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Logitech’s Circle View Doorbell is the closest thing we have to an Apple-made doorbell

Logitech Circle View Doorbell.

There are a lot of video doorbells on the market. You can get one from Amazon’s Ring, Google’s Nest, Arlo, Eufy, August, or countless other companies. But none of those video doorbells will natively work with Apple’s HomeKit platform.

For a long time, if you wanted a video doorbell and you were committed to building your smart home around HomeKit, the only option you had was to use hacky workarounds such as Homebridge to integrate unsupported devices into the Home app. That changed late last year as two HomeKit-compatible video doorbells finally hit the market.

I’ve been testing the one from Logitech, the $199.99 Circle View Doorbell (the other is the $299.99 Netatmo Smart Video Doorbell), on my front door for the past few months. It is a very capable video doorbell, with excellent performance and a number of useful features. But it also comes with some significant asterisks attached.

The Circle View Doorbell is a wired doorbell and does not have a battery option. In order to use it, you’ll have to have existing low-voltage doorbell wiring rated at 8-24 volts AC, 10vA or higher, or run wiring from an AC adapter wall wart (not included) to it, as I did. It supports existing doorbell chimes if you have one and includes the accessories you need to make it work. You can check the online installation guide (there aren’t any instructions included in the box, so you have to follow the instructions from your phone or a computer) to see if your existing hardware is compatible. I don’t have a chime in my home, so I skipped the parts of the setup related to that.

The Circle View comes with all of the other hardware necessary to install it, except for a Micro USB cable and A/C adapter, which is required to power the doorbell and configure it before you mount it at your door. It’s likely that you already have one lying around at home, but it’s still an odd omission.

Installation and setup are relatively simple: you get the doorbell powered up, scan the barcode on the back using the Apple Home app on your iPhone to add it to your virtual home, and then install the hardware at your door. The whole process took me about 15 minutes and shouldn’t be much of a challenge for anyone with a screwdriver, a power drill, and even the smallest amount of home repair experience. (Trust me, I’m no Bob Vila.)

But if you want to avoid all of that and just have someone else do it for you (an impulse that I strongly relate to, no judgment here), Logitech has partnered with HelloTech to have someone come to your home and install the doorbell. The service costs $100 on top of the price of the doorbell and includes setting it up and wiring it up at your door. It does not include running wire to your door; you have to have the wiring in place already (likely from an existing doorbell).

Because the Circle View doesn’t have an internal battery, it’s much more compact than something like the Ring Video Doorbell 3 and is closer in size to the Nest Hello or Ring Video Doorbell Pro. There’s the camera in its expected place, a built-in nightlight below that, and a round illuminated circle indicating where to press. The whole bottom half of the doorbell is the button to ring it, so you don’t have to be particularly precise when using it. In the box are straight and angled mounts to better position the camera’s view depending on your home layout. Unfortunately, the angled mount’s 20-degree tilt is not enough for me to see the one spot on my porch where most packages are left through the doorbell’s vertical view.

Lastly, the Circle View only comes in black and has a modern and gadget-y look to it. I don’t mind it, but it might not fit your home’s decor or your style, and there isn’t much you can do to change it. Other companies offer white or black versions of their doorbells, and some even have interchangeable faceplates.

The Circle View Doorbell has a 5-megapixel camera with a tall aspect ratio that lets you see visitors from head to toe.

At its core, the Circle View is very similar to other video doorbells. It will ping your phone with a push notification when someone rings the doorbell, including a video thumbnail preview; you can view a live feed from your phone; and use the two-way speaker to talk to the person at the door like an intercom. The video feed is a tall 160-degree view, which is meant to let you see a person from head to toe or be able to see if a package was left on the stoop. It has a 5-megapixel sensor with 1200 x 1600 HD resolution and HDR functions resulting in image quality that generally looks good.

It also functions very well. Pulling up the video feed from my phone or an iPad is noticeably faster than with other video doorbells, likely due to the Circle View’s support for 5GHz Wi-Fi and my strong mesh Wi-Fi network (a must for any smart home). Push notifications to my phone and watch are nearly instant, though the thumbnail preview rarely loaded on my Apple Watch, just showing a gray square. The speaker and microphone work well for two-way communication, should you desire to ever use it (I don’t). If you’re watching something on an Apple TV when someone rings the bell, you will get a thumbnail preview right there on your TV screen (though you can’t do anything but see it).

The built-in nightlight comes on automatically and is searingly bright, which is unpleasant for those walking up to your door.

The Circle View has some functions that make it slightly unique. The built-in nightlight below the camera will come on automatically when it’s dark out to enable what Logitech calls “color night vision.” It allows you to view a full-color feed even at night, unlike the grayscale view that most other video doorbells offer, and it’s much nicer to use as a result. The light is either on or off — there’s very little in the way of customization — and it is searingly bright, which is unpleasant if you’re the person walking up to the door to press the doorbell. If you have a porch light, the built-in nightlight is unnecessary, and I ended up just turning it off permanently. One thing to note is the Circle View doesn’t have any sort of IR night vision (that grayscale view other cameras offer), so it doesn’t quite have the same range in the dark as others. But in my experience, the range it has with the color night vision is more than adequate.

From left to right: the Circle View’s image at night with the nightlight on, the nightlight off, and with a porchlight on.

The other thing that makes it unique is its support for Apple’s HomeKit platform. The Circle View is so committed to HomeKit that there isn’t even a Logitech app to set it up — everything related to the doorbell’s functions is handled in the Apple-developed Home app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. It also supports Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video, which when paired with a HomeKit hub such as an Apple TV, iPad, or HomePod, allows for storage of video clips in iCloud and face detection features. You can also use a HomePod or HomePod mini as a chime for the doorbell — though in my tests, this was less reliable than I had hoped, working about half the time.

The Apple Home app allows you to see a live feed, timeline of recorded events, control nearby smart home gadgets, and manage the features of the Circle View Doorbell.

The HomeKit Secure Video features require an iCloud subscription of 200GB per month or more and allow you to view up to 10 days of end-to-end-encrypted clips captured by the camera. The clips don’t count against your storage quota in iCloud, but the base plan only supports one camera. If you have other HomeKit Secure Video cameras in your home, you’ll need to pony up for the 2TB plan that handles up to five. If you have more than that, well, I’m sorry, five cameras is all HomeKit currently supports. The facial recognition features can tie into your Apple Photos library to identify certain visitors and even announce their names on a HomePod when they ring the doorbell. I didn’t find this function very useful. Most of the people in my Photos library are my own family, and they aren’t ringing the doorbell to their own home very often.

Within the Home app, you can view the camera’s feed, see a timeline of recorded clips (if you use HomeKit Secure Video), manage notifications, choose when the camera will record video, set up the face recognition features, turn on and off the nightlight, and customize the activity zones for motion detection. You can also set up automations that control other smart home devices when the doorbell detects motion. (Third-party HomeKit apps such as Eve’s will let you set up automations triggered by the doorbell’s built-in light sensor as well.)

While all of that sounds like a lot of options, it’s actually quite limited compared to other doorbells. There’s no way to customize the sound of the doorbell chime, like you can do with Ring or Nest, so forget about any fun holiday-themed chimes. Motion detection alerts cannot be limited to just people or vehicles, so the branches of the tree near my porch would cause the doorbell to ping my phone whenever the wind blew. While you can set an activity zone, you can’t adjust the sensitivity of the motion detection or limit alerts to certain times of the day. I ended up turning the motion detection alerts off entirely as a result. I also couldn’t use the motion detection to trigger automations because of how often it would get tripped.

The Circle View is much smaller than battery-powered doorbells like the Ring Video Doorbell 3.

All of those limitations are because the Circle View relies entirely on the Home app, so it can only do what Apple has built support for. A dedicated Logitech app, while obviously more cumbersome, would likely allow for more options and customization.

A dedicated app would also address the other big limitation with the Circle View: it doesn’t work with anything other than Apple’s devices and platform. That’s fine if you’re fully committed to HomeKit and don’t ever think you’re going to buy a different phone or use a different platform.

But if you share a home with just one person who isn’t fully invested in Apple’s ecosystem and uses an Android phone, the Circle View is effectively a dumb doorbell to them. There’s no way for them to get alerts on their phone when the bell is rung or to view the video feed.

The Circle View also doesn’t work with Amazon Alexa or Google Home, so forget about hearing chimes through an Amazon Echo or viewing the video feed on a Home Hub. (More advanced smart home enthusiasts who are working with platforms like Home Assistant can skip right past the Circle View, too. It doesn’t support any standard protocols.) You are tied to buying an iPhone and using HomeKit for as long as you have this doorbell installed. It’s much like the Apple Watch in that respect. The Circle View Doorbell is effectively an accessory to an iPhone.

Other doorbells may not integrate as nicely with Apple’s platform, but all of them at the very least offer apps for both iOS and Android to view video feeds and manage features. And most of them support Amazon’s and Google’s smart home platforms, giving you a lot more flexibility should you ever want to change things. In my experience covering and using smart home tech for the better part of a decade, limiting yourself to compatibility with just one platform is a recipe for disappointment and frustration down the road.

Still, there are obvious advantages if you’re okay with the Circle View’s limitations. Nothing is ever sent to Logitech’s cloud, so you don’t have to worry about yet another privacy policy or potential security issues. The video that’s stored in iCloud’s HomeKit Secure Video service is end-to-end encrypted, so only you and those you give access to in the Home app can view it. It’s about the closest thing you can get in terms of security to local storage for video clips (which, no, the Circle View doesn’t support) while still having easy access to them from anywhere you might be. You also don’t have to worry about police partnerships or unsavory social networks tied to your doorbell’s camera, as you might with other devices.

The Circle View’s privacy features and platform limitations align so closely with the features of products that Apple itself produces that you could almost imagine an Apple logo on the front of the doorbell instead of Logitech’s. It’s fast, performs the basics very well, and provides a sharp, detailed view of your doorway from your phone. If that’s what you’ve been waiting for from a video doorbell, and you’re not turned off by its limitations, then the Logitech Circle View is an easy choice.

Photography by Dan Seifert / The Verge

WhatsApp reportedly working on password protected encrypted chat backups

WhatsApp is reportedly working to increase the security of its cloud backups with a new password protection feature that’ll encrypt chat backups, making them accessible only to the user. WABetaInfo reported on the work-in-progress feature last year, and today it shared screenshots of how it could be presented in the service’s iOS and Android apps.

“To prevent unauthorized access to your iCloud Drive backup, you can set a password that will be used to encrypt future backups,” one of the screenshots reads. “This password will be required when you restore from the backup.” The app then asks the user to confirm their phone number, and select a password that’s at least eight characters long. Another screenshot warns that “WhatsApp will not be able to help recover forgotten passwords.”

• The chat database is already encrypted now (excluding media), but the algorithm is reversible and it’s not end-to-end encrypted.

• Local Android backups will be compatible with this feature.

The chat DB and media will be encrypted using a password that only you know. https://t.co/WAliLUnF18

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) March 8, 2021

Although WhatsApp chats are end-to-end encrypted, meaning they’re only visible to the sender and recipient, the service warns that this protection doesn’t extend to online backups stored on Google Drive and iCloud. Once on these servers, the security of the backups is the responsibility of the cloud service providers, who in the past have made them accessible to law enforcement authorities with valid search warrants. Encrypting the backups with a password only you know would theoretically prevent anyone from accessing your chat history without your authorization.

These latest reports about the feature come as WhatsApp’s reputation has taken a hit from a new privacy policy, which has stoked fears that it may store more information with parent company Facebook. Although WhatsApp insists the new policy doesn’t affect the security of users’ personal messages, rival messaging services like Signal and Telegram have seen a surge in interest as users explore other options.

WhatsApp declined to comment on the unannounced feature when contacted by The Verge, but WABetaInfo has a good track record of unearthing features before they become official. It’s spotted features like adding contacts via QR codes or disappearing messages long before their official announcements.

Oppo overtakes Huawei to lead Chinese smartphone market for first time

Oppo has become the best-selling smartphone brand in China for the first time ever, according to figures from Counterpoint Research. Counterpoint’s report says that Oppo managed to capture 21 percent of the world’s biggest smartphone market in January, ahead of Vivo and Huawei, which both achieved 20 percent. Apple and Xiaomi rounded out the top five with 16 percent apiece.

Oppo’s sales were up 26 percent year on year and increased 33 percent from the previous month. Counterpoint says that the new Reno 5 series had a successful launch due to offering better specs at a lower price point than the earlier Reno 4.

But for Oppo to gain market share, someone has to lose it, and the report shows that Huawei’s smartphone troubles are taking hold in China too. Counterpoint says Huawei has increased its focus on the premium market because of component shortages caused by US sanctions, so Chinese distributors have been focusing on other brands for volume. Huawei’s sale of Honor, which was also sparked by sanctions, will cut its market share down further, with Honor now considered a competitor as opposed to an asset.

These figures are just for one month, but Counterpoint expects Huawei’s share of the market to continue its decline throughout 2021. Oppo will look to capitalize on the opportunity with the launch of its latest flagship phone, the Find X3 Pro, which is being announced in full on Thursday. If you want an early look, the company just tweeted a teaser that doesn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination.

Tom King’s Vision comics are the perfect follow-up to WandaVision

Comics have never been bigger: with Marvel TV shows, DC movies, and indie adaptations growing by the day, comic books have never been more prominent in pop culture. This weekly Verge column recommends comic series new and old, whether you’re a longtime fan or a newcomer.

WandaVision’s season finale has hit Disney Plus, but if you’ve got a hankering for more surreal suburban comic book drama, look no further than Vision, a 12-issue run from writer Tom King and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta, which explores further the idea of a superhero trying to step back and start a family — no matter the cost.

What is it? Vision is a 12-issue comic series. While it lightly ties into the character’s past history over decades of comics, it’s largely a standalone story: Vision moves to the DC suburbs, and (literally) makes a family: a wife, Virginia, and two teenage kids, Viv and Vin.

Issue one drops readers right into the mix alongside the newly minted synthezoid family. Vision is trying to juggle his work as an Avenger (and as the superhero group’s government liaison) and as a new father and husband; Virginia works to fit into the neighborhood; and the twins struggle with teenage drama of trying to fit in at school (which is particularly hard given their robotic nature and superpowers). Later issues also include Sparky, a particularly adorable synthezoid dog.

It’s the kind of series that sees Vision battling a gigantic monster alongside the Avengers while also chatting on the phone with Virginia to sort out drama with the twins at school.

But throughout it all is a creeping sense of horror and dread, helped by an unseen narrator that promises throughout the issue that Vision’s seemingly perfect suburban life will end in tears. Things start out relatively benign, like neighbors who are unnerved by the family or a mean spray-painted slogan on the garage, but things quickly devolve into murder cover-ups as Vision and his new family start to get stuck in a web of lies, misunderstandings, and revenge.

If you enjoyed the slow burn of WandaVision, with super-heroic drama sandwiched between an unnerving illusion of home tranquility, Vision #1 (and the rest of the run) should offer plenty more fodder.

The series is great for newcomers to Vision as a character, too: interspersed across the run is a reexamination of pivotal moments in the artificial hero’s career, including his relationship with Wanda, their desire for a family, his time as a familiar-looking White Vision that has lost all his memories, and more. For MCU fans that are more familiar with Vision’s on-screen origin, it’s a good look at the original version of the character.

Ultimately, Vision is a compelling look at the foibles and follies of people, and an examination of what someone would be willing to do to protect their family. What could be more human than that?

Who’s it by? Vision was created by writer Tom King (also known for his recent run on Batman and his acclaimed Mister Miracle series), artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta, and colorist Jordie Bellaire.

Where can I read it? The entire twelve-issue run is available on the Marvel Unlimited subscription service. A digital collection is also available from Kindle / Comixology for $6.49, along with paperback and hardcover collections (which are a little pricier and harder to find).

The most powerful Wear OS watches are held back by Wear OS

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For the past month, I’ve been testing the two most powerful Wear OS watches you can buy: the TicWatch Pro 3 from Mobvoi and the Fossil Gen 5 LTE. They’re not spec-for-spec identical, but they do share a basic shape: big, chunky, round, and black. If you’re using Android and want a smartwatch, they’re at the top of a persistently tiny list of top-flight smartwatches.

Despite Wear OS’s reputation, both watches are perfectly competent and can do the basics of what many people want out of a smartwatch. Both also offer what I’d characterize as acceptable battery life: a full day most of the time, two at a stretch. The TicWatch can actually go much longer, thanks to a clever second screen layered on top of the first one.

But Wear OS does have that reputation: for years, watches that ran it have been slow, ran out of battery life quickly, and suffered from a tiny ecosystem of apps. Some of those problems have been solved, but that doesn’t mean that these watches (or, honestly, any smartwatch available to Android owners) lives up to the polish and features iPhone users can get with the Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch comparison isn’t really useful for Android users — it’s not and probably never will be an option. Instead, let’s just look at these two watches on their own terms.

The Mobvoi TicWatch 3 Pro

TicWatch Pro 3 review

At $299.99, the TicWatch Pro 3 is not an impulse buy. But the price is about right for what Mobvoi has created. It has pushed the limits of what Wear OS can do in two ways.

First, it has crammed the best technology it could get for a Wear OS device in here. One big differentiator for the TicWatch Pro 3 is that it is the only watch using Qualcomm’s latest smartwatch processor, the Snapdragon 4100. (More from Motorola and possibly OnePlus have been rumored to be coming this year.)

That processor makes the watch faster than other Wear OS devices — though it still can sometimes feel a step behind both Samsung’s Tizen-based watches and even Fitbits. It also accounts for some of the TicWatch’s battery life, which I’ve found can last two and even three days with all the bells and whistles turned on.

The second thing Mobvoi has done to push Wear OS is add a bunch of bells and whistles to make up for the platform’s missing features. The main thing it’s done is put an LCD panel on top of the regular OLED screen. This allows the TicWatch to go into a low power mode when it’s on standby and a super-low power mode when you need it to last for more than a few days on a charge.

Wear OS powers its fitness offerings with Google Fit, which has seen a few updates but is very far behind Apple’s fitness offerings. Mobvoi can’t fix that, but it has tried to fill in the gaps with its own suite of fitness apps on the watch. It even includes a blood oxygen sensor — though it’s no more accurate than the norm for smartwatches, which isn’t very good.

However, using them requires you to place a large amount of trust in Mobvoi the company — as the watch makes perfectly clear when you try to launch these apps, there’s no way to do that without sharing a bunch of information with Mobvoi. I applaud the transparency, but that still wasn’t enough to make me comfortable with it.

One thing to keep in mind with the TicWatch Pro 3: its aesthetics. It’s unapologetically a big, chunky watch. I don’t have huge wrists and it absolutely feels dominated by this thing. It is “honest” in its design, at least, in that it isn’t trying to look like a fancier watch than it is — right on down to the matte plastic lugs that hold the replaceable straps in place. I also wish it had a rotating crown for scrolling.

I ended up using the TicWatch Pro 3 like a bog standard Wear OS watch in the end, turning off its extra screen and sticking to Google Fit for fitness data. It absolutely did the job, but at $299 I think most people would be better off considering other options.

There is only one spec that the TicWatch lacks: LTE. For that, you’ll need to buy the Fossil.

The Fossil Gen 5 LTE

Fossil Gen 5 LTE review

I reviewed the original Fossil Gen 5 smartwatch in 2019, and I called it the “best of a Wear OS situation.” I think that (dubious) honor now goes to the TicWatch Pro 3, but if you need LTE, the $349 Fossil Gen 5 is one of two options you’ve got on Android (the other is Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 3 LTE).

Fortunately, the Fossil Gen 5 is essentially unchanged by the addition of LTE. If you’re willing to pay your carrier the extra monthly charges to turn it on, using the Gen 5 with LTE felt virtually the same as using it with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Even battery life didn’t seem to be a problem. I did notice the watch was more likely to hit two full days with LTE turned off, but I usually didn’t manage to drain it in a single day even when using mostly LTE. Sadly, Fossil also feels as though it needs to make up for Wear OS’s shortcomings by keeping its entirely too complicated battery saver features. A watch should never require users to dig into granular radio toggles.

It does still use the older Snapdragon 3100 processor, though it didn’t feel particularly slow as a result. Aesthetically, it’s very slightly different from the regular Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle that I own and it’s not that much smaller than the TicWatch, but subtle differences make it look just a little more premium.

All in all, if you must have an LTE smartwatch and you use Android, this is your best option if you really prefer Wear OS to Tizen. If you’re agnostic, I think the Galaxy Watch 3 with LTE is probably a better choice.

Wear OS watches

As I’ve been harping on for three years now, every smartwatch for Android involves some kind of compromise.

Samsung watches need a lot more apps and require you to install a lot of extra stuff on your phone to get them working.

Fitbits are great for fitness but not so great at integrating into Android. There’s also the not-so-little matter about the company now being owned by Google’s hardware division. The future of the entire Fitbit ecosystem is sort of up in the air right now.

And honestly, the future of Wear OS is also up in the air. There’s little movement lately in app support and though Google has done a decent enough job keeping the OS from falling into utter decay, it hasn’t done much more than that. It’s overdue for an overhaul.

There are likely more Wear OS watches coming that might be worth waiting for, but the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 remains the best option for traditional smartwatch stuff. At the end of the day, it’s difficult to recommend anybody spend three or four hundred dollars to get on board the rudderless Wear OS boat.

Both the TicWatch Pro 3 and the Fossil Gen 5 LTE are good enough smartwatches for what they are. It’s just that what they are is the best of an old platform with a questionable future.

Photography by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Sonos Roam will include Auto Trueplay and new ‘Sound Swap’ feature

On Tuesday, Sonos will introduce its latest product called the Sonos Roam, which The Verge extensively detailed a couple of days ago. Now I’m able to share a bit more about new functionality that will debut first on the tiny, take-everywhere speaker.

My previous report laid out the core specs of the Sonos Roam. Measuring 6.5 inches long and weighing around a pound, the portable speaker will offer up to 10 hours of battery life on a charge. Just like the Move, it will support voice commands for either Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. Sonos plans to sell it for $169, and the Roam will ship in April.

But now on to the new stuff:

The Sonos Roam will include automatic Trueplay.

Like the pricier, larger Move, Sonos is building its Auto Trueplay audio tuning feature right into the Roam. The speaker will use its built-in microphones to calibrate performance based on its surrounding environment. This can make a real difference in echoey rooms.
You can play songs over Bluetooth to your entire Sonos system.

Sonos has designed the Roam so that it can use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth simultaneously (with the Move, you had to choose one or the other). Connecting to both at once will allow you to play a song from your phone or another device nearby to the Roam over Bluetooth — and that music can then also be played across the rest of your Sonos multi-room system.
“Sound Swap” will let you pass off music from the Roam to another Sonos speaker.

Another new feature that’s exclusive to the Roam is what Sonos will call Sound Swap. If you hold down the play/pause button, the Roam will send the music it’s currently playing to whatever Sonos speaker is nearby. I don’t know the full details on this one, but my guess is that it involves using Bluetooth Low Energy to figure out which speaker is closest.
The Roam is rated IP67 for dust and water resistance.

This means it is fully dustproof and waterproof in up to one meter of water for up to 30 minutes. That puts the Roam on equal footing with the popular UE Wonderboom speaker.
No, you can’t use it as a surround speaker for the Sonos Arc or Beam.

The Roam can’t be used as part of a Sonos home theater setup. That’s not altogether surprising, since the same was true of the Move. If you’re looking for cheap surrounds for a Beam or Arc, your best options remain the One SL or the Ikea Symfonisk bookshelf speakers.

The photo at the top of this story is another new image that makes for an easy size comparison between the Roam and the larger, more expensive Sonos Move. And here’s what the optional wireless charger looks like:

The biggest question I can’t answer is how this thing sounds. Can Sonos make good on its sound quality track record with a speaker this small? I’m optimistic the answer will be yes — but don’t expect miracles.

Automatic Trueplay could help the Roam set itself apart from many of the Bluetooth speakers it will compete against. A UE Boom or JBL Charge will always sound the same no matter where you place them. But if the Roam can adapt in noticeable ways to its surroundings, that’ll be a differentiator. And that Sound Swap trick sure sounds like it would be useful for an eventual pair of Sonos headphones…

We’ll be covering any other news Sonos has to share on March 9th. Just in case there are still some surprises on the way.

Polar Verity Sense review: Adding heart rate to your workouts

(Pocket-lint) – Many have accepted that heart rate monitoring is part of their workout routine. With heart rate sensors now common on sports devices, we’ve come a long way from the dark days when such monitors were expensive devices exclusive to the sporting elite.

So with such wide availability of the hardware, is there a demand for something as simple as the Polar’s dedicated heart rate monitor, the Verity Sense?

Design and build

30 x 30 x 9.6mm, 5g
50m water resistance

The Polar Verity Sense is basically just the optical sensor, battery and connectivity hardware you might find in a sports watch, but in a neat button, measuring 30mm in diameter and just under 1cm thick.

The idea is that you can wear the sensor rather than having to wear a watch, or as an alternative to wearing a chest strap – which for many years was the mainstay of heart rate sensors. The Verity Sense is Polar’s second-gen device, improving on the OH1 in many ways.

Pocket-lint

The Verity Sense offers 50m water protection, designed for protection against swimming, so it’s more than happy to be sweated into too. That’s what it’s for – it’s a sports device you wear next to the skin, which means you’re going to be sweating into it a lot.

There’s a single button on one side to power on and off, and switch through the three different modes that it supports. On the opposite side is a coloured LED which will visually display the mode you’re in – blue when connected to another device, green when storing its own data, white when in swimming mode.

Wear and comfort

Strap and clip included
Goggle clip for swimmers

The Verity Sense is designed to be worn against the skin, clipping into a holder on an elasticated band which will keep it in place. This can be adjusted to fit, so will suit various sizes, designed to be worn on the fore or upper arm.

Best fitness trackers 2021: Top activity bands to buy today

By Britta O’Boyle
·
2 March 2021
· Updated

Our guide to the top fitness trackers available, helping you count steps, track calories, monitor your heart rate, sleep patterns and more.

Polar advises against wearing on it the wrist like a watch. Given the size of the strap, we think most people would struggle to wear it securely in that position anyway.

Pocket-lint

You basically wear it like a band and we found it easy just to slide it up the arm to a position where it was tight enough to stay in position, but not so tight that it’s uncomfortable. Having been cycling, running, and done plyometric exercises wearing the Verity Sense, we’ve found it stayed in place without a problem.

In that sense, it’s comfortable, more convenient and, for many people, more accessible than a chest strap. We only found ourselves adjusting it on a ride going over 2 hours and then you can move it down your arm a little, or tweak the strap a little to make it looser, if your arms have expanded slightly over the course of the activity you’re doing. The slider on the strap is easy to nudge a little to make it slightly looser on the move.

Being low profile also has a distinct advantage: you can fit the Verity Sense under long-sleeve tops easily. Even when wearing it under tight bike kit or compression gear, we didn’t find it a problem. Having fought with chunky sports watches under tight sleeves, it’s a welcome change – although wearing a chest strap under tight gear has never been a problem either.

Pocket-lint

It can, however, function just about anywhere that it can stay in contact with the skin – indeed a clip is supplied so you can wear it on your goggle strap when swimming, to get your pulse from your temple. We haven’t had the chance to test this in the pool, because the pools are closed at the time of writing, but we’ve worn it to check that it would get a reading through a layer of hair and it seems to work reliably.

Functions and connections

Three recording modes
Bluetooth and ANT+
Polar Flow app

Supporting Bluetooth and ANT+ means that the Verity Sense is compatible with a wide range of devices. Bluetooth is commonplace, allowing you to connect to your phone, laptop, or smart trainer like the Wahoo Kickr, and a whole lot more.

ANT+ is widely supported in sports devices, allowing connection to Peloton, Garmin Edge bike computers, and more.

Having both available means connections are a breeze, so you can setup whichever devices you want to benefit from Polar’s data. We found that connecting to the Hammerhead Karoo 2 was as straightforward as connecting any other sensor.

Pocket-lint

The Verity Sense will also support two simultaneous Bluetooth connections, so you can have it connected to different devices if you want to record and monitor heart rate on two different platforms at the same time.

There’s also the option to disable ANT+ if you never use it via the Polar Flow app – which is another aspect of this device. It’s managed via Polar’s app, so will need to connect to your phone for firmware updates or to download data you choose to save to the internal memory.

There are three modes of use. The first is as a heart rate sensor for another device. As described above, this will let Verity Sense supply live data via Bluetooth or ANT+ to be recorded or displayed elsewhere.

That might be using it with Apple Health or Strava to record a manual activity, with an indoor bike trainer or treadmill, or with bike computers to get a more complete set of data on your rides.

Pocket-lint

When used as a sensor, you don’t have to use Polar’s apps at all. The only time you’d need to use Polar’s apps are when using the other functions that it offers.

The second mode is to have the Verity Sense record the data itself. In this mode, as soon as you switch this mode on it will log the heart rate data to its internal storage, up until you turn it off.

It will hold up to 600 hours of data and you’ll have to sync to Polar Flow to extract the data, where you can then examine it. Bear in mind that it will be recording the whole time the device is on (with the green light showing), so that may well include all those breaks, any delay before you start, and so on.

This mode means you don’t need a phone or any other device nearby for that activity – and if you’re doing something where you don’t want to wear a watch, it’s especially useful. We’ve used it for workouts and it’s a useful feature, even if you can’t immediately figure out how you might apply it to your own exercise routine.

Pocket-lint

Finally there’s the swimming option. This gives additional support, using the internal sensors to detect turns in the pool. You’ll have to set the length of the pool in Polar Flow, but then you’ll get a readout of pace, distance and your heart rate for your swim.

Performance and battery life

20 hours battery life

What’s perhaps surprising about Polar’s optical heart rate sensor in the Verity Sense is that we’ve found it to behave itself better than some of Polar’s other devices, like the Vantage V, which was a little temperamental when we reviewed it.

That’s a good starting point for the Verity Sense, in that it acquires your heart rate quickly and sticks to it, avoiding some of the warm-up lag that sometimes plagues optical heart rate sensors. But it’s an accurate sensor too.

Pocket-lint

Comparing with a Garmin chest strap and a Garmin Fenix 6, we’re getting averages within a beat of those devices, hitting the same highs, seeing the same recovery drops when pausing at traffic lights or coasting downhill and so on.

What can send things out of sync slightly is the inability to control the activity time. As we said above, when using it to save data internally, it starts once the mode is set, and stops when you turn it off. (A little secret here – it doesn’t actually turn “off” it just stops measuring heart rate, because it will still sync with your phone once all the lights are off.)

The result is that, used as a standalone device, you will probably end up sandwiching your workout with non-exercise activity, which can pull the exercise average down. What’s perhaps more important to consider when used like this are the times spent in different zones – and Polar’s software will show you that sort of breakdown.

Pocket-lint

The good performance is backed up by solid battery life too. There’s a lot less demand on this type of device than there is on a watch – but 20 hours of recording is good going. That’s going to cover most people for most activities for a couple of weeks, if not longer.

Charging takes place via USB, by slipping the sensor into the supplied adaptor, so it’s nice and easy.

Verdict

For those who always monitor their activities with a phone – running with it, for example – the Polar Verity Sense is a way to easily add heart rate data to get a lot more information on what your body is doing. That might equally apply to anyone who doesn’t want to wear a watch, or can’t because you’re wearing gloves or something else around your wrists.

There’s immediate appeal for cyclists. With most bike computers supporting additional sensors, adding heart rate without a chest strap – and more affordably – makes the Polar Verity Sense a no brainer. That equally applies for indoor training too, something that’s seen a huge boom.

For many, the Polar Verity Sense is cheap enough to buy as an accessory for those times that you want to use it, even if you have another watch that will offer you heart rate monitoring, just because it is great to have the choice of a dedicated sensor in some situations.

Also consider

Pocket-lint

Polar H10

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Polar has a chest strap of its own, offering great performance and comfort. It supports ANT+ and multiple Bluetooth streams as well as standalone tracking mode.

Wahoo

Wahoo Tickr Fit

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Wahoo’s collection also includes a band-type optical heart-rate tracker, offering Bluetooth and ANT+ to easily get heart rate data into other devices.

Writing by Chris Hall.

The SEC is dragging AT&T to court for illegally duping analysts into lowering expectations

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is suing AT&T for providing nonpublic information to 20 different analyst firms so they would lower revenue estimates ahead of earnings, according to a press release. That let AT&T “beat” expectations for the quarter when the information-sharing took place, turning what could have been some nasty headlines in the financial press into a win instead.

According to the SEC’s complaint (PDF), AT&T learned in March 2016 that its quarterly results would fall short of estimates due in part to “a steeper-than-expected decline in smartphone sales.” As you might recall, we used to live in a world where carriers like AT&T subsidized part of the cost of your smartphone, but by then AT&T had passed that cost along to the customer — which meant far fewer customers were upgrading them every year or two.

This quarter was going to be AT&T’s worst-ever for smartphone upgrades: a record low of just 5 percent, according to the complaint. As a result, AT&T expected that its consolidated gross revenue “was expected to fall more than $1 billion below the consensus estimate.”

Here is what happened next, from the complaint:

Fearful of a revenue miss at the end of the quarter, AT&T’s Chief Financial Officer instructed AT&T’s IR Department to “work the analysts who still have equipment revenue too high.”

In turn, the Director of Investor Relations (“IR Director”) instructed Womack, Evans, and Black to speak to analysts privately on a one-by-one basis about their estimates in order to “walk the analysts down”—i.e., induce analysts to reduce their individual estimates. The goal was to induce enough analysts to lower their estimates so that the consensus revenue estimate would fall to the level that AT&T expected to report to the public—i.e., AT&T would not have a revenue miss, which would have been the company’s third consecutive quarterly miss.

In their calls, the three IR executives “intentionally disclosed material nonpublic information regarding AT&T’s results to date,” the SEC alleges. Of the 20 analyst firms listed in the complaint, all of them lowered their revenue estimates — and many took AT&T’s 5 percent number directly. The SEC suggests that AT&T’s executives hid the fact that these numbers weren’t the kind that are supposed to be shared, so analysts may not have known that they shouldn’t have had access to that information.

Executives emailed amongst themselves the day before its Q1 2016 earnings in relief, the complaint shows. The company’s CFO even apparently told the CEO that two analyst updates “may do it for us,” with the CEO replying, “Good.”

This is AT&T anxiously pushing analysts to lower estimates so that a single quarter of earnings doesn’t create bad headlines, even though the results stink. And it goes all the way to the top, per the SEC.

Just another reminder of what CEOs actually care about in private. pic.twitter.com/qxbMNvVsYQ

— Dave Benoit (@DaveCBenoit) March 5, 2021

AT&T ended up reporting $40.535 billion in revenue for Q1 2016, barely beating the revised consensus analyst estimates by less than $100 million, according to the complaint.

The company disputed the SEC’s allegations in a statement, claiming that “there was no disclosure of material nonpublic information”.

“The information discussed during these March and April 2016 conversations concerned the widely reported, industry-wide phase-out of subsidy programs for new smartphone purchases and the impact of this trend on smartphone upgrade rates and equipment revenue,” the company says.

“Not only did AT&T publicly disclose this trend on multiple occasions before the analyst calls in question, but AT&T also made clear that the declining phone sales had no material impact on its earnings,” it continued. “Analysts and the news media frequently wrote about this trend and investors understood that AT&T’s core business was selling connectivity (i.e., wireless service plans), not devices, and that smartphone sales were immaterial to the company’s earnings.”

The best free password manager

Using a password manager is one of the best steps you can take to protect your security online. A good password manager makes it easy to generate unique, strong passwords, and it will then securely save them so they’re available wherever you need them, whether that’s on your phone, laptop, tablet, or desktop computer. Basically, they take 90 percent of the work out of being safe online.

Hopefully, at this point everyone knows why it’s important to use a unique password for all of your accounts online. But the short version is that using one password everywhere means that if just one site you use gets hacked, an attacker potentially has the password that unlocks your entire online life. Breaches still matter if you use a password manager, but at that point it’s a case of resetting just one password rather than dozens.

Although different password managers have different selling points, most offer the same core set of features. They generate passwords which they securely store, and they’ll prompt you to save passwords when you use them on websites. They’ll also sync your passwords across devices and autofill them into websites and apps when required.

There are many good password managers available that charge a monthly fee, but for this guide we’re going to be focusing on free services. All of them have paid subscription tiers, but for most, the free tier offers the essential core features of a password manager.

Our pick for the best for most people is Bitwarden.

The best for most people: Bitwarden

Bitwarden has basically everything you could want out of a password manager. It’s available across iOS and Android; it has native desktop applications on Windows, macOS, and Linux; and it also integrates with every major browser including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge.

Bitwarden’s security has also been audited by a third-party security company, and although it uses the cloud to sync your passwords between devices, it says it stores them in an encrypted form that only you can unlock. You also have the option of protecting your Bitwarden account with two-factor authentication to provide an extra layer of security.

Importing our passwords was easy, and Bitwarden has guides for many popular password managers in its support pages. It supports biometric security on iOS and Android, and all of its software is nicely designed and easy to use.

Bitwarden does have paid tiers, but we think most people will be able to do without most of the features they offer. Paying gets you access to encrypted file attachments, more second-factor security options, and reports on the overall security of the passwords you have in use. But even on the free tier, you can perform checks to see if individual passwords have been leaked in a password breach. Paying also gets you access to a built-in one-time code generator for two-factor authentication, but it’s easy and arguably more secure to use a separate app for this.

Verge Score: 9

Good stuff: Well-designed apps and browser extensions; third-party security audit

Bad stuff: No bulk exposed password report with free tier; desktop prompt to save passwords a little small

Bitwarden

Runner-up

As part of our research, we also tried a variety of other password managers. Of these, Zoho Vault is another feature-packed free option, but its interface isn’t as good as Bitwarden’s.

Zoho Vault

Image: Zoho

Zoho Vault’s iOS and Android apps are nice enough, but its browser extension is a little clunky and buries useful features like its password generator behind one too many sub menus. It’s also unclear if the software has gone through a third-party security audit; the company didn’t respond to our query in time for publication.

Verge Score: 7.5

Good stuff: Cleanly designed apps; reports on strength of passwords

Bad stuff: Clunky browser extension; no native desktop apps

Zoho Vault

Also-rans

There were two other free password managers we felt weren’t up to Bitwarden and Zoho Vault’s standards. Norton Password Manager has the advantage of coming from a well-known cybersecurity company. But we found the way it attempts to simplify its setup process actually makes things more confusing, and Norton’s support pages didn’t do a great job at helping us work out where we’d gone wrong. Norton didn’t respond to our email asking whether the software has gone through a third-party security audit.

We also gave LogMeOnce a try, but we weren’t reassured by the presence of ads in its smartphone app. It also asked for many more permissions than the other password managers we tried. The company says this is necessary to enable its Mugshot feature, which attempts to give you information about unauthorized attempts to access your account, which is an optional feature. The company says it regularly hires third-party security researchers to test its products.

Until recently, LastPass would have been included as a free password manager, but it’s making some changes to its free tier on March 16th that mean it will be much less usable as a free password manager. After that date, free users will be able to view and manage passwords on just a single category of devices: mobile or computer. “Mobile” subscribers will have access to phones, tablets, and smartwatches, while “Computer” subscribers will be able to use the service across PCs, Macs, and browser extensions. Given how most people switch between these two classes of devices on a daily basis, we think this will severely limit how useful LastPass’ free tier will be for most people.

Our focus on simplicity also means we’ve excluded KeePass, a password manager that relies on third-party apps on non-Windows platforms. In addition, if you want to sync your passwords between devices, you have to use a third-party storage service such as Dropbox or Google Drive.

Beyond the free options, there’s a huge array of paid password managers out there. Some of these have free tiers, but they’re so restrictive that they’re effectively not usable as a day-to-day password manager. 1Password is perhaps the most well-known paid option, but others include NordPass, RememBear, Passwarden, Dashlane, RoboForm, and Enpass, all of which limit their free versions in ways that we think make them unsuitable for long-term use.

Finally, most modern internet browsers offer built-in password management features, but we think it’s worth taking the time to store your passwords in a standalone service. It gives you more flexibility to switch platforms and browsers in the future, and password managers also generally have interfaces that are better suited to the task of storing passwords. To make things simpler for yourself, you might want to turn off the built-in password manager in your browser once you’ve picked a standalone version to use, so you don’t run the risk of having passwords stored in two places at once.

Our Redmi Note 10 Pro (Max) video review is up

The Redmi Note 10 Pro is the best phone of the series that Xiaomi announced on Thursday, though the naming could have been better. In India fans will find an almost identical phone under the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max name (the key difference is the removal of NFC).

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro

The two phones are certainly similar enough that our written review applies to both. The same goes for our video review, which you can watch below.

The Note 10 Pro impresses with the value it brings on a modest budget. This €250 phone stands out with its 120 Hz AMOLED display, most phones in its price range switch to LCD in order to afford a high refresh rate. The other highlight is the 108 MP main camera that shoots flagship-level photos (though low light performance leaves something to be desired).

If you like what you see, the Redmi Note 10 Pro will become available globally on March 8 (Monday) and you’ll be able to grab one for $300/€250. India’s Redmi Note 10 Pro Max will be up on Mi.com and Amazon from March 18 (the starting price is INR 19,000 for a 6/64 GB unit).

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G and A72 support pages live in UAE

Just yesterday we came across a listing for Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy A52 5G from a Saudi Arabia retailer. Today we have more confirmation for its imminent launch as the phone’s official support page is live on Samsung UAE. In addition, the Galaxy A72’s support page has also gone up.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G and A72 4G support pages

Apart from the two images, we don’t get any specs of the devices. We do know from rumors that the A52 5G will offer a 6.5” Super AMOLED display with FHD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. The Snapdragon 750G is touted to sit at the helm alongside 8GB RAM and 128GB of expandable storage.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G (right) and A72 4G (left)

Other specs include a 64MP main camera alongside a 12MP ultra wide and two 5MP modules for macro shots and depth data. 4,500 mAh battery with 25W charging. Yesterday’s UAE retailer listing showed a SAR 1,650 price tag for the Galaxy A52 5G, which converts to $440/€365.

The Galaxy A72, which will also be available in a 5G version should offer a larger 6.7-inch FHD+ display with a 90Hz refresh rate (120Hz on the 5G version). The 4G model is expected to release with the Snapdragon 720G chipset while the 5G model should get an upgrade to the 750G like on the A52 5G.

Both the Galaxy A52 and A72 4G variants are expected to launch in India soon.

Source 1 • Source 2 (both in Arabic) | Via (in Dutch)

Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon Sound for high-quality, low-latency wireless audio

There are many ways for streaming audio to go wrong, especially if there is a wireless headset at the end of the chain. Qualcomm is aiming to address all of these issues with the new Snapdragon Sound platform.

On the phone end, the company has lined up the Snapdragon 800-series chips with the FastConnect 6900 connectivity system. For headsets and earbuds there are the QCC514x, QCC515x and QCC3056 series Bluetooth Audio SoCs.

Between them they support aptX Adaptive, which is capable of delivering high-quality 24-bit 96 kHz audio with very low latency – as low as 89 ms (45% lower than “a leading competitor”, says Qualcomm). For voice calls and teleconferencing there’s the aptX Voice codec. There is an Active Noise Cancellation system available as well.

The system has been designed to be resistant to interference from other Bluetooth or Wi-Fi signals, so that it can provide glitch-free audio even in busy environments. Qualcomm also designed things to make pairing easy after you take your new headset out of its box.

Standard Bluetooth audio vs. Snapdragon Sound vs. Wired headset • Super wideband voice

Xiaomi is the first smartphone maker to jump on the Snapdragon Sound train, headphone maker Audio-Technica is on board as well. A partnership with Amazon ensures that there will be no shortage of high quality content to listen to with the “genre-spanning” Snapdragon Sound playlist on Amazon Music HD.

If you don’t have an account for Amazon Music, you can check out this comparison on SoundCloud instead:

“Xiaomi is excited to be the first mobile manufacturer to bring Snapdragon Sound to devices. Snapdragon Sound will bring new high quality, seamless, low-latency audio experiences to our customers everywhere and provide better sound while engaging in voice calls, video conferencing, gaming and/or music listening.” said Lei Zhang, vice president of Mi Smartphone and general manager of Hardware R&D, Xiaomi.

“We believe that with Snapdragon Sound we get closer to our mutual vision of providing wired quality sound, wirelessly and are excited to be one of the first manufacturers to get our products to consumers,” said, Kotaro Narihara, director, general manager of marketing headquarters, Audio-Technica.

Source

Galaxy S21 sales take series to four-year high

Samsung has sold 590,000 devices from its Galaxy S21 series, a report from South Korea revealed. The numbers are the highest since the Galaxy S8 (620,000 units).

For the first month of sales, Galaxy S21 moved nearly twice as many units as the Galaxy S20 last year.

Representatives of the analyst company Atlas Research & Consulting, sitting behind the report, revealed the major reason was Samsung’s ability to expand its 5G presence while keeping low price tags, especially compared with the previous series.

The basic model of the Galaxy S21 started from KRW990,000 (about $870), while the vanilla Galaxy S20 cost nearly 20% more – KRW1,248,500 or over $1,100.

Samsung Galaxy A31

Samsung’s also had another reason to celebrate – its Galaxy A31 midranger became the best-selling phone on the domestic market.

Demand for low-end models in 2020 was unlike any other period – people preferred affordable mobile devices to stay connected during COVID-19.

Source (in Korean)

Realme 8 Pro may have surfaced at the FCC with a 4,500 mAh battery and 65W SuperDart Charge

CEO Madhav Sheth already revealed that the Realme 8 will have a 5,000 mAh battery with 30W Dart Charge, so you’d expect the Realme 8 Pro to go faster. And this could be the proof – FCC documents detailing a Realme RMX3081 have surfaced, which appears to be the Realme 8 Pro 4G.

The docs show that a 65W charger will be used to fill the phone’s 4,500 mAh battery (typical capacity). That matches the specs for the company’s SuperDart chargers and if the Realme 7 Pro is any indication (it has the same battery capacity), a full charge will take only 34 minutes with the battery going from 0% to 43% in the first 10 minutes.

RMX3081 – potentially the Realme 8 Pro – details from FCC documents

The phone will launch with Realme UI 2.0 out of the box, that is the company’s Android 11-based firmware. Again, this is the 4G version of the Realme 8 Pro, we expect to see a 5G version as well. Unofficial info suggests that the 4G model will be powered by the Snapdragon 730G.

The Realme 8 Pro is not focused on performance – it is all about the camera experience and the other half of Realme’s dual flagship strategy after the Realme GT launch yesterday. The company has already confirmed that the 8 Pro will have a 108 MP main camera based on the ISOCELL HM2 sensor (1/1.52”, 0.7 µm native pixels, 9-in-1 binning). The vanilla Realme 8 and the GT both have 64 MP main cams.

Realme has not set an announcement date for the 8-series just yet.

Source | Via

Red Magic 6 Pro’s 120W charging demoed on video, ends up faster than expected

Yesterday we saw the debut of nubia’s Red Magic 6 and 6 Pro gaming phones. The vanilla model comes with 65W fast charging while the Pro goes up to the ludicrous 120W mark which nubia claims it can do a full 0 to 100% charge in 17 just minutes. We now we have a demo video to see a real-world test thanks to Chinese blogger Zhong Wenze who timed how long it would take to charge the Red Magic 6 to 100%.

At the start of the video we can clearly see the phone holds a 3% charge. It quickly manages to go to 4% in just 10 seconds and then jumps to 15% after a minute on the 120W GaN (Gallium nitride) charger. Five minutes in and the Red Magic 6 Pro was at the 56% and fast forward by another 7 minutes the phone was sitting at 100%. That makes 12 minutes and 7 seconds for a 100% charge.

Obviously, this is not a scientific test but it does help us get a feel of how fast 120W charging actually is. On a side note, it would be interesting to see how hot the phone gets while charging at these speeds.

Source (in Chinese)