Juice up your Moto Z with this new mophie juice pack Moto Mod

There’s a new Moto Mod out there.

The Moto Z has many alluring features, but the ability to just pop a bigger battery on the back and instantly increase your range without the cumbersome wires of a portable battery pack or the fickle placement of a Qi charger is one of the most enviable.

Battery mods for the Moto Z family are great, but they aren’t cheap, and they don’t go on sale that often. Well, Verizon has put the mophie juice pack Moto Mod on sale for $79.99, and if you have a Moto Z, Moto Z Force, Moto Z Play, or one of Verizon’s Droid versions, you should seriously consider picking one up.

The mophie juice pack’s 3000mAh battery can give you back up to 60% of your battery life, extending your time away from a wall charger by hours. A LED indicator on the pack can let you know how much juice is left in the pack before you head out, and charging is a snap, literally. Snap the juice pack on the back of your Moto Z and the pack will recharge while your phone recharges. If that trickle-charge is to slow, the battery mod also has a USB-C port for fast charging.

For $80, it may not be the most versatile battery pack out there, but if you have a Moto Z, this battery pack is as good as it gets for topping off on the go. It’ll add three-tenths of an inch to the back of the phone, and in exchange will give your hours and hours of extra time out and about before you have to head for the charger.

See at Verizon

Master Python Programming for just $29

Learning to program with Python is not exactly the easiest process out there, but it is something that developers will have to conquer. Whether you are currently a programmer / developer or are looking to become one in the near future, odds are that you still have tons to learn. Unfortuantely, learning usually takes a lot of time and costs a decent amount as well, making it hard at times to justify doing it.

It doesn’t always have to be that way, though. Especially with amazing bundles like this Python Programming Pro bundle which gives you access to six great courses. From learning data analysis to programming with Python for beginners, these courses cover lots of information that you will find valuable.

The courses you’ll find in this bundle include:

• Data Analysis With Python and Pandas $37 Value
• Learn Python Django From Scratch $37 Value
• Python Web Programming $37 Value
• Data Visualization with Python and Matplotlib $37 Value
• Python Programming for Beginners $27 Value
• Python Game Development – Create a Flappy Bird Clone $17 Value

If you were to buy all of these courses individually you’d pay nearly $200, but right now you can grab the bundle for just $29, which is quite a deal. By the time you complete all of these courses you should be well on your way to being able to start development of your own game or web app.

Don’t miss out and then be forced to shell out the regular price of $200 for this bundle, you will thank yourself later.

See at Android Central Offers

4K movies start trickling into Google Play Movies ahead of official rollout

We want to escape into the movies, and that means we need images as vivid, crisp, and clean as we can get them.

While 4K offerings for your fancy new TV and your Chromecast Ultra might be slim right now, soon we may have a real selection of 4K content as Google Play Movies starts slipping 4K content into its store. Right now, a few lucky users are able to see some 4K movies but don’t go rushing for a concession stand just yet.

Some enterprising Redditors are seeing 4K content available in the store, but the list of films available isn’t even enough for an all-day movie marathon, consisting of films like Star Trek Beyond and Zoolander. In order to see the UHD films (maybe), you have to browse for the films in Google Play Movies rather than in the the Google Play store, and even then, it might not let you purchase them.

When the lucky users contacted Google support, they were allegedly told the feature isn’t rolled out yet. Lucky them for getting to see it at all, though, and for sharing it with the rest of us. During Google’s Chromecast Ultra announcements, 4K was slated to roll out in November, so hopefully we’ll all see this soon, as November’s halfway over already. While we may not all have 4K TVs yet, it’s nice to see 4K content starting to trickle into Google Play Movies. And when Disney releases Moana in 4K, I will be there, popcorn in hand.

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AMBER Alerts and Android: What you need to know

Emergency alerts on your Android smartphone are a good thing — even if they are a bit annoying sometimes!

Every so often — or frequently, depending on your tolerance level — you get an emergency alert on your phone. That horrible blaring of the emergency tone, the buzzing the vibration motor, and then the grim news. Someone’s missing. Or there’s a severe weather alert headed your way. Suddenly and without warning, your phone’s scaring the hell out of you. It’s bad enough during the day, and downright dreadful in the dead of night.

And that’s the idea.

The U.S. carriers have worked with the federal government to come up with a way to push alerts to your Android smartphone to warn you about dangerous weather, missing persons or other matters of grave national importance. The point is they want you to see this information in hopes that it could save your life — or someone else’s.

Here’s what you need to know about these emergency alerts and how you can control them on your Android phone.

What kind of emergency alerts are there?

There are three (or four, depending on how you’re counting) types of emergency alerts you can receive on your Android. They’re grouped into the less-dangerous-sounding “Cell Broadcast” heading, and include:

• Extreme threats: Classified as threats to your life and property, like an impending catastrophic weather event like a hurricane or tsunami.
• Severe threats: Less serious than the extreme threats, these could be the same types of situations, but on a smaller scale — stay safe, but you won’t need to pack up the car and head for the hills.
• AMBER alerts: These are specific alerts aimed at locating a missing child. Technically AMBER stands for “America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response.” But it was named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old who was kidnapped and killed in 1996. AMBER alerts can appear to be a bit cryptic, giving you the location of the alert, a car license plate number and the make, model, and color of the vehicle.
• Presidential alerts: These alerts will often fall into the “extreme threats” category, but are issued directly by the President of the United States and cannot be turned off in your phone’s settings.

What does an emergency or AMBER alert sound like?

It’s loud and annoying — particularly if you have a phone with really good speakers, or are with several people who have their phones out.

You’ll likely also find your phone is vibrating when an alert is issued.

How can I turn off emergency alerts on my Android?

Though you don’t have a choice as to whether you receive the presidential alerts, you can turn off the other types of alerts. We would recommend leaving them on, though, as the information could help you (or help you help someone else) in a time of danger. But if you want to familiarize yourself with the settings or tweak their parameters, here’s how you do it.

The settings will be found in a different place depending on what phone you have (yay, Android!) but the common theme is that the settings will be called “Cell Broadcasts.” The best way to start looking for them is to open up your settings, and if you have a search function to simply type in “cell broadcasts” or “emergency” — chances are the phone will present you with the settings right away. If you don’t have a search function, look under your sound, notification or display settings.

Here’s now things look in Android 7.1 Nougat, Android 6.0 Marshmallow and on a modern Samsung phone.

Depending on your phone, you’ll be able to toggle each of the alerts independently, choose how they alert you and whether or not they vibrate when you receive one.

Other helpful links for emergency and AMBER alerts

If you want to learn more about how emergency alerts are handled, we’ve compiled a group of handy resources:

• CTIA (The Wireless Association) and Wireless Emergency Alerts
• AmberAlert.gov
• Active AMBER Alerts
• FCC and Wireless Emergency Alerts
• For iOS: Alerts on your iPhone
• Alerts on your Windows Phone

This article was originally published in March, 2014. It was recently updated in November 2016 with up-to-date information about the AMBER Alert system running on the most recent versions of Android.

THING Launcher tries to cook up recipes for Android automation and magic

There’s another interesting launcher out there.

Looking for another smart launcher that ties into the apps and habits of your life? THING Launcher wants to be your next launcher. This launcher aims to automate your phone and your home as it listens to your life and watches you move from place to place and task to task. Like all launchers, it is a very rough start, but there is definitely potential.

By tying into apps like Spotify and Hue, along with your phone’s sensors and services like Bluetooth and GPS, THING allows you to create what it calls Agents, recipes not unlike Tasker or IFTTT, that will control your phone, your lights, and your Bluetooth devices either automatically or when you manually trigger them. It’s a nice idea, but the list of available services to tie into those Agents is small right now, and the UI for building these Agents is still a little rough.

More: Best Android Launchers

Rougher still is the way the home screen is laid out. You have a dock with five spots, one of which is the app drawer/Agents shortcut, then a revolving band of apps above it that ill re-arrange itself based off your habits and location. As with any smart sort, it takes some time to get to know you, and until it does, get ready for a lot of page flipping. You can use icon packs, but no individual icons, and the home screen grid is the standard (and ever so space-wasting) 4×4.

It’ll be interesting to see how this launcher develops, and as a free launcher, there are far worse ways to try an organize your digital life.

If you buy a Pixel to resell it, you may get your Google account banned

A cautionary tale for those wanting to make a profit on their Google Pixel.

Be careful where you buy your Google Pixel. That’s the message coming out of a series of banned accounts from people who bought Pixels in order to resell them, as first reported by Dan’s Deals.

Turns out that a few hundred people in New Hampshire purchased Pixels on behalf of a reseller, who then turned around and sold them at a profit to others. New Hampshire has no sales tax, which means the people buying them could sell them to the reseller at a profit, and the reseller could do the same. Oh, industry. That, according to the Google Store terms of service, is not allowed, and ended in the unceremonious ban and blocking of those accounts, some legitimate and some not. This lead to many people unable to access their Gmail or Google Drive content, with no immediate explanation.

There is good news, though: Google has restored the accounts of those who didn’t realize they were doing anything wrong. In a statement sent to Android Central, Google explains:

We identified a scheme in which consumers were asked to purchase Pixel devices on behalf of a reseller, who then marked-up the cost of those devices in order to resell them to other customers. We prohibit the commercial resale of devices purchased through Project Fi or the Google Store so everyone has an equal opportunity to purchase devices at a fair price. Many of the accounts suspended were created for the sole purpose of this scheme, but since some customers were not aware of these Terms of Sale and are now locked out of many Google services they rely on, we’re restoring access to these customers’ accounts.

A happy ending to a strange story, one that emphasizes how Google is trying to take more control over its product distribution as it inches more towards being a hardware vendor.

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These smart lights work with Amazon Alexa

Control your home’s lighting using Alexa and these smart bulbs.

Amazon offers an affordable way to start building out a voice-activated home automation system for your house or apartment with their Amazon Echo and Echo Dot powered by their A.I. assistant, Alexa. On its own, you can use Alexa to play music and find news, sports and other information. But things get really interesting when you start to connect Alexa up to smart devices, including connected LED bulbs and smart switches, around your house.

There are a number of light options compatible with Alexa. We’ve broken things down based on the different brands and ecosystems that each have their own compatibility with smart lights and smart switches that you’ll ultimately be able to control via Alexa on your Amazon Echo.

• Philips Hue
• Samsung SmartThings
• Insteon Hub
• WeMo switches and outlets
• Lutron dimmers and switches

Philips Hue

Philips Hue is the leader in smart bulbs, and are downright cool. You can connect up to 50 Philips Hue bulbs, lamps and lighting strips via the Philips Hue Bridge, so chances are you could convert all your home’s lighting over to the Philips Hue system. Whether you’re looking for 60W equivalent white LED bulbs, bulbs that feature 16 million colors, or LED light strips for futuristic accents, There’s a reason why so many people have gone with Philips Hue.

Alexa syncs right up to the Philips Hue Bridge, which means you’ll be able to set up different lighting groups for your rooms andIFTTT recipes on your phone, then also control everything with the sound of your voice via your Amazon Echo. There’s a lot of fun to be had here, as Philips Hue lights can be synced up to your music for epic dance parties, and otherwise customized in countless different ways to suit your lifestyle.

If you’re interested in getting started with Philips Hue, you’re best off getting a starter kit. There are a couple different options to consider:

• Philips Hue Starter Kit w/ two bulbs and one Bridge — $69.99 on Amazon
• Philips Hue Starter Kit w/ two bulbs, one bridge and an Amazon Echo Dot — $99.99 on Amazon
• Philips Hue Starter Kit w/ two A19 bulbs, one Bridge and one Dimmer switch — $125.47 on Amazon
• Philips Hue Starter Kit w/ three White and Color Ambiance bulbs and one Bridge — $142.77 on Amazon

No matter which starter kit you choose, the beautiful part of going with Philips Hue is that it’s super easy to add extra bulbs or other elements to your ecosystem later.

Samsung SmartThings

SmartThings provides a full suite of options for home automation, which includes a few options for smart lights. You’ll need a [SmartThings Hub] to get started, but from there you can connect plug-in smart switches for appliances, lamps and outdoors, and in-wall dimmers which support dimmable LED and CFL technologies along with legacy support for incandescent, halogen, Mark 10, and magnetic lighting loads.

You can also connect smart bulbs from Philips Hue or Osram to your SmartThings Hub, along with a host of other super handy home automation products that all work within the SmartThings ecosystem.

If you’re mainly interested in smart lights, you can get a SmartThings Hub and an Osram bulb bundle. If complete home automation is your ultimate goal, you might be more interested in the SmartThings Home Monitoring Kit, then build your own lighting arsenal from the available SmartThings-compatible lighting options.

Insteon Hub

Insteon’s offerings for smart home lighting mostly include in-wall dimmers and switches and plug-in dimmers. They do offer their own programmable, dimmable LED bulbs, available in two styles: 8W LED bulbs and 12-watt recessed bulbs. You can use the Insteon app to set bulbs into groups for scheduling and creating scenes, then take control via Alexa.

To start building out your Insteon smart lighting ecosystem, you should get the Insteon Starter Kit, which comes with the necessary Hub, and two Dimmer Plugs, perfect for setting up a voice controlled bedside lamp. From there, you’ll need to buy compatible bulbs as you need them.

Insteon’s system is a decent option for those looking for home automation, but overall their lighting options are somewhat lacking.

WeMo switches and outlets

WeMo offers Wi-Fi enabled smart switches and outlets that you can control via Alexa. The WeMo Light Switch can be used to replace any light switch in your home, letting you schedule and control your lights and appliances without the need of a central hub.

This one is better for the DIYers out there who are interested in manually creating their own home automation network with in-wall switches and plug-in adapters to control lamps and other small appliances. Those looking for hassle-free installation and smart bulb options are best looking elsewhere.

Lutron dimmers and switches

Lutron Caseta Wireless products offer a selection of smart dimmers and switches that connect via the Caseta Wireless Smart Bridge. Connect your Smart Bridge to Alexa allows you to control all the dimmers and switches with your voice.

Check out the Lutron Caseta Wireless Smart Lighting In-Wall Dimmer Kit or the Plug-in Dimmer Kit to see what this system is all about. This is another route that’s going to require DIY effort with initial setup and is also lacking branded LED bulb options, but the Hub is compatible with a bunch of other smart devices from leading brands including Ecobee, Nest, Honeywell, Logitech, and Sonos.

Which should you get?

Thanks to Alexa’s compatibility with a variety of smart light systems, you’ve got several great options for automating and customizing your home. Which system you go with will greatly depending on your current living situation.

If you’re living in an apartment and are just looking to control some funky lighting options via Alexa voice controls, Philips Hue is your best bet. Buying a starter kit is a great investment that you can take with you as you move — and with the lifespan of LED lighting well exceeding a decade, you’ll enjoy the freedom to rearrange, expand and easily move your Philips system wherever you go.

If you’re a homeowner looking to integrate IoT devices throughout your home, you’ll want to buy an Alexa-compatible hub that shares a wide range of compatibility with other brands and products, such as SmartThings or even a Wink Hub 2, then build out your smart bulb and other devices to the exact specifications of your home.

And if you’re in the process of planning a home renovation, it might be worth looking at WeMo, Insteon, and Lutron’s in-wall switches or dimmers to convert your existing home wiring into a smart lighting system that you can then control with your voice. Don’t just update the look of your home — upgrade its functionality, then let Alexa control it all with the power of your own voice.