

Siri AI is available in the public beta for all Apple Intelligence-capable devices. In the early developer betas, there’s been a waitlist to access the new assistant. So, some patience may be required. The new Siri only works in English for now, and it won’t initially be available in the EU.

Not all Apple Intelligence features are Siri-related. Photos now has more robust editing tools, including Spatial Reframing, which adjusts composition after the photo is taken. The Extend feature outcrops images past their original boundaries. There’s also an improved Clean Up tool that’s better at removing unwanted objects. And Image Playground can now generate higher-quality images, including photorealistic styles.

Speed boosts and more features

Even if you don’t care about AI, here’s an iOS 27 update that might interest you: Apple is promising big performance improvements across the board. The company says apps launch up to 30 percent faster, newly captured pictures appear in the Photos app up to 70 percent faster, and AirDrop transfers can be up to 80 percent faster. (Although I can’t vouch for specific numbers, my devices felt noticeably zippier on the early iOS 27 developer betas.)

Elsewhere, Safari can declutter your workflow by automatically organizing your tabs into groups. It also has a new Notify Me feature that monitors webpages for price changes or restocks. The Passwords app can detect weak passwords and automatically update them. And in the Shortcuts app, you can create new automations by describing what you want in natural language.

iOS 27 (and its brethren) also addresses criticism of last year’s big design overhaul: Liquid Glass. The new version has readability improvements, and there’s a slider to customize the effect.

Once you’re on the iOS 27 beta, you can install a public beta for AirPods. The new software adds a custom equalizer, an adaptive audio slider and a new settings menu.

watchOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate and iPadOS 27

 

Apple

Siri AI will also be coming to the wrist, where it could be handy for answering questions mid-workout or while you’re otherwise on the move. watchOS 27 adds a new Dynamic App Grid that surfaces apps you’re most likely to need. The Apple Watch gets a new single-tap gesture that lets you select a widget in the Smart Stack to see more info. (You can still double-tap to scroll.) Menstrual tracking adds menopause and perimenopause support. And Workout Buddy gets some upgrades: new workout data insights, the ability to work without a nearby iPhone, and Spanish-language support.

Apple is positioning Siri AI as a productivity tool in macOS 27 Golden Gate. Like with other devices, you can summon the assistant directly from Spotlight, use it to analyze what’s on your screen or rely on it for writing help. There are also a few Mac-specific Liquid Glass and other design improvements, including uniform toolbars, edge-to-edge sidebars, and more refined window shapes and menu bar icons.

What about iPad owners? iPadOS 27 includes all the aforementioned iOS 27 features, but there isn’t much that’s unique to the tablet this year. Visual Intelligence, which can analyze anything on your display via screenshots, works with the Apple Pencil: just circle what you want to learn about. And external hard drive support gets a boost: Apple says file transfers between iPad and an SSD are now up to five times faster and “just as fast as Finder on Mac,” according to the company.

How to install

Keep in mind that these are early versions of the software. Bugs, battery drain and other issues will likely pop up. (Apple hopes you’ll use the Feedback app to help it optimize the software before the final release.) If you want a safer balance between cutting-edge features and stability, it couldn’t hurt to wait for at least the second or third public beta.

If you’ve never installed pre-release software before, you’ll need to enroll in the Apple Beta Software Program first. Once you’re in, you can download the beta software by navigating to Settings > General > Software Update. Under the Beta Updates section, choose the “27” public beta for your device.

The last thing you want to happen after dropping hundreds of dollars on a wearable is to discover that it doesn’t work with your body. But, that’s a fairly common problem people with wrist tattoos have been running into since the advent of smartwatches and fitness trackers. As countless posts on device support pages and Reddit have chronicled over the years, tattooed skin and the sensors used by wearables often don’t mix well.

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One of the main issues people experience is with heart rate sensing. Wearables use a light-based technique called photoplethysmography (PPG) to measure heart rate. That’s the green light you see when you flip your device over. But, tattoos can get in the way of that light, messing with the readings. The other problem is wrist detection, which also uses lights to determine if the tracker is on a person’s wrist (along with an accelerometer and electrical sensors). Slap a fitness tracker on a wrist that’s covered by a tattoo, and the device may not register that it’s being worn at all, consequently requiring the wearer to repeatedly unlock the device whenever they want to interact with it.

It might seem a bit silly that technology advanced enough to respond to gesture controls and provide personalized sleep coaching would be stumped by a bit of pigment, but the tattoo issue isn’t just a baseless gripe that consumers have latched onto. Device makers have acknowledged it and advised buyers to avoid putting their trackers on top of tattoos.

“Tattoos (ink, pattern, saturation) can block the heart rate sensor’s light, causing inaccurate or missing readings,” Garmin notes on a support page. “For best performance, wear the watch on skin that is free of tattoos if possible.” Apple has issued similar notices going back to the release of the first Apple Watch.

Is there a solution?

People with tattoos have devised sorts of workarounds to get the most out of their smart watches and fitness trackers, though none are exactly ideal. The simplest? If the inside of your wrist isn’t tattooed (or at least has larger areas of clear skin), you can position the device there instead of on top of the wrist. Similarly, if your other wrist is tattoo-free, wear the device on that one. But if you’ve grown used to wearing a watch on a certain wrist for years, it’s going to feel pretty weird to change it up.

As a quick fix, some people swear by epoxy bottle cap stickers or layering pieces of clear tape, either of which are placed over the sensors and inexplicably correct the problem for a lot of wearers. Reusable accessories designed to work the same way have seen some success too. There’s also the option of using a chest strap if accurate heart rate tracking is all you’re after — and if you don’t have chest tattoos. Again, though, this isn’t the most comfortable or convenient way to use a wearable in most situations day-to-day.

Ultimately, it’ll continue to be an issue until the sensors these watches and fitness trackers rely on are improved to account for skin variations like tattoo ink. Likewise, light-based sensors have been found to be less reliable for people with dark skin, highlighting a need for more diversity in the research and development of this type of technology.

Anecdotally, it seems like Google’s Pixel Watch 4 might be much better at handling tattooed skin than its predecessors. There were rumors of Samsung introducing an update a few years back to improve things in this area too, but the complaints of tattooed Galaxy Watch users would suggest otherwise.

More research is needed

Identifying the problem is theoretically the first step to solving it, but unhelpfully, the reality is that how much tattoos interfere with sensor readings isn’t consistent from case to case. A study published in 2025 attempted to quantify the difference in readings taken from devices worn over tattooed skin versus non-tattooed skin, and while it did find the former suffered inaccuracies, the results were mixed.

The researchers used the Polar Verity Sense and armband, outfitting participants with one device over a tattoo plus one on the same arm in an area without a tattoo. Participants also wore a Polar H10 chest strap heart rate monitor to establish a baseline, as this style of wearable is considered to be more accurate. Over the course of a day, they were monitored when at rest, walking at their own pace and jogging.

This revealed that the presence of the tattoos did have an impact on heart rate readings, but it was dependent on the wearer’s activity level, “with the greatest effect observed at rest and variation decreasing as exercise intensity increases.” And in some cases, the researchers note, “the presence of an arm tattoo did not affect the heart rate validity measurement at all.” There are a number of variables that must be taken into account — like ink color, saturation and depth — and as it stands today, there just hasn’t yet been enough research down to the nitty-gritty of the problem to bring about a solution.