How are you going to call yourself a smart-home company, one with a huge focus on video, and not have a video doorbell? That's a question Arlo had no doubt been asking itself for some time, and while it launched its Audio Doorbell with matching wireless Chime back in 2018, that one was largely meant to be used with the company's existing video cameras. It took another year for the follow-up effort to arrive, but in late 2019 we finally got a proper Arlo Video Doorbell.
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Security and privacy are at the heart of our concerns with technology now. With every breach, hack, and vulnerability, we discover how frail this digital footprint we've created is. To protect ourselves, we make sure our devices are always updated with the latest security patches, we try to avoid suspicious sites and apps, we keep our eyes open for phishing attempts in our inbox, but that still isn't enough. If you have smart home gadgets or if you don't control every device in your household, you need network-level protection. Some Wi-Fi routers offer this, but the feature is usually tied in a monthly subscription.
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Frequent readers of Android Police may have noticed me mention a few times how slow and limited my home internet connection is. In ideal circumstances, it maxes out at 16Mbps; on regular days, it's half of that, and that's considered good for Lebanon. There are places where you can barely get 2Mbps. One single gadget has made that speed tolerable in 2020: the Netgear Orbi mesh router.
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Samsung's 2020 Galaxy S family includes three devices again, but they've all moved a bit up-market from 2019. There's no "e" variant this year, and the base model S20 starts at $1,000. Samsung understandably favors the top-of-the-line model, the $1,400 Galaxy S20 Ultra. This phone has all the bells and whistles including a Snapdragon 865, 5G (sub-6 and mmWave), and a revamped camera setup featuring a periscope zoom module. With all that hardware, the S20 Ultra has ballooned to 6.9-inches, and it weighs almost half a pound. By attempting to make no compromises, I worry Samsung has compromised the S20 Ultra itself.
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Millions of homes now contain a smart assistant speaker of some variety and sales of IoT products continue to grow as the market matures and prices come down across the sector. With so many options available, it's hard to know what to buy, and that's where we come in — this is a selection of our favorite smart home gadgets. Whether you want to just dip your toes in the water with a cheap Google Nest Mini or dive into the deep end with smart lights, cameras, thermostats, doorbells, and so on — we’ve got you covered.
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Buying a portable battery can be a tricky process, especially in the modern age of USB Power Delivery. With USB-PD being the finicky standard that it is, not all devices work with all chargers — a battery that is perfectly compatible with your phone might not charge your Chromebook at all.
Thankfully, for those of you looking wanting a battery that can quickly charge just about any device, Aukey's new Power Bank 26800mAh does the job nicely. We also had a peek at the company's smaller 10,000mAh model, which has a slower maximum charging speed but does add a Qi charging pad.
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Five months in, Stadia is, ever slowly, packing its library with more and more quality titles. With the release of Doom Eternal earlier this month, the platform hit a major milestone: its first major AAA game to launch day-and-date with PC and consoles. Should you be lacking the local hardware horsepower to bust demon skulls but you're reluctant to stream a game as notoriously fast-paced as Doom, I'm happy to report that, if your network is up to snuff, Eternal runs wonderfully on Google's cloud platform. It's also an intense and immensely gratifying experience.
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The Galaxy S20 series is incredibly expensive, with the S20 Ultra starting at an eye watering $1,399. When you're carrying something that cost more than my first car in your pocket, it's important to keep it safe. Glass sandwiches may look beautiful, but that beauty can easily be obscured by scuffs, scratches, and cracks. The best way to prevent that from happening is by using a skin or case to protect your precious new phone.
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Samsung launched Good Lock back when the Galaxy S7 was the latest and greatest, and since then, it's become a staple of the Samsung experience. Initially allowing users to test new features from future Android updates, Good Lock soon evolved into a tool for tweaking and customizing your Galaxy smartphone just the way you like it. Until now, Good Lock has been incompatible with Android 10, something rectified by Good Lock 2020. This update does far more than restore existing features, adding plenty of new options to choose from. This much variety may seem daunting at first, so let's talk about everything Good Lock has to offer, and how to get the most out of it.
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Robotic vacuums used to be a luxury product, but they've trickled down into the mainstream. For lots of folks, the math just works out: It costs less than the value in saved time, and those extra moments can be spent more productively. So if you want a high-end model with more granular controls, room mapping and detection, and Assistant integration, then the Roborock S6 might be a good choice. That is, if you can stomach the $650 price tag and a few noteworthy drawbacks.
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