TPCast Business Edition lets up to 6 people use wireless VR in one room

Why it matters to you

The Business Edition of TPCast’s wireless adapter for the HTC Vive could go a long way to making VR arcades a reality.

In November 2016, TPCast unveiled an add-on for the HTC Vive headset that would allow users to enjoy virtual reality without being shackled to their computer. Now, the company has announced plans for a Business Edition variant, which is intended to help enterprises offer VR experiences to the public.

The TPCast Business Edition allows up to six headsets to operate wirelessly in one area without interference, according to a report from RoadtoVR. However, one transmitter and one receiver is required per user, rather than having a single base station and a receiver attached to each headset.

The Business Edition will be made available in bundles of four and six units, allowing enterprises to jump-start their VR capabilities (assuming that they have already invested in four or six headsets.) The device will come with a two-year warranty as opposed to the single year of protection applied to the consumer edition, which makes a lot of sense given its purpose.

It’s no secret that VR is prohibitively expensive for a majority of users, as it requires not only a headset, but capable hardware. However, that audience may still want to try out the technology on special occasions, so a VR arcade could potentially be a very lucrative undertaking.

The TPCast Business Edition looks set to eliminate one of the biggest impracticalities of establishing this kind of business. The company could stand to reap major dividends if it can help provide the infrastructure that makes VR arcades a reality, which would no doubt help the fortunes of the VR industry as a whole.

TPCast hasn’t released pricing information for the Business Edition, but for comparison the consumer edition — which is scheduled to launch in the United States later this year — costs $250 for a single unit. The company expects to launch the Business Edition before the end of 2017.

Bring The Fast & The Furious to life in the backyard with Anki Overdrive

Why it matters to you

Driving like Dom may not be feasible in your city’s streets, but your backyard? That’s another story.

The Fate of the Furious looks to bring in $1 billion at the box office, and hoping to capitalize upon that success is Anki, a robotics and artificial intelligence company that is releasing a new line of smart toy cars. Meet Anki Overdrive: Fast & Furious Edition, which will launch in September of this year.

Promising to merge “the most thrilling elements of the hit robotic battle-racing game — an unprecedented level of customization and interaction in a physical game, driven by powerful A.I. — with the adrenaline-fueled world of Fast & Furious,” you may not be able to drive like Dominic in real life, but you can do it in a miniaturized version.

“We’ve been searching for the right brand partnership to elevate our robotic battle-racing experience to the next level of entertainment, and what better fit than one of the most widely recognized action franchises in the world,” said Boris Sofman, CEO & co-founder of Anki. “Anki Overdrive: Fast & Furious Edition delivers the ultimate adrenaline rush to millions of Fast & Furious fans, merging the films’ cars and characters with video-game elements, physical play, and robotics.”

Beginning May 16, you’ll be able to pre-order the toy cars, and in September, the products will be made available on store shelves in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, and Nordic countries.

So what exactly can you expect to buy? The newest Anki edition features two robotic supercars based on two fan favorites of the film franchise: Dom’s Ice Charger and Hobbs’ MXT. Both supercars come complete with unique weapons, upgrades, sound effects, and controls. In the game, you’ll be pitted against or ally with some of Fast and Furious’ most popular characters, including Dom, Hobbs, Letty, and Tej. Your favorite moments from the movies can be recreated in your backyard.

“Anki is at the forefront of robotics and artificial intelligence, and our collaboration for Fast & Furious will bring an all-new level of interactivity to the franchise,” said Manuel Torres Port, an executive vice president for Anki. “Anki Overdrive’s revolutionary technology delivers a battle-race experience like no other, and we’re incredibly excited to introduce Fast & Furious fans to gameplay that delivers what they love and connect with most from the films — the characters, cars, and action.”

Anki Overdrive: Fast & Furious Edition will set you back $170, and will be compatible with the entire existing ecosystem of products.

Minimum PC specs for ‘Prey’ reboot revealed — and they ain’t too bad

Why it matters to you

Prey might look pretty, but you don’t need a world-beating PC to see the game in all its glory.

The minimum and recommended specifications for Bethesda’s upcoming reboot of the Prey franchise have been released, giving us our first idea of what we’ll need to have to see the space station and its dangers in glorious detail. Although a little hefty at the top end, a large number of PC gamers should have what they need for a good-looking experience.

Prey may not have anything to do with its original namesake, but much like that first game, it does look gorgeous. With that in mind, it’s great to see that people won’t need top of the line systems to run the game at decent detail settings. It’s not a cakewalk though, as you’ll need at least a GTX 970 or R9 290 to match the recommended specifications.

Minimum
Recommended
CPU
Intel i5-2400 or AMD FX08320
Intel i7-2600K or AMD FX-8350
GPU
Nvidia GTX 660 2GB or AMD 7850 2GB
Nvidia GTX 970 4GB or AMD R9 290 4GB
Memory
8GB
16GB

None of those are too bank-breaking, though the recommended graphics cards still aren’t the cheapest. Fortunately, there are newer alternatives that should be much more affordable. AMD’s 500 series cards are coming in more cost effective versions, with sub-$200 cards easily delivering enough bang for your buck. Likewise Nvidia’s midrange Pascal cards could be a more cost-effective option for those looking to really experience what Prey’s claustrophobic space station locales have to offer.

Although we don’t yet know which operating systems and versions of them the game supports, it seems safe to say that the latest versions of Windows — 7 through 10 — will be viable, as they are the most common among gamers. As Hexus points out, there’s also no news on which APIs are supported, though considering Prey doesn’t show up on any publicly updated lists for DirectX12 or Vulkan support, we’d take an educated guess that Prey is DX11 only.

As our friends at Futuremark have pointed out before, DirectX12 and Vulkan require special consideration to support, so it could be that since the number of gamers with supporting hardware wasn’t great during the early days of Prey’s development, it just wasn’t built with that API support in mind.

Whatever graphics card you end up running the new Prey on though, there will be a number of graphical options you can tweak in the menu system. That way you can customize the experience to your taste, adding detail where possible and improving performance where it’s needed.

The Prey demo is currently available for Xbox One and PS4 gamers, letting them try out the first hour of the game. PC users will need to wait a little longer, but the game will launch starting 12:00 midnight ET on May 5, with various other territories getting their Xbox One and PS4 versions at midnight locally.

Your Pixel phone will stop seeing updates as soon as next year

Why it matters to you

Letting users know precisely when their phones will stop receiving updates well in advance is a courtesy more Android manufacturers should extend.

One of the more unfortunate aspects of Android is the issue of system updates. Google’s Pixel and Nexus devices receive new versions of the operating system as soon as they’re released, while phones from other companies often have to wait much longer.

Many devices are lucky to see two major Android updates in their lifespan, and it’s usually not clear exactly what the timeline of support is most of the time, either. Your phone pretty much receives updates on a regular basis until it just doesn’t anymore, with little warning.

Fortunately, Google has taken the due diligence of posting a list of when owners of various Pixel and Nexus devices will receive their final system and security updates. Sadly, if you were hoping for a change from the company’s typical policy of supporting devices for up to 18 months, you’re going to be disappointed. The Pixel and Pixel XL will both see their final Android updates in October 2018, with security updates finishing up exactly a year later.

However, it’s nice to see Google draw it up nice and clear, especially for new Android users who made the switch to the platform with Google’s first true flagship. For owners of previous Nexus devices, the schedule is about what you’d expect: the Nexus 5X and 6P, which launched in fall 2015, will see their final Android updates in September of this year, and the even older Nexus 6 and 9 were spoken for in October 2016. All of those devices will receive security updates for an extra year.

It’s a common and valid complaint from the iPhone faithful that Android devices should see the same kind of length of support as Apple’s, which typically receive major system updates more than three years after their launch. The iPhone 5, for example, was released in 2013 but is still getting iOS 10 updates. Conversely, the Nexus 5, which launched at about the same time, saw its last update in December 2015 to Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

The problem, however, isn’t entirely Google’s fault, nor is it solely the fault of Android hardware makers. Qualcomm, which builds the wide majority of chipsets that power Android smartphones, especially those sold in the United States, is required to develop and optimize drivers to support every major system update.

As Ars Technica pointed out in an article last summer prior to 7.0 Nougat’s launch, Qualcomm has set a precedent for the standard year-and-a-half of support, and as they essentially hold a monopoly on the industry (there are smaller players, like MediaTek, though they don’t compare in scale or adoption), it’s difficult for manufacturers to pressure the chipmaker to deviate from that.

This is all the more reason the prospect of Google one day constructing its own system-on-chip is so exciting. The very company that drives Android could also be responsible for building the silicon that powers it (at least in future Pixel devices), meaning it will finally be able to chart the destiny for its products, ensuring they don’t reach end-of-life after a meager 18 months.

However, it’s highly unlikely we’ll see Google’s first-party chips debut until the third-generation Pixel surfaces sometime in the second half of 2018.

Acer Windows Mixed Reality head-mounted display: Our first take

Acer’s Windows Mixed Reality headset is the future of VR on Windows, and it looks bright.

When Acer unveiled its Windows Mixed Reality headset back in early 2016, it was a little light on the details. It didn’t say how much it would cost, or how it would measure up to competition like Facebook’s Oculus and and HTC’s Vive. And it was mum on the release date.

Acer pulled back the curtain a tad at its annual press conference in New York City on Thursday. It didn’t reveal everything about its Windows Mixed Reality headset, but it offered Digital Trends an opportunity to try it ourselves. Here’s what we thought.

More Rift than HoloLens

Acer’s Mixed Reality headset is based on Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality platform, which made a public debut with the release of the Windows 10 Creators update earlier this year. HP, Asus, Acer, Dell, and other partners are collaborating with Microsoft on headsets with inside-out tracking — basically, three-dimensional spatial awareness. Thanks to infrared sensors, gyroscopes, and accelerometers embedded in the headsets themselves, they’re able to maintain constant awareness of the physical environment around them. It’s like the Vive or Oculus’ room-scale tracking, but without the need for external cameras. That makes setup a lot easier, and reduces the price.

Acer’s take on the concept doesn’t stray far from its VR forebears. It has two high-resolution LCD displays (for a total resolution of 1,440 x 1,440), capable of a 90Hz refresh rate — a slightly higher resolution than the Vive and Oculus, which both pack 1080p panels. A built-in audio jack pipes sound through a pair of headphones, and a 3.5mm jack supports mics.

The screens seemed bright, crisp, and clear to my eyes, and the headset’s inside-out tracking worked without a hitch.

Like the Oculus and Vive, Acer’s Windows Mixed Reality headset is tethered. Unlike Microsoft’s HoloLens, which packs a sophisticated computer that drives its augmented reality technology, Acer’s headset relies on a UBS 3.0 connection, an HDMI cord, and a powerful gaming computer to do the VR heavy lifting. For our demo, it was a beefy gaming laptop from Acer’s Predator lineup.

When you plug Acer’s headset into a Windows 10 machine for the first time, you’ll see the Mixed Reality Portal app, a management screen that guides you through the basics of calibration. It asked for my height, and then asked me to face the Predator laptop at eye level. The last step was defining the constraints of my “play space,” the physical area that’d be reflected in the virtual reality apps I was to try.

An Acer rep helped me fit the headset, which felt far lighter than the Oculus, Vive, or even Samsung’s Gear VR. Its weight made the headset seem hollow, and the adjustable strap pinched the back of my head a little too tightly. But the screens seemed bright, crisp, and clear to my eyes, and the headset’s inside-out tracking worked without a hitch.

A first look at Windows Mixed Reality in action

An Acer rep launched Mixed Reality Home, a digital domicile replete with wood-paneled floors, two-toned coffee tablets, and a wide-open floor plan (gaps between the walls and ceiling expose your virtual reality avatar to the elements). It was split into familiar subsections like an entertainment space, a living room, and an office, but instead of televisions, artwork, and computer monitors, I encountered floating Windows apps.

It’s a visual metaphor for Windows, akin to Microsoft’s ill-fated Bob experiment. Instead of a mouse and keyboard, though, exploring the Mixed Reality Home requires an Xbox Controller. The joysticks and bumper triggers handled forward and backward movement, and alternatively, you can “teleport” around the house by gazing in the direction you want to travel and pressing a button on the controller.

Acer

Acer

The Xbox controller was used to interact with apps in the Mixed Reality Home, too – I could scroll a webpage on Edge, Windows 10’s default web browser, with a joystick, or zoom in by double-tapping the A button. Outside the floating Edge window, the same two controls resized it, minimized it, rotated, or removed it from the virtual home entirely.

Tapping the controller’s Home button brought up Mixed Reality’s system controls, which consist of status indicators for the connected PC’s Wi-Fi status, battery level, volume level. There’s the current time, too, and a list of recent apps.

Exciting VR video, but not sign of true mixed reality

The Acer rep directed me in the virtual home’s living room. There, a massive TV-like screen greeted me. I selected a 360-degree video from a gallery of options, and the digital home slowly faded from view, replaced with peaks and cliff faces of a snow mountain retreat. I watched transfixed through a downhill skier’s helmet-mounted camera, turning my head backwards as the videographer traversed the slope.

The Mixed Reality headset can play 360-degree footage from any headset, an Acer rep told me, including content from the company’s new Holo 360 camera. Conventional two-dimensional footage is a go, too, but only within the Mixed Reality Home app — it shows as a giant, expandable screen in the “living room” environment.

Acer’s headset supports apps, too. HoloTours, a curated collection of exotic real-world locations, transported me inside an open-air gondola perched precariously over a hilly valley.

What it doesn’t support, despite the name, is true mixed reality. The Acer headset works just like a Rift or Vive, displaying images on LCDs placed close to the user’s eyes. The LCDs are opaque, so the outside world isn’t visible. That means the experience is not like HoloLens, or even like Intel’s Project Alloy, which doesn’t have transparent display technology but does allow visibility of, and controller-free interaction with, real-world objects.

That’s sure to disappoint anyone with dreams of a low-cost HoloLens experience. Acer’s headset is affordable, and it can sense that outside world, but we didn’t see any potential for interaction with reality.

We’re inclined to overlook that. The headset’s inside-out tracking is impressive, and its price should be low. Still, a headset billing itself as “Mixed Reality” should, you know, do that. Microsoft may be setting itself up for a PR blunder if Acer’s headset proves similar to other Windows Mixed Reality headsets.

The could be right

Ultimately, the success of Acer’s Windows Mixed Reality headset will likely depend on its price tag. For now, VR remains an expensive niche. The Oculus starts at $600, and the Vive costs $800.

We asked an Acer spokesperson about the headset’s pricing, and they told us it hadn’t been decided.

But we’d put our money on the lower end of the pricing spectrum. Greg Sullivan, senior product manager at Microsoft, told Digital Trends that Mixed Reality headsets like Acer’s could ship for as low as $300.

“We’re lowering the spec of the hardware,” Sullivan said. “We’re getting the system requirements relatively low.”

Price isn’t the only barrier to adoption. Headsets like Acer’s need a powerful, pricey computer to work properly. However, Sullivan said that might not be the case much longer. Soon, he told Digital Trends, Mixed Reality devices will work on integrated graphics — the graphics chips that ship on off-the-shelf processors from AMD and Intel.

Eliminating those pain points could be key to spurring adoption of Acer headset’s adoption, Sullivan said, along with adoption of Microsoft’s broader Mixed Reality ecosystem. He sees inside-out tracking as something of a silver bullet.

“Tracking lighthouses and infrared beacons are hard to set up, and some people don’t realize they can only use them in one room,” he said. “Inside-out tracking solves that problem.”

Highs

• Lightweight
• High-quality display
• Does not require external sensors
• Windows Mixed Reality works flawlessly

Lows

• Feels cheap
• Uncomfortable strap

No-bake technique turns Martian soil simulant into red building bricks

Why it matters to you

Since this method doesn’t required additives or a kiln, it would help cut back on cargo — and costs — needed for a trip to Mars.

Future Martians may live in brick buildings made of Martian soil thanks to research from a team of engineers at the University of California, San Diego. The new technique would allow astronauts to cut back on the amount of cargo they carry by leaving raw materials and most construction machinery behind.

For years, NASA has sought proposals for using lunar and Martian soil (regolith) to build habitats. It is expensive to launch stuff into space, so by using resources found along the way (a principle called in situ resource utilization), agencies can cut back on transportation costs. Although previous proposals managed to create bricks out of regolith, they required kilns and complex chemistry to transform the soil into construction material. The new technique, on the other hand, needs little more than a hammer.

The engineers created the bricks out of a NASA-certified Martian soil simulant. While attempting to reduce the amount of binding polymers needed to shape the simulant into strong enough bricks, they realized the soil itself had a unique property that enabled it to be easily formed with minimal force.

“[It was] the strong bonding among the iron oxide,” Yu Qiao, a structural engineer who led the study, told Digital Trends. “The very same component in Martian soil that gives it the reddish color.”

Thanks to iron oxide’s strong bonding properties, all that was needed to turn the regolith into bricks was a flexible container and pressure equal to someone dropping a 10-pound hammer from a few feet up. No kiln or additives were required. This “no-bake” process is important because, as Qiao said, “It does not demand extensive heating, so [it] needs [a] simpler setup to produce and consumes less energy.”

The new method creates small, round pellets that can then be shaped into bricks. Even without rebar, the researchers found the bricks to be stronger than steel-reinforced concrete.

A paper detailing the study was published this week in the journal Scientific Reports.

Amazon wants to make Alexa sound more human with new SSML tags

Why it matters to you

As helpful as Alexa may be, sometimes she can sound a bit stiff. Amazon wants to change that with new SSML tags.

You can almost convince yourself that Amazon’s Alexa is the best friend you never had. She’s always there to listen, she’s always there to help, and she’s always there with a response. But alas, sometimes the way in which those responses are delivered reminds you that she is nothing but an artificially intelligent voice. Now, however, Amazon wants to help you forget that by making Alexa sound a bit more human.

On Thursday, Amazon announced a series of new Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) tags that will help developers control Alexa’s intonations a bit better than before, making her sound more sophisticated — or at least, more like us. Those new tags have been debuted in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany, and include whispers, expletive bleeps, and emphasis.

So what do the five new tags do? There’s whisper, which is quite self-explanatory — developers can use this tag when they want Alexa to engage in softer dialogue. As for expletive beeps, Alexa can now censor herself when she comes upon a naughty word. Developers can use the <sub> tag when they want Alexa to deviate a bit from her script, and the <emphasis> tag to change the rate and volume at which Alexa speaks. Finally, the new Prosody tag can be used to manipulate the volume, pitch, and rate of speech. Soon, Alexa will be pausing, whispering, and pretending to curse just like we do.

Of course, Alexa already has plenty of human-like qualities, or at least, qualities that are intended to make you believe she’s more human than she is. She can tell jokes, respond in kind to “I love you,” and sometimes she can get downright existential for the most philosophical of her users. But making her sound more like a person could go a long way in endearing her to her many users.

So if you’re interested in learning how to make Alexa sound more like a real friend — which she isn’t — you can join Amazon for a live webinar on SSML on May 18.

Uber makes it easier to delete your account, tougher to track your location

Why it matters to you

In a move that will please some of its critics, Uber just made it easier to delete your account from it servers forever, as well as to disable tracking.

Uber is making it easier to delete your account. On Friday, the ridesharing service announced Privacy Settings, a new system within the iOS and Android apps that offers self-service data controls.

One new setting, known internally as “Dear John,” wipes your account data from Uber’s servers. Once the process begins, you have 30 days to reverse it if you change your mind. But after that time elapses, everything you’ve shared with Uber, including your payments information, saved receipts, addresses, contacts, and UberEats delivery data, is purged from the company’s servers.

It’s more thorough than uninstalling the Uber app, which doesn’t delete account data. And it’s easier than the old account deletion method, which required you to contact Uber’s support team.

“We would often get a lot of questions about what’s deleted from our servers,” Zach Singleton, product manager at Uber, told The Verge. “Internally, this lets us manage it better in terms of scale.”

Uber said that Dear John wasn’t in response to #DeleteUber, a social media protest in response to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s position on an advisory committee to President Donald Trump. According to the New York Times, more than 500,000 people deleted their accounts in the period of a few weeks.

“We’ve been working on improving this [account deletion] experience for more than a year,” an Uber spokesperson told The Verge.

The other new Privacy Settings tools have to do with location data. Last fall, Uber removed the option to let users share their location on a per-ride basis, instead tracking location by default for up to five minutes after rides ended. Now, a new screen explains how to disable location tracking, and lets users choose whether or not to let contacts hail a ride in their location.

Uber said the new Privacy Settings will become available to users over the next few weeks.

Uber has faced a maelstrom of criticism over allegations that its employees violated users’ privacy. According to a report from The Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal website, some Uber employees used “God View,” an internal location-tracking tool, to monitor the whereabouts of ex-girlfriends and celebrities — including pop star Beyoncé.

The allegations do further harm to the embattled company’s image. Uber has been accused of fostering a toxic corporate culture and mounting a program called Greyball, which it allegedly used to deceive lay enforcement and evade regulators in cities where the ridesharing service wasn’t welcomed by local authorities.

Google gets more aggressive in alerting users when web pages are not secure

Why it matters to you

Google is doing everything it can to help you help yourself in being more careful online with your private and sensitive data.

In some cases, online security is a balance between users making good choices and systems providing the required information. Phishing attempts, for example, where fake sites grab private information by masquerading as official sites, only succeed because users are fooled into thinking they’re on legitimate pages.

One way to combat phishing is to use encryption, which verifies that a site is actually what it claims to be. One way to avoid becoming a victim of phishing, therefore, is to only enter private and sensitive information, like credit card and social security numbers, on encrypted sites. Google has been slowly implementing features in Chrome to make it clear when users aren’t on encrypted pages, and it’s getting even more aggressive in its efforts to help users stay safe.

While anyone can tell if a page is secured just by looking for the “https” header in the address bar, Chrome recently started explicitly marking HTTP pages as “Not secure” whenever they include password or credit card fields. Starting in October 2017, Google will cause Chrome to show “Not secure” in more situations, specifically when users enter any data on an HTTP page and when visiting any HTTP page in Incognito mode.

As the company puts it, “Passwords and credit cards are not the only types of data that should be private. Any type of data that users type into websites should not be accessible to others on the network, so starting in version 62 Chrome will show the ‘Not secure’ warning when users type data into HTTP sites.” Chrome 62 is due in October 2017, hence the timeline for implementing the more aggressive policies.

In addition, Chrome’s Incognito mode represents a particularly troublesome situation because it can cause people to confuse local privacy with data that’s entered on pages and submitted to sites. Incognito mode makes it harder to get on a user’s local machine and grab their data after a browsing session, but it does nothing to protect data once it’s sent from the browser to the internet. Therefore, Chrome will mark all HTTP pages as “Not secure” to ensure that users are reminded of those facts.

Google’s end game is to mark all HTTP pages in all browsing modes as “Not secure.” As the company points out, HTTPS is less expensive and less of a hassle to implement than ever before, and the sooner all sites switch over to HTTPS, the better for everyone. Perhaps by pointing out more sites as insecure, Google can essentially shame a few more sites into making the transition — along with providing the information users need to take their own steps in becoming more secure in their browsing practices.

The Trago bottle cap tracks your water intake to make sure you’re hydrated

Why it matters to you

Trago helps keep you properly hydrated by tracking your fluid intake and personalizing your own hydration plan.

The Trago system serves as a revolutionary way to track your hydration by utilizing modern technology and innovative science. 

The team at Trago is based in Austin, Texas, and understands the importance of staying hydrated and how easy it is to underestimate your body’s water needs. The company launched a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2015 that has brought its revolutionary product into full-scale production.

Water makes up 70 percent of the human body but most people do not consume enough meet their basic needs. Proper hydration is key to a healthy lifestyle and the driving force behind the Trago’s mission.

Trago is a versatile gadget designed into a water bottle cap that utilizes trademark sonar technology to thoroughly calculate changing fluid levels. The cap serves as the primary intelligence mechanism, equipped with a battery, ergonomic spout, and superb features that attribute to adaptability and environmental sustainability.

The Trago cap comprises durable BPA-free plastic, a replacement battery compartment, and a shape designed to fit all wide-mouth water bottles including Nalgenes, Camelbaks, and Hydroflasks, although it does come with a bottle of its own.

The cap is connected to the Trago app, which serves as the hydration database and tracking mechanism utilizing your individual inputs including gender, activity level, and age. The mobile app builds a personalized profile based on these inputs to track individual hydration needs. Additionally, the app can be synced to other smart devices including your smartphone and popular mobile health applications. Real-time data is synched between fitness devices and the Trago app to better understand hydration’s impact throughout your life.

A long-lasting battery life is one of its most distinguishing features. The company designed the Trago cap to run for up to six months on a common replaceable battery.

To top it off, Trago is dedicated to giving back to the planet through its partnership with 1% for the Planet, ensuring one percent of its revenues are used toward reducing the growing problem of plastic bottle waste.

The bottle is easy to clean, fits in cup holders, and is taste-free. The smart cap and water bottle can be purchased for $70 through the company’s website and the app can be downloaded for free onto most smartphones.