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- The New Nest Doorbell Cam Is a Reminder That Nest Has Gone Fully Google - Gizmodo
- S.Korea set to curb Google, Apple commission dominance - Reuters
- Samsung’s art-inspired Frame 4K TV is $200 off - The Verge
| The New Nest Doorbell Cam Is a Reminder That Nest Has Gone Fully Google - Gizmodo Posted: 24 Aug 2021 06:00 AM PDT  Over the past few years, Google has been transitioning its Nest smart home brand away from a stand-alone company and bringing it into the Google fold. Now you can mix and match smart displays and other gadgets that connect to the Google Assistant as you see fit. This is convenient, to be sure, but it also has some drawbacks. Take the new Nest Doorbell for example. The new model is cheaper than the first generation, sports an upgraded design, and is battery-powered, too. If you haven't already bought into the idea of a doorbell camera and you're looking for one that connects to Google, this is a solid one, though there are some caveats, especially for renters. And then there's legacy Nest users like myself, who might find themselves grappling with the nuances of the new Nest. Bringing this doorbell camera into an existing network of Nest devices reminded me that Nest is now fully a Google product. Google has been actively moving away from using the original Nest mobile app for connecting Nest gadgets, which I can accept, but still. Change is hard. A Thoroughly Modern DoorbellI've been living with the original Nest Doorbell since it launched in 2018. I've appreciated its utility over the years and its cheeky holiday-themed chimes. It's even moved homes with me. But I'm especially into it because it doesn't look obvious and boxy like the Ring doorbell everyone else seems to have in the suburbs. The new Nest Doorbell looks like a 21st century home accessory—almost too modern for my 1970s house. Its chassis is decidedly flatter than the previous generation, and it's also a honker. It's more than six inches tall, making it more prominent than the wired Nest Doorbell, which is a little less than five inches long. The difference is significant when viewed side by side, though it was seemingly a design decision to accommodate the battery pack.  The rest of the Nest Doorbell features a matte chassis, which I'm hoping will fare better against hot, smoky California days than the glassy first-generation version, which now has warped plastic at the edge. Google provided Gizmodo a gray one for review, though it also offers the doorbell in white, beige, and a green-gray hue. You'll make some sacrifices with the new model compared to the old. The new Nest Doorbell features a 1.3-megapixel camera with 6x digital zoom and a 3:4 aspect ratio. The wired Nest Doorbell is equipped with a 3-megapixel sensor with 8x digital zoom. I specifically noticed discrepancies in the way each of the cameras handled light coming in—the second-gen Nest Doorbell was much more sensitive to it. There is also a difference in resolution between the two. The Nest Doorbell camera's maximum resolution is 960 x 1280, compared to the original's 1600 x 1200 resolution. The upside is that you will save on both bandwidth and battery by opting for the lower resolution. The battery-powered Nest Doorbell camera has a 145-degree field of view, compared to the first-gen's 160-degree field of view. The wired Nest Doorbell comes with an accessory called a chime connector. It's supposed to help with power management once it's connected to the power line. It worked at my old townhouse, but not when I moved. As a result, I've been using the old doorbell solely with the Assistant-connected devices in my home.  The battery-powered Nest Doorbell offers something similar to my workaround: You don't need a wire to get the "bell" functionality working. However, it does require that you have Nest-compatible smart speakers and smart displays connected in your home. Otherwise, you'll be entirely reliant on the Google Home app and mobile notifications to hear if anyone is at the door. The doorbell also offers an audible chime, but you might not always hear it if you live in a big house or work in a back room. You can choose to hardwire the new Nest Doorbell, a decision that offers a key benefit: If it's connected to your home's built-in chime, so you'll hear the doorbell when you're inside the house regardless if you have Assistant devices. It also concurrently powers up the camera, so you're not relying on the battery. Not for Renters Depending on the exterior of your home or apartment, you won't need a power drill to install the newest version of the Nest Doorbell. The Doorbell camera requires you to install a base plate, along with two wall anchors and screws, but it's all possible with a standard Philips screwdriver. There's a 20-degree wedge plate included in the box to angle the doorbell and spacers for slabbed exteriors, and there's also a key to release the doorbell unit from its base. What I didn't see in the box was a way to install the doorbell without making holes. I'd expected something like the No-Drill mount from Amazon's Ring Video Doorbell 3 and 3 Plus. You might be able to get away with a set of super-strong adhesive strips on the back of the doorbell without the use of a plate, because the back is nearly flat. But that would block off access to the USB-C port for recharging the device, and those outdoor-use Command strips are best when used once. Google Account RequiredThe new Nest Doorbell requires that you have a Google account or a Nest account that's been migrated over. Most longtime Nest users already switched over when Google force-enabled two-factor authentication for security purposes. If you're new to the ecosystem, you won't have to sign up for a Nest account at all. But if you've had Nest devices for a while, this might be where it gets confusing. My husband, the owner of our Nest account and the name on the bill for Nest Aware, Google's paid subscription service for continuous video-recording, was similarly confused by the changeover. We still use the original Nest app to control and check in on our existing security cameras. We have access to all those other devices in the Google Home app, including the thermostat and smoke detectors. But the menu structures are different for the security cameras between the two apps, including how you view and save video clips. It's not a dealbreaker, but having to convert to using the Google Home app is something to keep in mind if you've been using Nest security cameras for years. (It might be best to adapt now before Google kills it off entirely.) The Home app takes a while to scroll through the different rooms and devices that I have set up in my smart home before I get to the option to check on the backyard doorbell camera. I found this takes a while if I accidentally swipe away the motion notification and I want to peek in on the camera. If you're on an Android device, you get the added perk of the built-in ability to manage your smart home by long-pressing the power button. This mechanism will change in Android 12 when the smart home controls move to a dedicated settings tile in the notification shade—Google's vision for an integrated experience. Nest cameras and doorbells are still compatible with Alexa per a Google support page. However, the new Nest Doorbell camera didn't appear as an option when I tried to pair the devices via an existing skill, because I paired the device through Google and not my Nest account. Google said the new doorbell is not compatible with Alexa at launch, which is another trade-off to make, depending on which voice assistant you prefer. Battery-Saving Features The second-generation Nest Doorbell works and functions like the four wired Nest cameras I have set up on my network. The benefit of this particular model is that it's battery-powered and programmed for power-saving use. Sometimes it felt slower than my wired cameras, though. A few times, it took more than five seconds before a smart display could dial in the preview window to the battery-powered Nest Doorbell because the camera goes dormant when it doesn't sense motion. That's also why I didn't have night footage to share during this review: Nothing happened to warrant the camera turning on to capture it. The Nest Doorbell has an upgraded TPU chip that can recognize nine different objects without any cloud processing. It does most of its motion recognition offline, which can help save battery. You can go into the Google Home settings for the doorbell camera and adjust its sensitivity to various objects, including pets, people, vehicles, and packages. I don't yet have an accurate read on whether the on-device processing helps battery life in the long term. The Google Home app keeps you alerted to how much battery you have leftover when you log in for a peek at the camera. On my end, the battery says it should last for two weeks (I've been testing for about a week). You will have to remove the doorbell from its anchoring plate to charge the 6 Ah battery, which is kind of annoying because when the doorbell is off the plate, it turns off, and you can't use the camera or doorbell unless it's seated in its base. The doorbell took about an hour to charge up 30%, so you're not seeing smartphone quick-charging speeds here, but a couple of hours of charging every couple weeks isn't the end of the world. How the New Nest Stacks Up The battery-powered Nest Doorbell's on-device processing means it doesn't require a Nest Aware subscription to work. That subscription has two tiers: a basic plan for $6/month or $60/year that includes 30 days of event history, or Nest Aware Plus, which is $12/month or $120/year and offers 60 days of event history plus 10 days of 24/7 recording. The Nest Doorbell includes three-hour event video history by default and cannot continuously record video. That's where it majorly differentiates from the wired version of the Nest Doorbell and why you'd choose that one over the battery-powered model. The $230 wired Nest Doorbell does cost a little more than the battery-powered one, but you get a device that's constantly connected and thus, able to record video and sound around the clock. Many people don't require that kind of surveillance at their door—or they don't the ability to wire a doorbell—and that's where the second-gen Nest Doorbell comes in. For $180, you get the same Google-powered person and object recognition and seamless integration with the rest of the devices in Google's ecosystem via the Google Home app. The fact that person and object recognition happens on device instead of in the cloud is also somewhat reassuring from a privacy perspective, to a certain point. Using a Google product comes with its own specific drawbacks, and your Nest Doorbell footage can still be requested by police, though the company doesn't have a way for police to request data directly from users the way Amazon Ring's Neighbors social network does. Ring works directly with police, though the company recently added end-to-end encryption so users can prevent police from accessing their video footage without a request. All in all, the new Nest Doorbell cam is fine, especially if you're all in with Google Assistant, though there are other, cheaper, platform-agnostic doorbell cameras that offer similar features. As a long-time Nest user who has a fully Google home, I experienced some pains with this doorbell, so I recommend springing for the wired version if you can. The smaller profile and 24/7 recording are worth the extra money. |
| S.Korea set to curb Google, Apple commission dominance - Reuters Posted: 24 Aug 2021 03:16 AM PDT /cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/FAOPVLZN3JPT5L56XDIRN63PY4.jpg) SEOUL, Aug 24 (Reuters) - South Korea is likely to bar Google and Apple from requiring software developers to use their payment systems, effectively stopping them from charging commissions on in-app purchases, the first such curbs on the tech giants by a major economy. The parliament's legislation and judiciary committee is expected on Tuesday to approve the amendment of the Telecommunications Business Act, dubbed the "Anti-Google law," that takes aim at app store operators with dominant market positions. If the bill gets the committee's approval, it will be put to a final vote on Wednesday. Lawmakers in South Korea have pushed the issue of the commission structure since mid last year. Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google and Apple Inc (AAPL.O) were not immediately available for comment. Both companies have faced global criticism because they require software developers using their app stores to use proprietary in-app payment systems that charge commissions of up to 30% on in-app purchases. "For gaming apps, Google has been forcing app developers to use its own payment system ... and it wants to expand its policy to other apps like music or webtoon," said Kwon Se-hwa, a general manager at the Korea Internet Corporations Association, a nonprofit group representing Korean IT firms. Google app is seen on a smartphone in this illustration taken, July 13, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration "If the new bill becomes the law, developers will have options to use other independent payment systems," Kwon said. The European Union last year proposed the Digital Markets Act, taking aim at app store commissions. The rules are designed to affect large companies, but some European lawmakers are in favour of tightening them to specifically target American technology giants, Reuters reported in June. read more Earlier this month in the United States, a bipartisan trio of senators introduced a bill that would rein in app stores of companies that they said exert too much market control, including Apple and Google. read more In South Korea, the home market of Android phone maker Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS), Google Play Store earned revenue of nearly 6 trillion won ($5.29 billion) in 2019, according to a government report published last year. Earlier this year, Google said it will lower the service fee it charges developers on its app store from 30% to 15% on the first $1 million they earn in revenue in a year. Apple has made similar moves. read more For Apple too, commissions from in-app purchases are a key part of its $53.8 billion services business, and are a major expense for some app developers. In May, an antitrust lawsuit filed by the maker of the popular game "Fortnite" against Apple revealed that the game maker paid $100 million in commissions to Apple over two years. read more Reporting by Heekyong Yang in Seoul, Additional reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco Editing by Shri Navaratnam Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. |
| Samsung’s art-inspired Frame 4K TV is $200 off - The Verge Posted: 24 Aug 2021 06:41 AM PDT  The Frame, Samsung's HDR-compatible QLED that pulls double duty as wall art, is one of the more unique TV designs that didn't die in the concept phase or on the showroom floor of CES. Designed to look like a framed and matted photograph, the 120Hz screen hides in plain sight when switched to an Art Mode that displays still imagery instead of a black void when turned off. It's a stunner of a TV in many ways and, for a limited time, Best Buy and Amazon are offering the 55-inch model for $200 off, the second-lowest price we've seen this year on the high-tech piece of home decor. It's the perfect way to convince your friends you're a person of culture and refinement while still being a techie nerd who loves large screens. If you use the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro and want a more laptop-like experience, there are deals for both the previous-gen and newly revised Apple Magic Keyboards. Functionally the same, both Magic Keyboards augment the work and play capabilities of the iPad Pro with a quality trackpad and tactile keyboard that folds up to protect the screen. Best Buy currently has the older model for $199 (a discount of $150) and Amazon has the newer one for $324 (a discount of $25). The main difference between the two? The updated Magic Keyboard more adequately accommodates the slightly thicker dimensions of this year's 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Google recently released a new version of its Nest Doorbell (formerly the Nest Hello) that lets you choose between battery or wired for power, and now the previous-gen wired model has received a sizable discount. Best Buy, Target, and Google are all currently offering $50 off the wired configuration, matching the price of the newer model at $180. The newer model might be more convenient and include a few additional enhancements, but with the previous model you'll get slightly higher resolution capture and 24/7 recording without ever having to worry about charging it. Aside from its drones, DJI is most known for its expertise with gyros and stabilizers in the world of gimbals. The DJI OM 4 is its latest-gen mobile gimbal, and it allows for rock-solid stability when shooting videos with a smartphone. The OM4 normally sells for $149, but Amazon and B&H both have it for $20 off. Pairing this three-axis stabilizer and mini tripod with an iPhone or Android device that captures 4K video can enhance any vlogging or amateur YouTube setup. More great deals
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