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HTC and Motorola are two of the few companies that we often see releasing kernel source codes for their devices in a relatively timely manner. Today is no exception with HTC publishing the kernel code for its forty-two-days old HTC 11+. The code clocks in at 417MB and there are 4 versions for different carriers. It joins the U11 in being the second Oreo 8.0 kernel code from HTC.
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- I have tested and confirmed this device handler works with SmartThings. If you don't know how to add it, you'll need to read a bit more about the topic, and if you're still a bit confused on how to set it up, scroll down to see my comment on the thread where I explain a few of the steps. Once added, you'll be able to control your Nuki from SmartThings and use it in any automations and routines that allow for a smart lock action.
For the past year or so, I've been looking at smart locks and wanting one yet not able to fully commit to anything. Living in Lebanon means our doors don't have the American-style deadbolts, but what is known as the Euro Style/Profile Double Cylinder - a lock that is quite prominent across France, Germany, the UK, and other countries. So August, Yale, Schlage, Kwikset, and plenty of brands geared toward the US market were mostly out of the question unless I wanted to take a risk and get something that doesn't fit at all with my apartment's door.That was until I stumbled on Nuki's smart lock, which is compatible with the Euro Profile Cylinder (and a couple of other lock models). At first, I was quite skeptic: I couldn't trust the security of my apartment's door to a brand I'd never heard about. But feedback on Amazon was positive, the few videos I saw showed it working very well, and even the Play Store app's rating and reviews were enthusiastic (these usually are a more accurate metric than Amazon reviews of people's experience with a product). I'll spare you the details of my week-long research into Nuki's solution and jump straight to the end: I was more than intrigued and reached out to the company for a review unit. I figured, worst case scenario, I'd easily remove it and go back to my regular lock.Then I got the lock more than a month ago and from A to Z, I was impressed with everything the company has done. Not only has the Nuki not failed me a single time, it has also won over my husband. It was tough to convince him to surrender our lock to something smart, but he quickly came around to appreciating its benefits over time.
[Update: Google Store and Walmart too] Google Home Max is now available for $399 at select retailers
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- Google just published a blog post announcing the availability of the Home Max. So if you're unfamiliar with it or you just like reading marketing copy, feel free to go check it out in more detail.
Google made a big fuss about the Home Max when it announced it in October, but it didn't launch the speaker then and promised it would be available in December. Well, December is almost halfway through and we're starting to see the Home Max pop up on a couple of stores.
Black Friday is well behind us now, but it doesn't look like the discounts are stopping anytime soon. All the better for those of you who missed out on a deal, had other priorities to purchase in November, forgot to get a gift for someone, didn't have a use for something but now want it, or maybe bought a product and want another one of it now.
Bear with us here. We recently started receiving reports of a "new" notification from Google Maps that shows contextual departure times for public transport when you're near a station. Our own Ryne, who often uses public transport, also started seeing them a few days ago. However, upon asking some readers for their experience, we learned that this notification isn't exactly new. While some have reported never seeing it before this week, others say it surfaced a couple of months ago, and some even maintain that's it been there for years.
Up until July of this year, Klipsch's Groove speaker was more often than not found for its original $149.99 price on Amazon, but since then, the price has more or less plummeted. We spotted at $69.99 in mid-July but it has continued to drop a little bit further since. Today it's just $49.99, a whole $100 off what it used to sell for a few months ago.Although it's a tiny speaker (4.56" H x 5.51" W x 2.65"D), the Groove has a 3" full range driver, two side-firing passive radiators, has an amp output of 10W (maybe take that with a grain of salt?) and a frequency response of 65Hz-22KHz. It uses Bluetooth and 3.5mm input, is splash-resistant, and comes with a 2200mAh battery good for about 8 hours of listening and that charges over MicroUSB.It's currently rated at 4.4 on Amazon with several reviews applauding its size, sound, and volume. So if you're looking for a neat little desk speaker or something to take with you on trips or conveniently move around the house, you can check out the deal over in the source link below.Source: Amazon
Google Trips has improved a lot since the barebones utility that it was on its first release. Now it not only manages your flights and hotels, but also trains, buses, car rentals, restaurant reservations, and more. However, I have recently stopped using it because of one major miss: it didn't integrate with the custom lists I created in Maps and Search. Until now, Trips only showed your starred Google Maps places under the "Saved Places" card of each destination, but nothing more. If you had created a custom list on Maps/Search for that destination, like I do, none of it showed up. But that's changing today.
Amazon's paid music streaming service, Music Unlimited, has been live for a little over a year. Since its launch in the US, it has rolled to a few additional countries like the UK, Germany, Austria, and Japan, but today marks its largest expansion to date: 28 countries are getting Amazon Music Unlimited.I know you're looking for the list, so before I babble on about what Music Unlimited is, here are the countries getting AMU:
Banking apps are often the slowest to implement new features and stay with the times, but the Bank of America app is usually a lot better at it than others. Now the app has been updated to add a couple of neat features.
Microsoft Garage pumps out new apps very frequently, and while some graduate to become full-fledged products, others stay just a "garage" project: neat proof-of-concept, but not more. The latest app from it is Outings, a travel discovery app.
Some users have been seeing these green suggestions when performing a search on the Play Store app for almost a year, but the feature began rolling out more widely in June (I still don't have it). However, it only seemed to provide keywords to further specify your search, not proper filters to separate the results according to price. Now it looks like Google is testing the latter kind.
We all turn to Google to get answers regarding this and that, and that other thing, and those as well, and eventually there's a point where we get a little curious and we want to know something about the actors and stars that we love. Google usually uses its Knowledge Graph to surface the best and most accurate answer for you, but what if you could get it straight from the horse's mouth. There'd be no denying the authenticity of it, would there?
Joao from joaomgcd, better known for his series of "Auto-" apps and Join, is one of our favorite tinkering developers. He always manages to find a way to make Android do things it's not supposed to, and the latest "hack" he has come up with is a new "Read" button on Gmail notifications. You know how you sometimes receive emails with a few words that are easily legible from the notification without having to open the entire Gmail app, or how you get automated emails which content you already know without opening them, and you just want a quick way to mark them as read without deleting or archiving them? This is what the button does.
It's like there's a recipe for image sharing social networks: 1) launch the service with some hook to make it special against the thousands of other competitors, 2) wait until there are enough users and add a messenger so people can talk to each other without ever leaving your app, 3) launch a Snapchat-like auto-destruct feature, 4) separate all three features into their own standalone apps. VSCO has graduated from step 1 to step 2.
Music is near ubiquitous nowadays and it makes everything a little more fun. Whether you're commuting to work or school, taking a flight, grocery shopping, running and exercising, doing chores around the house or your homework, working on projects, or just sitting around and doing nothing, it always has a way of speeding time up or slowing it down, getting you pumped or relaxing you.And with the holidays nearly upon us, you may be looking for the perfect gift to get yourself or that music addict in your life. To help you, we have compiled a list of the latest and best gadgets you can buy this year. We've divided them in different categories for you to choose exactly the kind of product you want.
There's a point in every person's life when they give up on trying to be the cool kid and surrender to their fate of scoffing, "kids, nowadays!" at every opportunity. I reached mine a couple of years ago when Snapchat became a thing, Twitter started being about politics and news more than fun conversations, and everyone (and their mom, dad, kids, and grandparents) was on Facebook. Now I just sigh and roll my eyes each time I see people putting more of the silliest parts of their lives online, which, as I type it, sounds quite hypocritical given this very paragraph. I guess I'm more selective of what I share and who reads it - I like you folks.
That comment section that we all use on Android Police and that we often see and use on other sites is powered by Disqus, a company that makes it easy for sites like us to have a highly interactive and independent comment section while also maintaining control over moderation. Disqus is a very coveted brand and now it belongs to Zeta Global.
If you still have just a little bit of cash left in your pocket after the craziness that was the whole Black Friday week/month, and if I can find it in myself to write another one of these deals, let's have a quick chat.JBL makes really awesome speakers with great sound. We love them. This Pulse 2 isn't just a portable Bluetooth speaker though, it also lights up and changes with your music. JBL says it's an "interactive light show," I wouldn't go that far. It's more like a mood visualizer to go with your tunes. Perfect for outdoor and camping trips, but also for your smooth indoor dinner parties. It is splashproof, and the 6000mAh battery lasts about 10 hours. And it's well rated on Amazon.The MSRP is $199.99, but CCC tells me it's almost never sold for that price. The Amazon price usually hovers around $120-$150 and the third-party seller price has been around $120 for a while until it started dropping recently. It's now $95, the lowest it's ever been, sold by "AcousticSoundDesign Factory Authorized Dealer" and Fulfilled by Amazon. If you're interested, you can grab it now from the link below and if you want other JBL speakers, some of the deals we covered last week are still going on. Do check them out.
If you're still a little behind on your Christmas shopping or if you got a new TV during Black Friday and are looking for a relatively inexpensive way to make it smarter, there's a neat deal for you today: Roku is discounting its new (2017) Streaming Stick from $49.99 to $39.99. It's only $10 but this is a nice 20% off a new product.When Corbin reviewed the new Streaming Sticks from Roku, he liked their small size and praised their speed, software, and remote. He also liked that you could view plenty of streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video and Google Play Movies and TV on the same unit (many other similar offerings lack one or the other). He's not alone, the Streaming Stick has an average 4.5 rating on Amazon right now, so it's quasi-universally loved.The one downside is that since this is the regular Streaming Stick, it only supports streaming up to 1080p at 60fps, but that may not be a deal-breaker if your TV doesn't have 4K or HDR. Other than that, the Streaming Stick is similar to the Stick+ with dual-band MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi, voice search and TV controls on the remote, and private listening through the Android app.The Streaming Stick was announced at $49.99 in October, but it didn't go on sale during Black Friday (the Stick+ was discounted). Now it's down to $39.99 at various retailers, with the deal lasting until December 9. If you're interested, you can find the links below.Source: Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Target
Some of you may have already heard about the Nanoleaf Aurora. These modular triangular light panels can be formed in any shape you like and are WiFi-enabled, allowing you to control them via your phone or Google Home and Alexa. But those of you who haven't will probably scroll down to see the high price tag and scoff in disbelief. $229.99 for a set of 9 light panels and a music module is a rather extravagant price to pay. But that's exactly what the Nanoleaf are: extravagant. They go a step beyond smart lights like Hue and LiFX and straight into "cool art deco" territory.This isn't a smart home product, per se, it's a smart home design product and therein lies the difference. I paid nearly $200 for my floor lamp (without the bulb) because I liked the way it looked and thought it would fit with my living room's decor. In that context, $229.99 for smart lights that can take any shape and color isn't a stretch. It might even seem like a steal. So if you struggle to justify paying over $200 for a few light panels when you can buy a midrange Android phone for the same price, you're clearly not the target market for the Aurora. But if you're willing to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a furniture piece, and you love modern technology and colorful lights, then the Nanoleaf Aurora will be right up your alley. Plus it's so, so, so cool.