Yi’s 1080p indoor security camera is down to $41 at Amazon today

HD security.

The Yi 1080p Dome Camera is down to $40.99 on Amazon when you use coupon code 2V3O5G4V. This camera usually sells for closer to $60.

With its HD video and 108-degree wide-angle glass lens, this dome camera has the ability for complete 360-degree coverage as it can rotate up to 345 degrees horizontally and 115 degrees vertically. It has advanced night vision with built-in infrared LED beads to extend the viewing distance to 3 meters in pitch darkness. It has a built-in microphone and speaker which you can use to talk to someone using the Yi Home app on your mobile device.

You can also use the app on your PC, though it is for viewing only and does not work with the microphone. It also has motion tracking which can send you real-time activity alerts while you’re away from home; it’ll keep the camera on that moving target too which is a great addition. It has a bunch of other features too like Auto-Cruise which will survey the area 360 degrees or go through your “bookmarked” locations of which you can save up to eight.

Yi has a cloud service called Yi Cloud which keeps your data secure and has no storage limit, though it would cost you monthly. Plans range in price from $66 to $199 a year depending on your needs. A cheaper option would be a micro SD card, though the maximum size it can hold is a 32 GB card.

See on Amazon

Android Switchers Represent 15-20% of iPhone Buyers, Tend to Opt for ‘Plus’ Models

Most recent Android owners who switch to the iPhone ecosystem tend to opt for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, according to a new report sent to MacRumors today by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. The data was gathered during the fiscal quarter that ended March 31, 2018 and is based on a survey of 2,000 U.S. Apple customers who purchased an iPhone during that time.

In a given quarter, CIRP estimates that between 15 and 20 percent of iPhone buyers are switching over from the Android operating system. In terms of popularity, these switchers are opting for the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus (40 percent of those moving from Android to iOS), and to a lesser extent the iPhone 7/7 Plus (about 25 percent) and 6s/6s Plus (about 12 percent).

Android users switching to iOS also tend to buy a “Plus” model iPhone more than iPhone owners looking for a new device. In total, 39 percent of Android switchers purchased a Plus model, compared to 29 percent of iPhone users buying another iPhone. “With Android manufacturers offering larger form factors for a longer time, it appears that Android owners appreciate iPhones with larger screens, as well,” explained CIRP Partner and Co-Founder Mike Levin.

For older models, more former Android owners are buying the 7, 6s, and iPhone SE models than those users buying an iPhone who already previously owned an iPhone. This makes sense, as current iPhone owners are likely moving on to the latest models, while Android switchers are more content with entering Apple’s ecosystem with a slightly older model.

“In marketing iPhones, Apple attempts to persuade current users of Google’s Android operating system to switch to its iOS operating system,” said Josh Lowitz, CIRP Partner and Co-Founder.

“Apple has had varying success, with seasonal variation in the percentage of buyers that are making the switch. We analyzed how Android owners that switch to Apple iPhones differ from repeat iPhone buyers. The former Android users gravitate to the lowest-priced iPhone models, which makes sense to us, with Android phones offering a wide range of models, many at relatively low-price points. And since everything on an iPhone is new to them, there is less value in purchasing the latest flagship model with the most advanced features.”

For the iPhone SE, Android switchers purchased the low-cost smartphone at twice the rate as iPhone owners during the six months ending in March 2018, proving the ongoing entry-level popularity of the small device. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Android switchers purchased the iPhone X (currently the most expensive iPhone) at half the rate as iPhone owners.

While today’s report focuses on switching operating systems, CIRP’s last survey looked at users who stick with an OS and discovered that Android had a 91 percent loyalty rate in 2017, compared to 86 percent for iOS. This meant that for those users surveyed, Android customers were more loyal to the Android operating system than iOS users were to the iOS operating system.

In April, Apple encouraged Android owners to switch to iPhone with a set of new ads in its “Life’s easier on iPhone” series. The videos focused on iPhone features like the App Store, Portrait Mode, and Portrait Lighting, and the company linked back to its “Switch” website that’s designed for customers who use an Android device or other smartphone and are thinking of switching to an iPhone.

Tag: CIRP
Discuss this article in our forums

New ‘BBC Sounds’ Mobile App Set to Replace BBC iPlayer Radio

The BBC is releasing a new free mobile app today called BBC Sounds, which brings together the broadcaster’s extensive library of live and on-demand radio, music, and podcasts within a single audio player interface.

The BBC says the app has been designed to learn from the user’s listening habits and introduce them to shows and podcasts that they might not otherwise know about, as Dan Taylor-Watt, head of BBC iPlayer, explains:

“Every user’s experience of BBC Sounds will be unique as it’s designed to learn from your listening habits, providing one-tap access to the latest episodes of your favorite BBC podcasts and radio shows and introducing you to new audio you wouldn’t otherwise have discovered from the 80,000 (yes, really) hours available.”

This content is delivered in a “Recommended for you” section, which showcases 10 on-demand shows at any one time, and automatically refreshes based on recent listening.

The live radio section of the app retains the virtual tuning dial used in the BBC iPlayer Radio app, which Sounds will eventually replace, and acts as a portal to all of the BBC’s 18 national and 40 local stations.

There are also hand-picked collections of podcasts and on-demand music shows on offer to match the listener’s mood, like Funny Chat, Upgrade Your Life, Live Sessions, and Dance Mixes.

Podcast and show categories cover the full gamut of content available, such as hip hop, classical, crime, and science and technology, while a “Continue Listening” section highlights podcasts and radio shows that have only been listened to part-way through, as well as next episodes to consider.

Users can add any individual episode or clip to the “My List” section to listen to later. In addition, subscribing to podcasts and programs generates a personalized feed of the latest episodes via the “My Sounds” section.

The BBC says there are several additional features in the pipeline for Sounds this year, including downloads to enable offline listening, so expect updates in the months ahead.

Tags: BBC Radio, BBC iPlayer
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple Finishes Runner-Up to Amazon in ‘Most Valuable American Brand’ List

In the latest company rankings, Brand Finance has detailed the 500 Most Valuable Brands in the United States for 2018 [PDF], with Apple earning 2nd place this year and not moving spots from last year. A lot has shifted around the company, however, with Google dropping from 1st place last year to 3rd place this year, and Amazon rising from 3rd to become Brand Finance’s #1 most valuable U.S. brand in 2018 (via Business Insider).

According to the methodology, Brand Finance evaluates which brands “are the strongest and most valuable across all markets.” This includes an “Enterprise Value,” “Branded Business Value,” “Brand Contribution,” and “Brand Value.” The researchers then combine this with a “Brand Strength” index, which calculates a score out of 100 based on three factors: marketing investment, stakeholder equity, and business performance.

Images via Brand Finance
Overall, the researchers found that 2018’s results prove companies in the technology sector “have cemented their position as absolute leaders in the market.” In first, Amazon grew its brand value 42 percent this year to $150.8 billion, overtaking Apple’s stationary spot in second place. Although the company didn’t move, it did grow its brand value 37 percent to $146.3 million.

Google grew its brand value 10 percent to $120.9 million, but was still “unable to keep pace with the remarkable growth of the top two brands.” Rounding out the top 10 were Facebook in 4th (45 percent brand value growth), AT&T in 5th (5 percent brand value drop), Microsoft in 6th (6 percent growth), Verizon in 7th (5 percent drop), Walmart in 8th (1 percent drop), Wells Fargo in 9th (6 percent growth), and Chase in 10th (15 percent growth).

It’s important to note that Brand Finance’s rankings don’t directly measure each brand’s actual revenue or profit from a given year, but focuses instead on its own specialized system to discover a brand’s value. Specifically, Brand Finance CEO David Haigh said the corporate brand valuations are compliant with the International Organization for Standardization’s 10668 and 20671 specifications.

In other recent rankings, Apple dropped to the 4th spot in Fortune 500’s annual list of the top U.S. corporations based on gross revenue. Earlier in the year, the company earned the top spot as the most intimate brand in the U.S for millennials in a list that measured which brands had the deepest emotional connections with respondents.

Tag: Brand Finance
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple’s Free Schoolwork App Now Available to Teachers

Apple today announced that its free Schoolwork app, introduced at its education event in Chicago in March, is now available for teachers.

Schoolwork enables teachers to share assignments and announcements with students, track student progress, tailor instructions to student needs, collaborate one-on-one with students, provide instant feedback, and more.

Schoolwork makes it easy to create and send announcements and assignments with almost any type of content, from web links to PDFs and documents, and even specific activities in apps. Students can use Schoolwork to stay organized and keep track of the work they need to complete and when they need to hand it in.

Schoolwork works alongside Apple’s existing Classroom app for iPad, and soon Mac. The app allows teachers to monitor every student’s iPad in class.

Classroom on iPad, for example, helps teachers keep students focused on a specific app or website and lets them view student screens during class, share documents with students, assign shared iPads, reset a student’s password, and more.

More details about the Schoolwork and Classroom apps and deployment are available on Apple’s education tools website.

Tags: education, Classroom, Schoolwork
Discuss this article in our forums

Watch inside Soyuz as it blasts astronauts and furry toys to the space station

Astronauts sit in seats worse than coach on journeys to the International Space Station (ISS). A video released by the European Space Agency (ESA) on Monday proves it.

It shows the launch earlier this month of Soyuz MS-09 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Interior cameras offer a view of NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Roscosmos commander Sergei Prokopyev, and ESA astronaut and flight engineer Alexander Gerst cooped up inside the Soyuz spacecraft as it heads toward the space-based outpost.

The video also includes the first-ever shots from cameras fixed to the exterior of the 50-meter-tall Soyuz rocket.

“The intense launch lasts less than 10 minutes whereby the Soyuz spacecraft is propelled 1,640 km (1020 miles) and gains 210 km (130 miles) altitude,” ESA said in notes accompanying the video. “Every second for nine minutes, the spacecraft accelerates 50 km/h (31 mph) on average as the rocket’s boosters burn their fuel and are discarded.”

As the astronauts experience forces of up to 4g (four times Earth’s pull), the Soyuz commander uses a stick to press buttons on the control panel as it’s too far to reach with his hand. The bags above their heads are full of supplies for the ISS, with ESA noting that “every bit of space is used” aboard the tiny spacecraft.

Oh, and you may be wondering what those little furry toys are doing there, dangling in front of the astronauts. Besides acting as mascots and good luck charms, they also offer an easy way for the crew to see when the spacecraft is in orbit, as they’ll start floating about in the weightless conditions. You can see it happen toward the end of the video.

Textbook launch

It was a textbook launch, with the Soyuz rocket propelling the astronauts to their cruising speed of around 28,800 km/h (17,895 mph).

But it was a challenging trip for the trio as they had to spend two days stuck inside the spacecraft as it orbited Earth a total of 34 times before arriving at the space station on Friday, June 8.

A faster 4-orbit/6-hour or a 2-orbit/3-hour journey is usually possible, but space station positioning requirements to ensure a daytime landing for the departing Soyuz MS-07 crew earlier in the launch week prevented the possibility of a speedier trip for the new crew, SpaceFlight.com reported.

Below are the key moments of the launch, with timings shown according to the timestamp at the bottom right of the video:

-00:12 Launch command issued
-00:10 Engine turbopumps at flight speed
-00:05 Engines at maximum thrust
00:00 Launch
+1:54 Separation of emergency rescue system
+1:57 First stage separation
+2:38 Fairing separation
+4:48 Second stage separation
+4:58 Tail adapter separation
+8:45 Third stage engine cut off having arrived in orbit
+8:49 Soyuz separation, deploy solar arrays and antennae

Editors’ Recommendations

• These astronauts will whiz around Earth 34 times before reaching space station
• Astronauts install hi-def docking cameras for Crew Dragon, Starliner capsules
• NASA wants to make the first Starliner test flight a fully operational mission
• Watch live as SpaceX attempts to launch (and land) its best Falcon 9 rocket yet
• Get your Sagan on with 60 awe-inspiring photos of the final frontier

How close are we to living in ‘The Jetsons’? Checking in on our smart-home future

In the fall of 1962, The Jetsons debuted in primetime on ABC-TV as the network’s first show to be broadcasted in color. It was the height of the Space Race, and Americans eagerly tuned in for a tantalizing view of the future.

This particular future was Orbit City in the year 2062. The Jetsons were a nuclear family that lived, worked, and went to school in buildings high above the clouds. They commuted in flying cars, benefitted from abundant technology, and Rosie the robot did much of their housekeeping.

Despite an original run that lasted just one season and 24 episodes, The Jetsons became synonymous with ‘the future’. Now, nearly 56 years later, some of the technology dreamed up in the cartoon is more present than future.

Although we probably won’t see flying cars anytime soon, some technologies have become part of our daily lives, and others are in development and on their way to being commonplace by 2062.

Let’s look at some of the most iconic smart home technology from the world of the Jetson family and see how it compares to what we have today.

Video Phones

Video calling is one of the most easily recognizable technologies from The Jetsons because it’s already here. Some of us use Facetime, Skype, and other video calling platforms daily; in fact, we often use the technology in place of attending work meetings. We use it to check in with family and friends. And as more and more people ditch traditional landline phones, this trend will only continue.

If anything, The Jetsons underestimated the potential in this market. Most of their video phone equipment is a lot bulkier than the compact, hand-held devices we use today. And with all the advances in virtual and augmented reality, it’s possible that we could someday soon experience our phone calls in 3D.

Robot Vacuum

The Jetson family enjoyed many time and labor-saving technologies — especially on the home front. Jane, the mother, merely touched a few buttons to deploy long robotic arms that washed and folded laundry to save hours of washing and cleaning. (Yet somehow, she still complained about doing housework). And while most domestic chores are still very hands-on in 2018, there’s at least one obvious device we have in common with the Jetsons: the robot vacuum.

Many have heard of robovacs like the Roomba, perhaps because of its high-profile cameos on the TV shows Breaking Bad and Parks and Recreation. Now there are many different brands on the market, and just like in The Jetsons, this battery powered vacuum can clean the floors and use its sensors to avoid furniture as well as steep drops.

Automatic Food Prep

In the cartoon, we oohed and awed at Jane Jetson’s ability to press a couple of buttons that automatically prepared a multi-course meal in a matter of seconds. In one episode, we see Jane push three or four buttons on a large square machine that shoots out cereal, milk, eggs, and toast for her son Elroy. What we don’t see is where the food is stored and how it gets prepared. We’d probably be pretty horrified by the preservatives and additives in the Jetson’s diet.

Of all Orbit City’s technologies, this one still feels the farthest away. In 2018 we certainly have some devices that eliminate time and labor in the kitchen, like smart coffee makers.

There are appliances out there that could soon replicate this technology, though not without preparation and planning. A product called Suvie promises to make an entire meal for a family. It resembles a toaster oven and has different trays for different cooking settings. You put food in in the morning, set it to cook, and come home at the end of the day with a three or four course meal. But the device hasn’t been released yet, and likely won’t become a standard product in the kitchen anytime soon.

Robots as Assistants

In the cartoon, Rosie, the Jetson’s walking, er, rolling, talking robot maid, handles all the chores that are too advanced for their push-button appliances. You know, like sweeping.

You can’t buy a Rosie in 2018, yet. But we do have voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, that use machine learning and voice recognition to help users accomplish tasks through their smartphones and other applications.

There are robots out there as well that might become part of the smart home experience someday. LG debuted several concept robots at the Consumer Electronic Show this year that serve food and carry baggages. Other companies are developing robotic technology for a whole host of different things.

If you combine this artificial intelligence with emerging mobile robotics technology and extrapolate 45 years of progress, you’ll see how the average home could have a Rosie-like robot assistant by 2062. Maybe.

Personal Care and Hygiene

Those of us who are slow movers in the morning appreciated the episode of The Jetsons where George is launched from his bed onto a conveyor belt, where robotic arms help him with dressing and grooming. This includes getting a vigorous tooth brushing from a faceless robotic arm protruding from the wall.

In some regards we are thankfully a long ways away from this lazy automation. However, today we have outsourced some of these tasks to technology. For example, electric toothbrushes are set for optimal brushing time and technique. There are even smart toilets available. Yep, smart toilets.

Orbit City wasn’t all it was cracked up to be

Despite the technology the creators dreamed up in The Jetsons, the future still had some of the same human experience themes we see in our lives today. George’s boss was a jerk, Elroy hated doing his homework, and the Jetson family often grew annoyed that the technology they had in place sometimes malfunctioned.

Whether or not we’ll actually see flying cars in our lifetime, one thing’s for certain: George, Jane, daughter Judy, Elroy, Astro the dog, and Rosie the Robot never knew how great they had it living in Orbit City.

Editors’ Recommendations

• You won’t even need to dress yourself in the future — thanks to robots like this
• DT Daily: Amazon is planning to build Alexa-enabled home robots
• Robots and delivery services take over a kitchen-free future, reports says
• Our guide to the best robot vacuums
• Plated plans to take meal kits from your doorstep to the grocery store

Techy sports we will all be watching in the (not-too-distant) future

Science fiction has kind of gotten our hopes up about the future of sport. Okay, so a lot of them look pretty dangerous, or downright dystopian, but who wouldn’t fancy tuning into the deadly transcontinental car race from Death Race 2000, Futuresport’s combination of rollerblading and hoverboards, or Star Trek: Voyager “Tsunkatse” combat sport?

Sadly, real life has yet to deliver any of these to our screens — but that’s not to say that tech isn’t changing sport as we know it. Move over FIFA World Cup; here are our picks for the future sports we totally think are going to be everywhere in a few years.

eSports

Aurelien Meunier/FIFA/Getty Images

Watching other people playing video games used to be something you only did when you had a group of friends over, and everyone was taking turns playing. Today, it’s a major, honest-to-goodness sport with some serious money — and viewership — behind it.

According to a recent report from marketing research company Newzoo, 2018 revenue for eSports is likely to hit $905 million, and to top $1 billion next year. Packed audiences will turn up to watch their favorite gamers compete live, while the rise of platforms like Twitch have helped take eSports to the next level. Heck, eSport superstars like Tyler “Ninja” Blevin can earn around $500,000 per month playing Fortnite. That’s more than some NBA players!

Particularly since the viewership of eSports is in the always-attractive-to-advertisers sub-35-years-old category, we only expect this field to go from strength-to-strength.

Bionic Olympics

Erik Tham/Getty Images

When it comes to sports, we have a complex relationship with performance enhancers. Most of us agree that things like steroids are bad, but we still love to see records broken on a regular basis in superhuman fashion. We admire the Rocky IV montage of Rocky Balboa sculpting his body to physical perfection with only the most basic tools, and yet those of us who love tech also lust after the high tech super-gym where Ivan Drago trains.

The truth is that, more and more, we’re all becoming cyborg creatures, blending man or woman and machine — and so are our athletes. With that in mind, we expect to see more events like the Cybathalon, a bionic Olympics which allows augmented humans (in this case, those with disabilities) to compete using the latest exosuit assistive tech. These assistive suits will allow athletes to be faster, stronger, and more agile — promising some exciting competition in the process.

Drone racing

“Roads?” asks Doc Brown at the end of Back to the Future. “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” It’s a pertinent point here in 2018, when we’re on the verge of amazing technologies like autonomous flying taxis and self-driving cars — both of which could mean that kids born today never have to get their driver’s license.

That may well indicate the decline of sports like Formula 1 and NASCAR, the appeal of which is based on mastering what will increasingly look like yesterday’s technology. What will replace it? Quite possibly drone racing, which promises viewers all the high speed aerial thrills they can wrap their heads around. For the current iteration of this, look no further than the Drone Racing League.

Self-driving car racing

Think we’re getting ahead of ourselves by predicting the end of car racing? You could be correct. In which case, we can totally imagine self-driving car racing becoming a thing.

With no human drivers in harm’s way, autonomous vehicle racing could be faster-paced and more risk-oriented than its predecessor — while allowing all kinds of futuristic concept cars which don’t have to be limited by, well, housing an actual person in the driver’s seat.

If this all sounds super far-fetched to you, it shouldn’t. We’ve already got autonomous racing concepts like Roborace, and autonomous vehicle tech is progressing at a blistering pace. Once everyone is used to self-driving cars on the roads, this will be a surefire crowd pleaser.

Robot fighting

Megabots

Monster trucks were all kinds of kickass when we were kids. You know what’s more kickass than a monster truck? That’s right: a freakin’ 15-foot-tall robot that can crush a hapless Prius to death just as a warmup.

If the idea of drones whizzing around a course at high speed sounds too cerebral for you, we can totally imagine an audience for watching two or more giant robots — preferably from different countries — beating six shades of hell out of one another. Add in a storyline about how one of them stole the other’s Roomba, and you’ve practically got tomorrow’s WWE killer right there!

Humans vs. machines

In 1997, IBM supercomputer Deep Blue made international headlines when it competed against chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in a battle nicknamed “The Brain’s Last Stand.” In 2011, Jeopardy ratings soared to a six year high when IBM’s Watson A.I. took on all-time (human) champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter for a man vs. machine clash. A few years later, in 2016, more than 100 people watched the epic clash between Go champion Lee Sedol and Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo.

In all three of these contests pitting humans against machines, machines won — as the world looked on, gripped. As robots show greater and greater breakthroughs in terms of their speed and dexterity, tomorrow’s contests won’t simply be limited to intellectual battles. The organizers of Japan’s RoboCup soccer challenge claim that, by 2050, it’ll be possible for a team of autonomous robot players to beat a team of the world’s best flesh-and-blood footballers.

Imagine pitting the Dallas Cowboys against a team of gridiron-conquering machines, or Real Madrid meeting the Uncanny Valleys in a man vs. machine soccer epic. Not only will these contests prove to be massive ratings draws, we also reckon they’ll perfectly capture viewers’ imaginations at a time when robots are threatening our livelihoods in the workplace.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best climbing harnesses
• Toby Miller on being Shaun White’s protege and the future of snowboarding
• The best podcasts of 2018
• 2019 Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid first drive review
• 8 things kids born in 2018 will never experience, thanks to technology

Mi Laser Projector review: Xiaomi’s costliest product is also its best

Xiaomi’s laser projector trounces every other product in this category.

Xiaomi sells over 2,000 items in China, and one of the more interesting products it launched last year was the Mi Laser Projector. The ultra-short throw projector can cast up to a 150-inch image, and it comes with an array of features that differentiates it from the rest of the options in this segment.

Above all else, Xiaomi as a brand is associated with offering incredible value for money from its portfolio of products, and the Mi Laser Projector is no different. Even though it costs vastly more than most Xiaomi products at $1,825, it is well worth the asking price.

Xiaomi Mi Laser Projector

Price: $1,825

Bottom line: The Mi Laser Projector combines outstanding image quality with an elegant design and great built-in speakers. If you’re in the market for an ultra-short throw laser projector for under $2,000, look no further.

The Good

• Excellent picture quality
• Room-filling sound
• Great design
• High degree of customizability

The Bad

• Availability
• Interface limited to Mandarin

See at GearBest

Xiaomi Mi Laser Projector What you’ll love

Xiaomi has done a masterful job when it comes to the design of its ecosystem products. Everything from its air purifier to robot vacuum cleaner, smart humidifier, and even the rice cooker share a similar design aesthetic, and that’s the case with the Mi Laser Projector as well. It is made out of plastic and finished in white, and has a grille up front that houses the speaker.

The Mi Laser Projector has a rectangular design — unlike most other projectors — and it manages to stand out. As this is an ultra-short throw projector, you’ll be able to place it right next to the wall, with the image size going all the way up to 150 inches. There are vents on either side — the one on the left lets air in, and the right side is the exhaust.

There are IR sensors on either side of the laser that cut off the image anytime they detect motion in the vicinity, with the feature designed to prevent you from looking into the laser. You’ll also be able to adjust the height of the projector through the knobs located on either side. Round the back, the Mi Laser Projector has three HDMI ports (including an ARC port), a solitary USB 3.0 port, audio in/out, S/PDIF, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. You also get Wi-Fi ac and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity.

The Mi Laser Projector uses Appotronics’ ALPD 3.0 in conjunction with TI’s DLP projection tech, and the image quality on offer is excellent.

Colors are vibrant, and the projector manages to do a great job with HDR content. While it doesn’t have 4K playback, it downsamples 4K content when played over something like a Chromecast Ultra. The projector gravitates to cooler colors out of the box, but you’ll be able to adjust color balance, brightness, saturation, and other parameters to get a better-calibrated image.

For the price, nothing comes close to the Mi Laser Projector.

I went with the settings outlined on AVForums, and having used the projector for just over five months now, I can say that I haven’t faced any issues with reliability or image quality.

Another area where it excels is in brightness — the Mi Laser Projector is one of the brightest options in this category, and it actually manages to outdo projectors that cost three times as much. Even if you’re installing the projector in a room that gets a lot of ambient light, you should have no problem viewing content.

The picture quality is just one aspect, and the Mi Laser Projector also has a great built-in speaker. It comes with two 30W woofers and two high-frequency tweeters, and the sound that comes out of the projector is amazing. I have the projector set up in my bedroom, and the built-in soundbar is more than adequate to fill the room.

Xiaomi is also offering a brand-new remote with the projector, and it has a click wheel design similar to that of what you’d find on an Apple TV remote. There’s also a digital assistant feature that lets you play content using your voice, but it doesn’t work with English.

An interesting design trait with the Mi Laser Projector is that it is modular, with Xiaomi stating that you’ll be able to switch out the motherboard or even the laser after a few years, making for easy upgrades. The laser itself is touted to last 25,000 hours, so you don’t need to worry about switching it out anytime soon.

Xiaomi Mi Laser Projector What needs work

Right now, the main issue with the Mi Projector is that the interface is exclusively in Mandarin. Xiaomi rolled out an update a month ago that lets you select English as the language for the menu options, but aside from that, the content recommendations and the banners are all laid out in Mandarin.

Another downside is that as this product is limited to China, there’s no Play Store installed out of the box. You can try sideloading APKs, but know that services like Netflix won’t work as the streaming service requires DRM to work. Prime Video also did not work with a sideloaded APK, but I was able to get Spotify working.

The best alternative is to hook up an Android TV box to the device and use that as the interface for your streaming content. I went that route with the Mi Box, and while Xiaomi’s Android TV box is very affordable at just $69, it isn’t all that great. Netflix constantly glitches out, and I’ve had numerous issues with Wi-Fi connectivity. So you’re better off buying something along the likes of the NVIDIA Shield TV or a Roku Ultra if you’re picking this up in the U.S.

Xiaomi Mi Laser Projector review

While the $1,800 price tag may seem like an awful lot for a Xiaomi product, there’s plenty to like in the Mi Laser Projector. It goes toe-to-toe with projectors that cost thrice as much, and the image quality as well as brightness are fantastic.

Xiaomi has stated its intent to launch the Mi Laser Projector in the U.S. at some point this year, so you’re better off waiting for the official release. A formal launch would mean Play Services out of the box, negating the need for a standalone Android TV box. Xiaomi is increasingly veering toward services as it looks to grow revenue, so it’s possible that the Chinese manufacturer will roll out content initiatives aimed at an American audience at the time of launch.

At this point, there’s no indication on when the Mi Laser Projector will make its debut in the U.S. or what it will retail for, but it will just be the second Android-based product the manufacturer launches in the country. The first product was the Mi Box, and thankfully the Mi Laser Projector is a much better showcase of Xiaomi’s prowess in the hardware arena.

If you’re looking to buy the Mi Laser Projector right now, you’ll have to shell out over $1,900 and pick it up from the likes of GearBest. A formal launch in the U.S. would make the product available in the vicinity of around $1,600, or $100 more than what it retails for in China.

4.5
out of 5

The Mi Laser Projector is Xiaomi’s most ambitious hardware product yet, and like its phones, it offers incredible value. The picture quality is outstanding, the built-in speakers sound great, and the portable nature of the projector means you don’t have to worry about drilling holes or mounting it on the ceiling. For under $2,000, this is one of the best projectors you can buy today.

See at GearBest

Treat yourself to a six-quart Instant Pot DUO Plus for $90 today only

Replace 9 kitchen gadgets with just one!

The six-quart Instant Pot DUO Plus 60 is down to $89.99 on Amazon, a savings of $40. We haven’t seen this model drop near this low since Black Friday. It normally sells for $130, and doesn’t move from that price very often, so you won’t want to miss out on this one-day deal.

This is an Instant Pot for families. It can cook enough food to serve four to six people. Or just one me on a really hungry day. It can be used in seven different ways as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, saute, yogurt maker, steamer, and warmer. It has plenty of preset programs on a large, easy-to-use control panel. It can automatically keep food warm after it’s finished and has three temperatures for saute and slow cook.

You can delay the cooking time up to 24 hours so it will be ready to go as soon as you walk in the door. It has UL-certified safety mechanisms and is energy efficient. The Duo Plus series has 4.5 stars based on more than 3,100 user reviews. You’ll probably want to grab a cookbook for some extra ideas, and maybe even a spare lid, some yogurt cups, and even a cake pan.

See at Amazon