Gadgets

It there’s one thing Nothing’s first phone excelled at, it was bringing a bit of excitement to the staid world of smartphones. Shipments have been stagnating, slowing and contracting for the past several years, and are now at some of their lowest numbers in roughly a decade. The Phone (1) wasn’t a revolution, but it

Nature is healing, the tech show is returning to in-person events. I’m not sure I’m entirely over CES less than a month after returning from Vegas, but we’re already in full planning mode for TechCrunch’s return to Barcelona. We’ll be sending an extremely scaled-down team to this year’s event, but while we’re in Catalonia, we’d

Maybe nothing ever truly dies in Apple land. The Mac Pro went on an indefinite hiatus as the hardware design team regrouped and reengineered. MagSafe appeared to be gone forever, only to be reborn in altered form on MacBooks of recent vintage. Various models and sizes across different lines have been phased out, only to

Common wisdom in digital photography says that megapixels aren’t everything. They matter to an extent, but smartphone makers have a long history of leaning too heavily on those numbers as a kind of shorthand for camera quality. In other words, they play an important role but need to work in concert with a number of

Everyone’s talking about unplugging these days — climbing a mountain, trekking through the forest, finding your way to a truly secluded beach. Central to that concept is turning off notifications, uninstalling work apps or even — if you’re feeling especially brave — leaving the phone at home for a week or two. But is paradise

Movano Health turned heads at CES with an ouroboros-esque smart ring designed for women. In the crowded field of fitness wearables, where the mainstream heavy hitter of the Apple Watch heads up a very long tail of typically less pricey and/or more specialist activity tracking bracelets and bands all keen to claim their own patch

After a decade of frantic growth, China’s smartphone market is hitting a speed bump as COVID-19 roils the world’s second-largest economy. The country’s smartphone shipments dropped 14% year-over-year in 2022, reaching a ten-year low, according to research firm Counterpoint. It was also the first time that China’s handset sales had slid below 300 million units

Kano, the venture-backed U.K. startup known for its build-your-own computer kits and software for teaching coding and associated STEM skills, has accused Warner Bros. of copying one of its products and infringing on its intellectual property (IP). The product in question is the Harry Potter: Magic Caster Wand that Warner Bros. announced back in October, and which

The folks behind Nebia — the techy shower-head startup backed by Apple CEO Tim Cook and a host of other big names — have sold to Mark Cuban’s Brondell, which makes bidets, air purifiers and the like. The Nebia name and water-saving nozzles will live on following the deal, co-founders Philip Winter and Gabriel Parisi-Amon

Nobody is going to accuse Angry Miao of making boring keyboards (or earbuds). The company’s previous releases, The Cyberboard, Am Hatsu and Am AFA, are as overengineered as they are unique. When the company first started teasing its new 60% board, it almost looked too conventional to be an Angry Miao product, but keeping with

The M2 Air is as close as Apple has ever come to the perfect MacBook. It’s a kind of platonic ideal for the category, and the culmination of key updates to the product line, including the arrival (and upgrade) of Apple silicon and the company’s acceptance that some things (bad keyboards, Touch Bar) simply weren’t

Apple’s latest silicon innovations shine in the Mac Mini. The tiny desktop computer is the latest Apple computer fitted with the M2 chipset. For $599, buyers can opt for the M2, or they spend $1,299 for the impressive M2 Pro, which features unique benefits. For the last several days, my M1 Mac Mini sat on

Apple just dropped a refresh to the Mac Mini. The new version of the compact desktop arrives with a choice of last year’s M2 chip, or the freshly arrived M2 Pro. The system received a major refresh back in 2020, with the arrival of the first M1 chip. In his review, Matt called the system

There’s no big Apple event today (well, not in any traditional sense, at least), but the company’s got quite a bit of news to share this morning. In addition to the new Mac Mini, a pair of new MacBook Pros just dropped, sporting souped-up M2 chips. The 14- and 16-inch versions of the company’s high-end

One of two things likely happened here. Either Apple made a proper video before deciding this wasn’t quite enough to justify a proper “event,” or this is just how the company is going to treat smaller announcements, going forward. Given the number of Apple rumors swirling around at the moment, it also seems entirely plausible

Apple has resurrected the larger HomePod with a second-generation version that includes better sound, as well as better intelligence and computing smarts. The new HomePod retails for $299 and preorders kick off today, with in-store availability and shipping beginning in the U.S. and other select markets on Friday, February 3. Apple’s new HomePod includes two

Ditching HomePod was a strange choice. At the time, Apple told us, “HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers amazing sound, an intelligent assistant, and smart home control all for just $99. We are focusing our efforts on HomePod mini.” While the smart home hasn’t panned out precisely the

Back in 2017, Wyze made a name for itself with the launch of its original $20 security camera. Over the years, it released its fair share of iterations of the Wyze Cam, with version 3 launching in 2020. Today, it’s launching both a new iteration of the original Wyze Cam, dubbed the Wyze Cam OG,

The connected home gym gear craze probably experienced its zenith during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with indicators like Peloton’s fortunes pointing to waning interest as people get back to using their gym memberships. But the category still has plenty of potential, especially if the gear in question can combine smarts with other key

This was the CES of putting things on my face. I spent time with the Magic Leap 2, Meta Quest Pro, Vive XR Elite and PSVR2 over the course of a few days. All of those products fit in the same bucket, more or less. And then there’s the Dyson Zone, a product that, quite

Are you thinking about getting a mechanical keyboard and asked a friend which one to get? Chances are, they said: get a Keychron. It’s basically a meme at this point. After making its name with affordable mechanical keyboards (with a bit of a focus for Mac users) — the company now has something on offer

I vividly remember my first Vive experience. It was many CESes ago. I was managing a different site. Budgets were tight and I had the most on-the-ground experience, so I went solo. I had a different kind of fire back then, writing 100 stories over five days and walking every possible inch of the show

It’s a strange week. Strange and strangely familiar. You stay at the same hotel in a nearly identical room to the one you stayed in for the last 10 years or so. You see friends and colleagues you’ve not seen in a while. Everyone is three years older and a bit worse for wear. A

After years of denials and loathing, Apple may finally be getting around to bringing touchscreens to MacBooks. According to Bloomberg, Apple is actively working on this project and may break away from its long-standing approach of designing a traditional desktop system without a touchscreen. Apple could launch MacBooks with touchscreens by 2025 as a part

Here’s something that seems all but a guarantee: The way we purchase expensive electronics is going to change. Years after the U.S. began moving away from the carrier-based model of phone purchases, it seems as though we’re heading toward another sort of subscription model in the form of hardware as a service. Even with that

According to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is going to spend most of 2023 focusing on a brand new device — a mixed-reality headset that has been a work in progress for several years. The new device could look like a pair of ski goggles, based on an earlier report from The Information. It

At CES in Las Vegas this week, AnkerWork announced its brand new AnkerWork M650 Wireless Microphone. It’s a two-microphone kit that can be clipped (or magnetically attached) to your clothing. Perfect for video interviews or improving the quality on Zoom calls. The microphone includes high-quality audio and noise-cancellation technology wrapped up in a compact carry

You wait for years for a urine analysis company, then all of them hit their flow all at once. One of the notable trends at CES in Las Vegas this year was that the quantified-self movement is going deeper. No longer content with just measuring your heart rate, number of steps, and EKG on your

From the desk of ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea’ at CES in Las Vegas, comes 444. The early-stage startup is planning to combine pepper spray with some electronics so a potential attack victim’s friends can be notified when they’ve had to deploy the defence spray to get themselves out of a bind.

It’s the first official day of CES and our team has already located dozens of the coolest new gadgets, features, and weird concept cars that probably will never see the light of day. Halo (not Amazon’s Halo) has a wearable for babies that tracks heart rate, rollover, skin temperature, and movement. 10,000 steps a day