Google’s Pixel 2 codenames may have been revealed — and yes, they’re still fish

Apparently, the company still loves fish.

The codenames for Google’s next two flagship smartphones may have been revealed in official documentation. According to some sleuthing from Android Police, “Walleye” and “Muskie” may be the monikers used to refer to Google’s next two Pixel devices (the different names denote different sizes), carrying on a long tradition of marine-themed codenames.

Only the name Walleye has been mentioned in the Android Open Source Project’s gerrit, or code repository. Muskie has yet to make a debut officially.

For the uninitiated, Google typically employs the names of water-dwelling creatures as aliases for its upcoming smartphones and tablets. For instance, the original Pixel was referred to as Sailfish. Beyond this, there’s not much more information about what’s coming from Google’s next phone debut.

But we can certainly infer that Google will continue this tried-and-true tradition of naming its devices after varying underwater species — at least internally.

Google Pixel + Pixel XL

• Google Pixel and Pixel XL review
• Google Pixel XL review: A U.S. perspective
• Google Pixel FAQ: Should you upgrade?
• Pixel + Pixel XL specs
• Understanding Android 7.1 Nougat
• Join the discussion in the forums!

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Snapchat Widget: How to add Bitmoji chat shortcuts to your home screen

Snapchat has updated to allow users to create shortcuts of their best friends’ Bitmoji and add them to their home screen.

These nifty shortcuts appear in a new Snapchat Widget that’s rolling out. If you tap a shortcut, it will immediately open a text chat with that friend. Here’s how the new feature works, including how to set it up.

What is Bitmoji on Snapchat?

Bitmoji allows you to create your own emoji that look like you. Snapchat bought Bitstrips, the startup behind Bitmoji, a couple years ago. The acquisition was worth a reported $100 million, but it was unclear at the time how the product would be integrated into Snapchat. Since then, Snapchat has begun letting users customise Bitmoji and send them each other.

First, download the Bitmoji app and link it with your Snapchat account (follow on-screen prompts). You’ll need the latest versions of both apps installed. If you and a friend have set up Bitmoji in Snapchat, you’ll both see “friendmojis” (aka stickers) that include the two of you. You can send them in a chat or snap. Go here to learn more about how Bitmoji works in Snapchat.

What are Bitmoji shortcuts?

Ever create a shortcut to a webpage on your mobile device? The Snapchat Widget works the same way. You can add a shortcut to a friend in your Snapchat Widget on the Today screen (iOS) or home screen (Android), depending on the device you use. The idea is that, if you constantly send someone chats or snaps in Snapchat, you can tap his or her shortcut to easily begin chatting with them.

How does the Snapchat Widget work?

Only best friends with Bitmoji will show up in the Snapchat Widget, so make sure that they have a Bitmoji account active and linked to Snapchat. Also, if you have an iOS device, the Snapchat Widget will only display on the Today screen, but if you have an Android, you can put it wherever you want on the home screen. Got it? Cool.

Now, follow these steps:

iOS

• Swipe right from your home screen to bring up your Today view.
• Scroll down to the bottom, and tap the Edit button.
• Tap the + button next to the Snapchat Widget to add it to your Today view.
• All your Best Friends with Bitmoji will automatically be placed in the widget.
• Just tap a friend’s Bitmoji shortcut to chat.

Android

• Press and hold on an empty space on your home screen.
• Tap Widgets, then select the Snapchat Widget.
• Chose whether to place just one friend or several.
• Place the widget wherever you want.
• Just tap a friend’s Bitmoji shortcut to chat.

What are ‘Best friends’ in Snapchat?

Best Friends are the friends you send snaps and chats to most frequently. You’ll see Best Friends in the My Friends screen, and also in the Send To screen you see before sending a snap. Nobody but you can see your list of Best Friends, which is refreshed regularly.

When will Snapchat Widget be available?

Snapchat is updating now for all Android and iOS users, so expect the feature to appear soon.

Want to know more?

Check out Snapchat’s Help hub for more tips. Also, if you need more details on Snapchat, Pocket-lint has this guide:

• What’s the point of Snapchat and how does it work?

Will Samsung finally show its Galaxy X foldable smartphone at IFA 2017?

Samsung’s long-rumoured foldable smartphone might soon debut. 

Information about the phone, often dubbed the Galaxy X, has been slowly leaking out over the past couple years, with the latest reports indicating that the company is developing a version that is able to fold out and transform into a 7-inch tablet. Now, a new report from ET News said Samsung is planning to start production of a prototype of the foldable smartphone, with the goal of launching it soon after.

The Korean media is claiming Samsung will have it ready for show in Q3, around the time that an OLED iPhone 8 may be announced. Samsung will be monitoring the quality of the prototypes internally before producing a consumer version of the phone, which could launch sometime toward the end of 2018. That means the prototype may show up at IFA 2017, which is set to kick off in early September. 

• Best smartphones 2017: The best phones available to buy today

However, previous rumors said a commercial model would release in the third quarter of the year. The Korea Herald even Samsung may roll out more than “100,000 units of fold-out devices” later on this year. It’s unclear when the finished model will actually debut, but keep in mind it is not uncommon for Samsung to demo tech first. For instance, it first showed off a flexible OLED screen at SID 2016.

Before being known as the Galaxy X, Samsung’s folding phone had the code name Project Valley.

Netflix will help finish Orson Welles’ last film

Netflix is normally focused on landing rights for hot upcoming projects. However, its latest coup is decidedly different — it’s a movie that’s four decades overdue. The streaming service has acquired the rights to The Other Side of the Wind, an Orson Welles movie that has been stuck in production limbo since the 1970s. Two members of the original crew, star Peter Bogdanovich and production manager Frank Marshall, will help oversee the creative side of things alongside producer Filip Jan Rymsza. Netflix, as you might guess, is mainly around to finance and distribute the movie worldwide.

The film, which pokes fun at an avantgarde director who plans a comeback, was mainly held back by shifting movie rights and the resulting changes in creative priorities. No one agreed on how to finish it, to put it bluntly. Things didn’t start truly moving until 2014, when Bogdanovich, Marshall and Rymsza bought the rights to the footage. While they didn’t get very far with a crowdfunding campaign to finish the movie on their own terms, that’s when Netflix came in to save the day.

There’s no mention of a release date for Other Side, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Rymsza tells the New York Times that Netflix saves his team from having to rush the effort. And regardless of when the title comes out, it could prove to be a useful experiment for Netflix. Most of its larger deals for classic content involve reboots or follow-ups. This wouldn’t just gauge the market for offering other big-name vintage movies — it could raise the possibility of snapping up all kinds of productions that wouldn’t otherwise get a second chance.

Source: Allison Willmore (Twitter), New York Times

Trump to sign sweeping rollback of Obama-era climate change rules

Donald Trump is poised to sign an executive order that will dramatically reduce the role that climate change has in governmental decision-making. The order could impact everything from energy policy to appliance standards.

The order is specifically targeting the former president’s climate policy. It will have Trump’s cabinet rewrite carbon emission rules for new and existing power plants and restart federal coal leasing (wherein energy companies are sold the rights to mine for coal on federal lands). It will also effectively prevent the impact on climate change from being considered in federal actions as part of the government’s National Environmental Policy Act reviews, such as for the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The “social cost of carbon”, a metric used by the Obama administration that takes into account societal impacts of global warming, will also be repealed.

Fossil fuel advocates are, unsurprisingly, overjoyed at the prospect of these repeals. “President Obama created such a labyrinth of rules and orders and regulations to cement his agenda across practically every agency,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told Bloomberg. “It was designed to put into the mission of the agencies climate change first and make the rest of their mission second. This was a constraint deliberately set up by the previous administration to make it difficult to utilize coal, oil and natural gas.”

Scientists and environmental groups are, conversely, deeply troubled by the news. “While it’s painful to watch a rollback of standards that took significant effort and input to put in place, the Trump administration will need to follow laws and regulations such as the Clean Air Act and Administrative Procedure Act before knocking down regulations,” Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown University Climate Center, told the Washington Post. “It’s not as simple as kicking over toy building blocks.”

This news comes days after the Trump administration vowed to slash EPA funding and the agency’s head, Scott Pruitt, claimed without an iota of evidence that carbon has no effect on global warming. There’s no word on when exactly Trump will sign the EO, though it could be as early as this week and, as Arroyo pointed out, there’s no set date for these changes to occur once it is signed. Some changes, like the federal coal leasing, will likely take effect immediately while the more sweeping rule changes will take a couple years to complete.

Via: Washington Post

Source: Bloomberg

‘Parappa The Rapper Remastered’ comes to PS4 on April 4th

Downloading games from digital platforms is one of the great boons of our internet-equipped future, but holiday sales ramp up their value to a whole other level. But they also periodically run small flash sales to highlight overlooked titles. ‘Play Collective’ is a new promotion giving discounts on a handpicked selection of games coming into the PlayStation Store. PS Plus members knock 20 percent off the sticker price of six titles, including a couple remastered old friends from gaming days past: Parappa The Rapper and the LucasArts classic Full Throttle.

If digging into text adventure and rap rhythm gems of yore isn’t your thing, the other games in the promotion sample other genres. Everything is a long-awaited reality sim letting players inhabit, well, everything in the game. Rain World follows a slugcat’s treacherous journey plumbing subterranea to find its lost family. Cosmic Star Heroine is a 16-bit RPG throwback following a space-roaming spy uncovering a conspiracy to end life in the cosmos. The last, What Remains of Edith Finch, puts players in the titular Edith’s first-person shoes as she explores her cursed family’s Washington home and discover why she’s the last of her name.

Since ‘Play Collective’ is more a curated Editor’s Pick list than a batch sale, titles will slowly launch over a six-week rollout, starting with Everything on March 21st and ending with Edith Finch on April 25th. Just remember that the discount only applies to preorders, so lock those in before each game goes live.

Source: PlayStation Blog

DeepMind AI learns to ‘remember’ previous knowledge

For all the talk of artificial intelligence becoming increasingly brain-like, there’s one area where it frequently falls short: memory. Neural networks usually have to learn everything they need to know about their duties, rather than building on top of existing experiences like real brains do. Alphabet’s DeepMind team hopes to fix that. They’ve crafted an algorithm that lets a neural network ‘remember’ past knowledge and learn more effectively. The approach is similar to how your own mind works, and might even provide insights into the functioning of human minds.

Much like real synapses, which tend to preserve connections between neurons when they’ve been useful in the past, the algorithm (known as Elastic Weight Consideration) decides how important a given connection is to its associated task. Ask the neural network to learn a new task and the algorithm will safeguard the most valuable connections, linking them to new tasks when relevant. In tests with 10 classic Atari video games, the AI didn’t need learn how to play each game in isolation. It could learn them sequentially, taking the knowledge accrued in one game and applying it to the other.

The technology is more than a little rough around the edges. It’s a jack of all trades, but a master of none. A single-task neural network is still better when limited to one game, DeepMind’s James Kirkpatrick says to Wired. It’s also not ready to adapt to situations on the spot. The algorithm shows that it’s at least possible to give AI memory-like functions, however. And what DeepMind has learned here could shed light on how real brains consolidate information — it may well validate theories that have existed for years.

Via: Wired

Source: DeepMind, PNAS

Kesha’s internet advice: Don’t read the comments

Online bullying is a huge problem for nearly all internet users but especially youth. At a SXSW talk about reclaiming the internet, international pop star Kesha talked about her issues with social networks and her love of animals.

During the conversation with Refinery29 chief content officer, Amy Emmerich that focused on the singer’s online experience, Emmerich asked Kesha what her advice was for 13 year olds about to sign up for Instagram. She said that for her, she had to stop reading the comments.

“I use the internet to connect to my fans. But aside from that, it’s not healthy place for me. I kind of limit myself in terms of reading the comments because there can be a million positive ones but I always gravitate to the one negative one,” Kesha said to a packed auditorium. “So I stopped reading comments. I don’t know if that helps everyone. Make sure you’re not hurting yourself with it.”

Kesha also talked about the difference between when she was bullied as a kid and could go home and escape by writing music and how children today get harassed at school then get home and get tormented online. She’s currently an anti-bullying advocate and has recorded a PSA.

While the focus was on taking back the internet. Kesha also touched on some lighter notes of online life. More spefifically her love of animals and her dream of a magical future. Ending on a high note, Kesha told the audience, “secretly, my goal is to live on an island full of cats.” That’s our dream too. No comments can convince us otherwise.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from SXSW 2017.

Elgato Avea Flare – portable mood lighting in the form of an adorable egg

Before I start in on this charming little LED Egg, let me just say that the box it came in was absolutely infuriating. Every single component was wrapped in what can only be described as cardboard origami that was an absolute bitch to extricate it from. The egg (for I refuse to call it anything but – just look at the thing) is itself quite a bit bigger than I would have expected from pictures – usually, when you read “portable” as an adjective describing an item, you expect it to fit in your pocket. But in this case, “portable” means “a seven-inch tall, four-inch wide textured white egg that kind of sort of fits in your hand, if you’ve the hands of Kawhi Leonard.”

No, this is NOT Photoshopped.

Now that we’ve gotten my signature ramble out of the way, we can actually talk about the Elgato Avea Flare. As mentioned above, the Flare is advertised as a Portable Mood Light. I’m not sure what, exactly, that phrase means beyond the scope of the literal definition of the words that comprise it, but I can say that I’ve found very little practical use for the thing, though it is a rather entertaining little piece.

After you get past the copious amount of cardboard packaging, the process of setting up the Flare gets significantly easier. Pairing is simple – you just turn on the egg, download the Avea App from the Play Store, place your phone close to the egg…voila. Paired and ready to create moods – portably (that’s probably not a word. I don’t care). A slight beef, though; having the egg pair simply by connecting to the closest phone seems kind of insecure – perhaps some interface within the app to manage devices that can control the egg would be more efficient and secure. A hard pair using Bluetooth would also make it easier to stay connected to the app, which has a tendency to lose pairing when you move to a different app.

Power and Mode buttons, wireless contacts, and hanging hook.

In-hand, the Avea is really light; the textured, soft white exterior almost feels cheap when combined with the lightness of the egg, but the IP65 rating slapped on the sucker seems to imply that it’s at least moderately resistant to ingress. There are two buttons on the bottom of the egg – Power and Mode. The former, obviously, powers the Flare on, which, even when dimmed, will allow you to command it with your smartphone. The latter button, meanwhile, will either dim or brighten the current color of the egg – something that can also be done from the app itself – or dim it to black altogether. While both buttons have a rubberized feel and a solid click to them, I wish there were LEDs within the buttons to let you know what state each is in.

Also on the bottom of the Flare is a wireless charging contact, which lets you painlessly charge the egg by dropping it on the included wireless charging pad. When it’s not charging the egg lasts up to eight hours on a single charge, which isn’t bad at all. A convenient hanging hook is hinged to the base, which is at once very useful and also not very well-designed. It doesn’t sit flush with the egg bottom, which is rather annoying.

Used the Avea as a mood light for Dungeons & Dragons night. Nailed it.

The actual quality of the light is quite good – bright, vivid colors from all across the spectrum set any mood you could possibly want, though the brightness of the egg is, predictably, not particularly bright. If the mood you’re going for is “a well-lit room,” you’ll probably fail in setting that tone. Transitions between brightness and shades is at once smooth and slow – I wish it was a bit faster, personally. The app has a number of preset color profiles: Magic Hour, Cherry Blossom, Calm Provence, Mountain Breeze, among others – including a rather useful “Wake-Up Light” that slowly brightens your room at a specified time and uses your phone to play sounds or music at increasing volumes to wake you up. It’s a nice touch, but I’d like to see a scheduling option.

App home screen.

And on that note, I’d love to have seen Elgato integrate a speaker into this little bad boy – how better to set a mood than to be able to play music to go with your light and to have the light react to the change in tempo and pitch? I feel like this addition would make the Flare significantly more worthy of the $99.95 retail price – though that price without the speaker isn’t terribly exorbitant.

The app a ridiculously simple affair with relatively few options – all you can really do is pick one of the pre-configured profiles or a solid color, and modify the vividness and brightness. I’d have loved to see the ability to create your own profile – and choose the pace and brightness of a number of colors the egg cycles through. The app can connect to multiple Avea products, and shows the battery life of each device right in the device list.

On the whole, the Elgato Avea Flare performs exactly as you’d expect it to – it’s an LED-powered egg with a couple unique features that set it apart, and for those features, you pay a bit of a premium.

$99.95 MSRP/ $86.99 Amazon

New Balance RunIQ and PaceIQ review

Fitness watches – they’re what many wearables have migrated towards since the inception of the technology, as they can provide us useful information and metrics such as heart rate, step count, and now even reps from your weights. While we’ve seen a steady development in the functionality of this hardware, much of the core components have remained the same. Battery technology has gotten slightly better over the last couple years, but that is mainly due to software, not hardware. So what does one watch offer over the many, many others available on the market? Often it will be slightly custom software, sometimes an extra button, but most of the time, it is a minor tweak to both these things.

So what has New Balance, a shoe company, done to make their watch stand out? There’s quite a lot going on here, from the specialized hardware buttons to the sensors made to track your body to a super finite degree.

With a built-in GPS, optical heart rate monitor, a solid water resistance rating, and integrated Strava running software, there is a lot to like here. Since it runs Android Wear, you still get all the same benefits of the OS, including the ability to download music directly onto your watch.

So does the RunIQ warrant its high $300 price tag? What about New Balance’s PaceIQ fitness earbuds? Find out in our full New Balance RunIQ and PaceIQ review!

See also:

Best fitness trackers

2 days ago

Design

There’s no doubting that New Balance is aiming this watch at the sports/fitness crowd here. It has a relatively large 1.39-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 400 x 400 that shows up great in direct sunlight, and doesn’t need a separate proximity sensor to dim the screen when you don’t need it. The pixel density comes in at 287ppi, so while you’re obviously not going to get smartphone resolution on this thing, it is still more than decent for a smartwatch.

It doesn’t feel a huge amount larger than a traditional sports watch

Though relatively thick, it doesn’t feel a huge amount larger than a traditional sports watch. Quite honestly, there are a number of traditional watches that are much more hefty than this thing, even with all the included internals and sensors. The bezel raises slightly from the surface of the touchscreen, likely to protect it from getting smashed if you trip while on a run. The casing is made of a hard plastic which feels very solid for what it is, and would likely only come away with a number of scratches and scuffs if you were to land on it directly. Though, if this were the case, your wrist would likely be in a lot more trouble than your watch.

Unfortunately, the three physical buttons aren’t reprogrammable

There are three buttons attached to the right side of the device, each with varied functionality. While it would have been nice to be able to be able to reprogram these to your own liking, New Balance it really pushing running functionality with the watch. A quick tap of the top button will instantly launch Strava, which is interestingly built right into the watch, with no separate app “technically” required on your phone in order to view current metrics, though you will have to download the full Strava app in order to see your route and historical data. This app in particular is full-fledged, with four different screens showing distance, time, BPM, steps, and a lap counter. There are also music controls built in here, which syncs with Google Play Music to play whatever tracks or playlist you run to best.

The center lug essentially works as a ‘back’ button, returning you to previous screens without the need to swipe applications away. This will also turn on and off the screen depending on if you’re sitting on the watch face home screen. You can also hold the button while on the home screen to open up the app menu, where you will be able to select the local apps that have custom functionality with Android Wear. There isn’t much functionality past this, but it is another method of interactive with the watch if you would prefer not to swipe around the display.

Don’t miss:

Best Android Wear watches

6 days ago

The bottom button controls playback of music. When you tap it, you get the option to play music either on the watch, or from your phone. Since you can store music files locally on the watch itself, there becomes very little need to actually take your phone with you on runs. The manufacturer says you should be able to store up to 50 hours of music locally on the device, meaning you should be able to load up all your favorite playlists to take with you on your favorite trails. While this is a feature embedded into Android Wear itself and not part of the watch, it is still quite useful, especially for a watch that is so focused on running.

The top of the watch features stationary time markers, which more or less align with the marks on an analog Android Wear watch face, but prove a bit redundant since this is already provided on the screen. This is more than likely provided solely for the aesthetic of the device, and we’re not necessarily complaining that it is included.

One of the best parts of the RunIQ’s design is the strap

One of my favorite parts of the RunIQ’s design is the strap. The included watch strap is a soft rubber one, which has an incredibly high amount of cutouts to be locked into place. Since the rubber is relatively stretchy, in combination with the super high amount of cutouts, it is extremely easy to get a good fit. Never once did I feel that I was forced to wear the watch too loosely or too tightly around my wrist – it always seemed to fit just right. The rubber also makes it so those who sweat during intense workouts will not have to worry about damaging the device. These bands are interchangeable, so you should be able to swap it out with a color that matches your style. The model we have for review was black on black, and while I personally think that it is the most understated and professional color available, some may want to swap it out for one of the other colorful options offered by the company.

The bottom of the device reveals the heart rate sensor which flashes green while active, as well as the inductive charging plates which magnetically attach to the included charger. I’m personally a big fan of the way this device charges. The magnets hold the watch to the charger quite securely so it won’t fall off from a bump, but you can still grab the watch and go without the need of any locking/unlocking mechanism.

The watch’s charger is very well designed

While some watches like the Moto 360 offer angled charging docks that allow you to use your watch as a bedside clock as you sleep, the security and strength of the magnets in this device make it feel more secure on my desk. The 410mAh battery charges pretty darn quickly, so you should be able to get a solid charge out of the device if you’re only home for a shower and have to run out again.

The watch is rated for waterproofing up to 5ATM, so while you shouldn’t go deep sea diving with this thing, it will do fine for casual swimming and running in the rain. With Apple touting the ability to swim with the Watch Series 2 as one of its primary features, we think it’s important to mention that quite a lot of watches with waterproofing exist, and the New Balance RunIQ is just one of those options.

Features and performance

One of the most marketed features of the New Balance RunIQ is that is was developed in partnership with Intel. It uses an Intel Atom Z34XX to compute all of that data from the sensors as well as run the OS, and while such a big name demands big performance, we did notice a number of issues when using some of the more data intensive parts of the watch. When doing simple things like notification mirroring and music playback, the watch worked just fine, smoothly informing me of all those Allo messages (don’t hate) and emails I get on a daily basis.

Related:

Best GPS running watches

4 weeks ago

Strava on the RunIQ is pretty glitchy

The biggest performance strain I experienced presented itself when I launched the integrated Strava app, which is completely confined to the watch, though you can sync this data with the Strava app on your phone. For the most part, Strava offers the functionality and metrics you’re likely to use while on a run. While I would say that the app works pretty flawlessly while using it, backing out to the home screen while the app is paused caused the device to freeze up, and then start opening other apps and features at random. I had to just let the watch die before I could use it again at this point, as it was launching and closing Strava over and over again without me pressing anything. While this could just be some random bug that I encountered in the semi-custom software that New Balance has running on top of Android Wear, I think the 512MB of RAM in tandem with the Atom Z34XX SoC on board the device is not quite enough to store all the services that are accessed when using the application.

The Strava app in particular launches the watch’s on-board GPS, heart rate sensor, and pedometer all at the same time. Intel’s Atom Z34XX chip is made to be able to handle all of these sensors on the fly, though it is seldom that devices utilizing the SoC will use all these services at one time, and may take some more tweaking or require more voltage in order to perform the necessary calculations. I can’t say that the performance issues I experienced were all due to Intel or the New Balance team, but I can say that this thing needs just a bit more power in order to utilize all its sensors to the required level.

The only other major performance issue I encountered had to do with the speed at which the watch mirrored notifications. I’ve owned a 1st Generation Moto 360 since it launched way back in 2014, and I’ll sometimes feel the watch buzz with a notification before I even see my phone light up. The RunIQ did not offer quite the same experience in my testing. Often it would be one to two full seconds after my phone received the notification that the watch would alert me of the same thing. While this is not a huge issue for a lot of users, seeing the information on my phone’s lock screen before my watch received the same message created a redundancy which was more annoying than anything. I have to assume this issue is due to whatever Bluetooth module the company has opted to use in the device, but one can never be too sure with these things. Just know that in my personal experience, this issue did exist, so if instant notification mirroring is a make-or-break feature for you, you may want to look elsewhere.

• LG Watch Sport and Watch Style review
• Which smartwatches will get updated to Android Wear 2.0?

The RunIQ runs Android Wear, so you have access to all the features that come along with that software. New Balance’s offing is currently slated to receive the Android Wear 2.0 update that many have been fawning over since LG released the Watch Sport and Style last month, but the device is currently running the older Android Wear version 1.5. Of course, the consumer-ready version of Android Wear 2.0 was just released a couple weeks ago, so we know this device couldn’t have launched with it out of the box. Still, it’d be nice to see a brand new Android Wear watch running the latest version of Google’s smartwatch OS.

If you’re wondering about battery life, New Balance says you can expect to get 24 hours out of this thing with normal use, or about five hours of active GPS usage. While I obviously didn’t go running for 5 hours to test this because I am a technology journalist, the regular usage I experienced actually surpassed the 24 hour mark. I was generally seeing about 30 hours or so on each charge, and that is actually with the ‘always on’ display feature enabled. That is pretty impressive coming from a 410mAh battery, and proves that Intel’s Atom Z34XX chip can be quite efficient when it wants to be. That said, efficiency and performance are almost mutually exclusive factors, and caused the performance issues that we discussed earlier.

Software

The New Balance PaceIQ runs Android Wear. This is essentially the same software across a number of different watches, but there are a few small tweaks including additional built-in software among other things. The RunIQ in particular has a full blown Strava app built right in, which utilizes the built-in GPS, heart rate sensor, pedometer, and more to give you the most accurate information possible regarding your run.

I tested this app multiple times, and have to admit I had more issues with it than I would have liked. While the activity the app actually tracks is chock full of metrics and useful information, it really is hit or miss right now whether the app will tell you the activity was tracked or not. I ran with just the watch on five separate occasions, and three of these times the watch told me that I did not have enough GPS coordinates to be tracked. Initially I thought this may have been due to the fact that I didn’t have the Strava app downloaded on my phone, but then I continued to have occasional issues. The activity was actually tracked on my phone even if it said it wasn’t though, so this seems more like a minor software bug. That being said, the paths tracked on Strava were quite accurate, so it seems the onboard GPS does do quite well when it works. I did a couple of factory resets and the GPS seemed to work better after that point, but the fact that it is randomly buggy still needs to be said. Hopefully these issues will be fixed with the Android Wear 2.0 update, but we will have to wait and see if that is the case.

Requiring the Strava and New Balance apps for your phone did leave me a little frustrated, though. New Balance markets this watch as if you don’t need your phone at all, but that’s really not the case. While you can’t exactly view all of your intricate metrics about your run on a small screen like this, it still felt like I was tracking a lot of this information for no reason if I didn’t have the Strava mobile app. I would have liked if you could at least view historical data about your runs on the watch, but it seems that they only optimized it to be able to view what is going on in the moment.

The in-app music browser worked well for switching songs and adjusting the volume, but the tracks listed stopped reflecting what was actually playing past the first song. I first noticed this when Maneater by Hall and Oates started playing and I wanted to turn it up. I tried skipping back and forth between different music and jumping in and out of the music browser, but the watch never updated with the current song. This was also probably a minor bug and will hopefully be fixed in the future.

New Balance does offer an app for your smartphone, the MyNB app, which allows you to sync a lot of the data from the watch to your device. The app will ask all about you: what sports you are into, your gender, birthday, and even what kind of clothes you wear. I found this a bit invasive, as they are obviously trying to figure out how to best market your apparel, but you can skip this step entirely, so don’t fret too much if you would prefer not to answer these questions.

From here, you can read a huge amount of content related to running and fitness, and can spend “New Balance points” on new clothes and shoes. The navigation in the app is actually pretty great, and uses smooth animations to get you where you need to go. While it’s obvious that this was originally designed as a shopping app, the company has gone ahead and slid RunIQ integration right into it, which in my opinion is probably better than making a whole separate app to bog down the Play Store.

The app will prompt you to connect your Strava account to the watch, and for some reason is required to get Strava working on the watch itself. The app will get a lot of documentation detailing how to use the watch, and you can also modify things like the color theme and distance information shown on the face of the watch on the fly, though that is essentially all it does for you besides being a New Balance shopping app.

The MyNB app is basically a big New Balance advertisement

What is most frustrating about the MyNB app is the fact that you need to have it installed for setup of Strava on your RunIQ. Besides being able to change a few colors on the watch and connect your Strava account, the app is essentially used completely for shopping. After you connect Strava through this app you can essentially get rid of it, but it seems incredibly cumbersome that you should be forced to install a standalone app that does almost nothing. After this you can download Strava and use that like normal, but why should you have to use a separate app to use Strava? Since this is Android Wear, you would think you would be able to use Strava like on any other smartwatch, but New Balance seems to think forcing the MyNB app is a better way to sell its shoes and accessories.

Of course, if Strava isn’t your thing, you can always use one of the many other fitness apps available for Android. This is Android Wear after all, so if you like, you can make use of Runtastic or Endomondo as well. Yes, New Balance has partnered with Strava for this particular watch and if you don’t use it the top lug on the unit is essentially useless, but you do you. Other apps will work just fine.

New Balance PaceIQ earbuds

While the RunIQ smartwatch can be purchased on its own, the company designed it in tandem with the PaceIQ earbuds. These are Bluetooth earbuds that were designed with Jabra, and are actually based on the the Jabra Sport Pace.

See also: Jabra Sport Pace Wireless review

There is a button on the side of the left ear bud that will give you statistics from your watch, so you’ll never have to look down to get all the statistics while on your run, which is a great feature considering focusing on anything except your path is pretty dangerous when running. Unfortunately, pushing a button that goes directly into your ear is a bit uncomfortable, and you do have to exert a decent amount of force into your ear before the button actually clicks.

As far as sound quality goes, the headphones are pretty decent. The mids and highs were especially good, but the bass and lows left quite a bit to be desired. Especially for a set of headphones designed specifically for running, you would think the company would want to make bass an integral part of the design, but I didn’t particularly feel that was the case here. Perhaps with a decent equalizer you could get a good mix out of these things, but I feel they should emit these frequencies right out of the box for those that want to just grab them and go.

New Balance says you should be able to get about five hours of playback time out of these things, but from the testing I did, it was more accurate to say I got around four. Calls through the headset will definitely drain the battery a bit faster due to activating the on-board microphone, but they sounded fine. I would say that these things are a bit quiet, so if you’re in a busy coffee shop you probably won’t be able to hear the person you are talking to very well, but if you are just out for a run or walk they should do ok.

In terms of shape, these things are great. When I originally put them on, I had the absolute hardest time getting them to fit correctly. I realized a bit later that I was attempting to wear them completely wrong though, so make sure you actually read the manual and see how to get the best fit. They come with four different sets of buds to get the best fit with your ear, so you can change those out and decide which set you like. The hoop that goes around your ear is protective enough to keep them from falling out of your ears, but is also not obstructive to the point where it puts pressure on your ears. I generally can’t wear regular buds without some sort of fastening to my ears since I have particularly slippery insides (you probably didn’t need to know that), but the hoops keep them on safely and securely.

There is also a small plastic clip which is used to keep extra wire from flinging around while on a run, and I feel that this is an absolutely essential accessory. It is very small and extremely easy to lose however, so I would have liked for New Balance to have the clip hang off the headphones themselves or something of that caliber in order to keep them safe. I haven’t lost mine, but I could absolutely see how that would be the case, especially with someone that isn’t good at keeping track of their technology.

Should you buy one (or both)?

The New Balance RunIQ comes in at $299.99 USD, which is a bit of a steep price to pay for something that doesn’t necessarily offer a ton more features over something older like the Moto 360 Sport. This watch really does feel premium, however. Even if the lugs on the side of the watch don’t function like that on a traditional sports watch, they still give off that “premium” look that have demanded such an inflated cost from traditional watches over the years. The extremely adjustable and customizable band also gives you the option of letting the world know you’re a fitness junkie or looking a bit more professional.

Buy the New Balance RunIQ
Buy the New Balance PaceIQ earbuds

There are some caveats that keep me from recommending this thing whole-heatedly, though. The biggest one being that it’s feature with the biggest focus feels a bit lacking. For a fitness watch that is marketed as completely separate from your smartphone, it should not require a device application to actually record and view historical data. It would be nice to be able to view and compare your old runs on the watch itself, as though the Strava and MyNB smartphone apps are extremely well made, they should not be required for someone that doesn’t want to have their phone on them all the time.

Performance and bugginess are the RunIQ’s main issues

The other major issue for me is performance. While Intel’s Atom Z34XX chip gave me faith that the company really knows how to do efficiency, I think that that chip needed to be clocked higher to produce the performance needed for a device like this. This would have needed a bigger battery if that was the case, and while it almost seems like a joke to be asking for a bigger battery at this point, smartwatch battery capacities have essentially not improved whatsoever since their introduction in 2014.

Looking at this from the perspective of purely being a piece of fitness tech, there is quite a bit to like here. It has all the bells and whistles you’re probably going to need for running and other exercise, but the integrated GPS has issues displaying data on the device itself, though this may be a minor software bug for now. The heart rate monitor and pedometer work great, but is that enough to make it this a great fitness watch? It’s comfortable and water resistant, can be used anywhere, and should last long enough to track the entirety of almost any workout, so those are positives that do give this thing a bit of desirable characteristics. With all that being said, should you buy one, even if only for the fitness tracking it provides?

At the moment, my answer is no.

If this thing had launched alongside the Moto 360 Sport, I would be much more inclined to say yes. The New Balance RunIQ is effectively a more premium version of that watch with a few more bells and whistles, and for someone who may have wanted the best of the best at the time, this would have been it. Unfortunately, by the time this thing actually launched the market was much more inflated with other options that can do the same things to the same caliber or better at a price that can either match or beat it.

The New Balance PaceIQ spells a very similar story for the brand. Coming in at $109.99 USD, they fall into a very similar pricing structure as something like the Jaybird X2s or X3s. And while they offer a great fit and nice battery life, they really don’t have any one ‘killer’ feature that would make me drop my X2s and pick them up. If you have the watch, they do offer functionality that you won’t be able to get from any other headphones, but is this something that you absolutely need?

The New Balance RunIQ and PaceIQ are very capable pieces of hardware that offer many of the same features as competing technology on the market, but don’t offer any ‘killer features’ that make them worth the price the company is asking. If you’re a fitness junkie who needs something right now, they may be worth a look, but it would be well advised to look around the market for more updated competitors such as the Huawei Watch 2 and the Jaybird X3s.