This security camera offers a sweeping view of your home for $40

Keep an eye on your home from anywhere!

We live busy lives and love to have nice things, but sometimes that can be a curse. Having a house full of electronics can be great until you come home and realize you’ve been robbed, and there’s no trace of who did it. Wouldn’t it have been great to catch the person on camera, or have the whole thing avoided because the camera spooked them and they left?

Home security doesn’t have to cost you tons of money anymore. Right now you can pick up Annke’s popular 720p wireless IP camera for $39.99 at Amazon when you use the coupon code DCIM5QN8 at checkout. This is the lowest that this camera has sold for, and it has actually sold for as much as $70 until recently.

The camera can both tilt and pan, as well as offer two-way audio to communicate with people at home if needed. Other features include:

• Stunning 720P Video Resolution: The high-performance camera brings great detail in everything it captures in 1280*720p.
• One-Touch Configuration: Get your camera connected to Wi-Fi or WPS via one touch and start video viewing in seconds.
• A Sweeping view with PT: With 0° – 355° pan and -20° – 90°, you’re free to get a sweeping view of your home and office.
• Clear Two-Way Audio: Build-in microphone and speakers allow you to talk to and hear from your loved ones remotely.
• Mobile Notification Alarm: Get instant alarms on your smartphone or tablet the moment unexpected movement is detected.

This coupon code works on both the black and white version of the camera.

See at Amazon

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For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

Smart Replies and new attachments UI seen in Android Messages

Smart Replies and a new attachments UI have been spotted in Android Messages, but we don’t know when they’ll be pushed out to the public

For those that prefer to use SMS over the likes of Allo, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, Google’s Android Messages app is one of the best texting apps you can get on the Play Store. Thanks to a couple of lucky users, it looks like Google is working on adding Smart Replies and a new UI for attachments to Android Messages at some point in the near future.

Starting off first with Smart Replies, this is something that was initially discovered in a teardown of the Android Messages app back in June. However, this is the first time we’ve actually seen the feature in use. As you can see from the image below, Smart Replies look a lot like they do on Allo and Gmail. After receiving a text message, you’ll have three predetermined messages you can send that Google thinks you’ll want to use based on the context of the conversation. This is honestly one of my favorite features of Allo, so it’s exciting to see Smart Replies make its way to Android Messages.

In addition to this, a couple of screenshots of a new UI for adding attachments to messages has also been spotted. Right now, tapping the attachments icon in Android Messages shows a horizontal row of icons above your navigation keys for adding stickers, taking a photo, sending a picture you’ve already captured, recording a voice message, and sharing your location.

The new Android Messages UI.

All of these controls are still present, but they’ve been moved to the left in a vertical row. Additionally, rather than just showing stickers, photos, etc. one at a time, you can now view all of these options at once. We aren’t sure if this is necessarily a good change or not, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

There’s no word from Google as to if/when these new additions will officially be released for Android Messages, and while I’m perfectly okay with the new attachments interface never seeing the light of day, the addition of Smart Replies is quite exciting.

Best text messaging apps

Samsung Gear Fit 2 update brings continuous heart rate monitoring

The latest software update for the Gear Fit 2 introduces continuous heart rate monitoring, new watch faces, and apps.

At IFA this past August, Samsung showed off a trio of new fitness wearables, one of which was the Gear Fit 2 Pro. The Gear Fit 2 Pro is a slightly upgraded version of the Gear Fit 2 that was released last summer, but thanks to a new software update, last year’s hardware is getting one of the Pro’s biggest features — continuous heart rate monitoring.

The Gear Fit 2 was previously able to track your heart rate upon command and intermittently throughout the day, but with continuous heart rate monitoring, you’ll be able to see exactly how your heart’s working 24/7. This is something that serious trainers often value quite dearly, and along with all of this new data, the Gear Fit 2 now also supports heart rate zones.

Heart rate zones show you how light or hard your heart is working while exercising, and depending on the intensity of your workout, your heart rate will fall in one of the following categories:

• Heart Rate Zone 1: Between 50% and 60% of your max heart rate (Very Light)
• Heart Rate Zone 2: Between 60% and 70% of your max heart rate (Light)
• Heart Rate Zone 3: Between 70% and 80% of your max heart rate (Moderate)
• Heart Rate Zone 4: Between 80% and 90% of your max heart rate (Hard)
• Heart Rate Zone 5: Between 90% and 100% of your max heart rate (Maximum)

In addition to the new heart rate tracking features, the Gear Fit 2 is also gaining a new Schedule and Weather apps, watch faces from the Gear Fit 2 Pro (including a pedometer watch face), as well as other bug fixes and improvements.

This new update weighs in at 18.96MB, and although it’s only been spotted in Indonesia so far, it should be rolling out to other markets soon.

Samsung refreshes fitness-focused wearables with Gear Fit 2 Pro, Gear Sport and Gear IconX 2018

GoPro Hero 6: 4K 60 FPS, better stabilization and HDR photos

When GoPro hosts an event in the fall, you get no prizes for guessing what’s coming. Company CEO, Nick Woodman, just revealed the Hero 6 here in San Francisco, to no one’s surprise. What is surprising (if you ignored the leaks) is that the new camera has one big, largely invisible, change: the image processor (which GoPro is calling the “GP1”). We’ll get to why that’s important in a bit.

For now, you probably want to know what the Hero 6 does that, say, the Hero 5 can’t. The most obvious upgrade seems to be the slo-mo frame rates, which have largely been doubled across the board. That means you can shoot 4K at 60 frames per second, 2.7K at 120 and 1080p now goes all the way up to 240 FPS. The electronic image stabilization — a feature introduced on the Hero 5 — is also much improved (it’s now six, rather than four axes), though still no OIS, yet.

Other improvements include faster WiFi speeds for file transfer, linear (not incremental) zoom and an all-new HDR mode (replacing WDR in the Hero 5). As expected, the camera will sell for $499 starting today — that’s $100 more than the Hero5 cost when it launched a year ago.

While spec lovers might see the near-identical design of the Hero 5 and think this as something of an incremental update, the introduction of GoPro’s own “GP1” image sensor is big news. Right now, the main impact is that it pulls GoPro out of the (increasingly busy) pool of action cameras that rely on Ambarella imaging chips (basically, the Intel or ARM of action/drone cameras). GP1 gives GoPro a chance to differentiate itself, and the first way it’s doing that is with image quality. GoPro claims GP1 offers improved dynamic range, extensive manual controls, enhanced color reproduction and better lowlight performance, according to Woodman.

GoPro worked with Socionext (a company with DNA from Fujitsu and Panasonic) to build the GP1 chip to the company’s specifications, rather than trying to wrangle the best image it could out of the off-the-shelf Ambarella options. We don’t have specific details yet as to what optimization GoPro has done, so we’ll need to spend some time with the camera to see for ourselves the difference it makes.

For those holding out on the Hero 5, you might indeed be disappointed to see that the Hero 6 costs $100 more than last year’s model. Let’s just hope the Hero 6 delivers on its promise.

GoPro’s Fusion 360-degree VR camera ships in November for $699

We’ve been hearing a lot about GoPro’s Fusion 360 VR camera. Now we have availability and pricing details for you, thanks to an event in San Francisco today. It will ship in November, and the price is $699.

The company teased the Fusion back in April, touting it as “six GoPro cameras fused into one” for 360-degree capture in 5.2K resolution. GoPro has partnered with several organizations, including Fox Sports, USA Today, Getty Images and Accuweather, to test out broadcasting with the spherical camera in a pilot program.

The Fusion’s specs are impressive: Its six onboard cameras can capture VR and non-VR in 5.2K resolution, with 360-degree audio. It also has an OverCapture feature that “punches out” a regular image from a spherical photo and onboard stabilization features allow for smooth capture. The Fusion works with the GoPro app and the camera is waterproof up to 16 feet. Perhaps one of the more important specs is the company says its compatible with most GoPro mounts. As you might expect, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, an accelerometer, gyroscope and a compass are all included. There’s a lot to unpack here, but at least you’ll be able to get your hands on one in a matter of weeks.