The new $100 Samsung SmartThings Tracker has nationwide range

Where are my keys?

Samsung’s new SmartThings tracker will use an LTE-based cellular network to help you keep tabs on your pets, keys, phone, or whatever else you can attach it to. We have seen a lot of tile trackers out there. The TrackR Pixel is on sale right now for just $45, in fact. The difference between those trackers and Samsung’s new tracker is the other brands use Bluetooth and have a very limited range. Once the object you are tracking gets beyond a certain point, these tiles use things like crowd-sourcing to locate them. You’ll never be out of range of Samsung’s tracker unless it manages to travel internationally because it will use a low-power LTE network specifically designed for devices like this.

While you could use these to keep track of your keys or wallet, Samsung’s tracker has a lot of great features for tracking your pets or kids, too. For example, you can set up a geofencing zone that will automatically alert you when the tracker crosses that zone. When you need to grab your kids from soccer practice, they can send you a real-time alert with their exact location so you don’t miss the park entrance. The tracker is water-resistant so it can perform in the rain and has a battery that lasts up to a week.

With those other trackers, like the popular Tile Mate, you can buy three to five of the tiles in a package that costs less than $50. The Samsung SmartThings tracker costs $99.99 and $5 a month after the first year. You can pre-order it through Samsung’s website if you want it starting around Sept. 16 or through Amazon where it will ship around Sept. 30. On September 14, you can find them in AT&T stores, and they will be available with Verizon soon, too.

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Canada Daily Deals: Bluetooth headphones, gaming accessories and more

Whether you’re looking for new tech gear or household items, we’ve got you covered.

We found plenty of great deals today that include big discounts on Bluetooth headphones for working out or zoning out, KitchenAid, accessories for Xbox and Nintendo Switch and much more!

View the rest of the deals

Each day, the Thrifter Canada team scouts out and shares amazing deals on products you know and love, helping you find the best prices on the ‘net.

For more Canadian deals coverage, be sure to keep an eye on Thrifter CA and follow the team on Twitter.

PayPal on eBay Discounting $100 App Store and iTunes Gift Cards to $85

If you’ve been waiting for a new sale on App Store and iTunes gift cards, PayPal on eBay is once again discounting the $100 gift card tier to $85 for United States users. While the sale lasts, anyone with a PayPal account can take advantage of the deal, and you should receive the code for the iTunes credit within a few hours after the purchase.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

As usual with email delivery sales on iTunes cards, you can either enter your own email address and send the code to yourself, or enter the email of a friend or family member to send it as a gift. The credit will only be valid on purchases made on the United States App and iTunes stores, however. These sales usually last for a few days, so head over to PayPal’s Digital Gifts eBay store to place your order before the 15 percent discount expires.

iTunes gift card sales are a great way to stock up on iTunes credit at a cheaper price, which you can then use to rent and buy movies on iTunes, pay for your Apple Music and iCloud subscriptions, purchase a new app, expand your iBooks collection, and much more. Many people also use the credit to pay for third-party subscriptions, like Netflix and Hulu, essentially discounting the cost of these services thanks to the gift card sales.

Also on eBay, the retailer today kicked off another coupon code, this one aimed at preparing for the incoming fall season. With coupon code JUMPINTOFALL, you can save 20 percent on orders placed in categories like home, clothing and shoes, accessories, luggage, vacuums, and more. This means that the code is not a sitewide coupon, but those interested can still use it on orders of $25 or more before it expires Friday, September 14, and the discount will be capped at a max value of $50.

In other sales, ahead of the Apple event Rakuten has AirPods for $127.46 thanks to its newest sitewide discount code SAVE15. Comparatively, AirPods have been seeing discounts to around $144 (originally priced at $159.99) at retailers like Amazon and Adorama. While a nice discount on the wireless headphones, shoppers should note that upgraded AirPods with “Hey Siri” functionality and a wireless charging case are expected to be announced in two days.

For more details on this week’s sales, head over to our full Deals Roundup.

Related Roundup: Apple Deals
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Apple Surveying iMac Pro Buyers About Key Features

Apple has recently been sending out surveys to customers who purchased an iMac Pro, asking them about which features drew them to the pro-level machine and what they like or dislike about the iMac Pro.

Some of the survey questions were shared on Twitter, with customers asked to point out some of the most important iMac Pro features, like Thunderbolt 3 ports, Xeon W processors, T2 chip, external display support, and more.

Apple is sending out a survey to iMac Pro buyers. Questions include whether you bought the iMac Pro because it had more ports, SD card slot, and what features you like or dislike.

This is a great chance to give Apple feedback! pic.twitter.com/igU25cH6ss

— a f waller (@afwaller) September 10, 2018

Apple regularly sends out surveys of this nature to customers, but this line of questioning on the iMac Pro suggests Apple is perhaps trying to suss out key features that pro-level users want to see in future pro machines, such as the Mac Pro machine that’s in the works.

The iMac Pro was a precursor to a new Mac Pro, which Apple first announced in April 2017. Apple is working on a high-end high-throughput modular Mac Pro that will facilitate regular upgrades to meet the needs of Apple’s pro user base.

Apple has a dedicated team working on the Mac Pro, and Apple executives have said that Apple is committed to making the machine the highest-end desktop system able to handle VR and high-end cinema production. Apple has even put together a “Pro Workflow Team” to tailor the Mac Pro and other Apple products to professional users, and that team could potentially be behind the iMac Pro survey.

Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi admitted last year that with the 2013 Mac Pro, Apple designed itself into “a bit of a thermal corner” given the restrictive size of the trash can-shaped Mac Pro and its inability to handle the thermal capacity needed for larger single GPUs. Apple learned from that mistake and is this time aiming for a machine that will better accommodate future upgrades and high-end hardware.

Apple plans to release the new Mac Pro at some point in 2019, so a launch is a ways off, but it’s possible Apple will be ready to share additional details about the machine this year when new Macs are unveiled either in September or October.

Related Roundup: iMac ProBuyer’s Guide: iMac Pro (Neutral)
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Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 65 With Bug Fixes and Feature Improvements

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced over two years ago in March of 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview release 65 includes bug fixes and feature improvements for the Storage Access API, Media, Apple Pay, Payment Request, Shadow DOM, Fetch API, Service Workers, Web API, Web Inspector, WebGL 2, Web Assembly, and Safari Extensions.

The new Safari Technology Preview update is available for both macOS High Sierra and macOS Mojave, the newest version of the Mac operating system that’s currently being beta tested by developers and public beta testers.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store (or in System Preferences in Mojave) to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple’s aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.
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Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 3100 chip will finally make Google’s Wear OS competitive

Qualcomm has taken some lumps over the past year about not updating the aging Snapdragon 2100 chipset, which has powered many smartwatches over the past couple of years. It has now answered those criticisms with the new Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform, and it has definitely come out fighting, as it packs a variety of new technology to power the next generation of wearable technology.

The Snapdragon Wear 3100, unlike the 2100, is a new low-power chipset designed for smartwatches, rather than being adapted from a chip designed for smartphones. To understand what makes it special, think back to how many multi-core phone chips were described as having “big” cores and “little” cores, which helped manage power and reduce battery consumption. The Snapdragon Wear 3100 is made up of 4 A7 “big” cores, a little DSP, and a new tiny co-processor.

5 years of research

It has taken five years of research to create the 28nm QCC1100, ultra-low power co-processor, and it’s going to fix many of the things that frustrate us about wearable tech at the moment. Crucially it will be responsible for keeping the lights on when you’re not interacting with the watch, removing strain from the main processor. Two new display architectures kick in depending on activity, further reducing power consumption. How much lower? Qualcomm said the Snapdragon Wear 3100 reduces active power by 20 times over current products.

The introduction of the new chip will make future Google Wear OS smartwatches more versatile, and is designed to power both fashion and sports-focused watches. Qualcomm told Digital Trends we will see more sports manufacturers introduce smartwatches with the Snapdragon Wear 3100 inside, due to the platform now able to run GPS and a heart rate sensor for 15 hours on a single charge, rather than the three that’s possible now.

How about battery life overall? Depending on the capacity of the battery, new smartwatches with this chip will operate for between 36 and 60 hours before a recharge. Snapdragon Wear 3100-powered watches will also have a power-saving traditional watch mode, similar to what we’ve seen on the Mobvoi Ticwatch Pro and the Huawei Watch 2, except here it’s a combined hardware and software system that will see the watch run in ambient mode for 30 days on one charge. You’ll get a week from 20-percent battery power too.

New Snapdragon Wear 3100 ambient mode, shown on reference hardware.

It’s not just power benefits either. The co-processor will run a brand new ambient mode, which elevates the current boring Wear OS ambient mode look to something much more watch-like. It will display 16 different colors, a moving second hand, and complications too. We saw a beta version running, which you can see in the image above, and it looks great. With ambient mode on, the A7 cores are asleep, and everything operates using the co-processor. Interestingly, the co-processor doesn’t run Wear OS like the A7 cores, but an RTOS operating system, which again increases efficiency.

Do more, for longer

The co-processor isn’t the only new aspect of the Snapdragon Wear 3100. There is a new PMIC (Power Management Integrated Circuit) for improved battery life, a next generation NFC chip for better contactless payments, a more efficient modem designed for use in wearable products, and custom SRAM. Additionally, the Digital Signal Processors are built on an open framework for manufacturers to add more sensors based on product requirements, rather than being limited to what Qualcomm provides.

Qualcomm describes the Snapdragon Wear 3100 as a platform, not simply a chip, and it will be supporting it through updates in the future. These will being new features and improve the battery life too. We should expect a Monday-to-Friday battery life extension first, followed by Monday-to-Sunday life in the future. Boiled down to the basics, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform will let us do more with our smartwatches, for longer, and become less reliant on charging. It’s exactly what we’ve been waiting for.

For all the new features in the Snapdragon Wear 3100 to work, it will require a new version of Google’s Wear OS on the watch. Google unveiled a new way to interact with Wear OS, but we haven’t seen these new power-saving modes in action. Plus, some manufacturers may decide to use a smaller battery due to the power efficiency enhancements, so a thinner watch case can be introduced, potentially negating the bulk of the battery life improvements.

The first smartwatches with the Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform inside will be from the Fossil Group, Montblanc, and Louis Vuitton, which shows the high level of interest from fashion brands in continuing to churn out these watches. The Fossil Group contains brands such as Michael Kors, Misfit, Marc Jacobs, Emporio Armani, and Skagen. The Montblanc watch already has a name — the Summit 2. These first watches with the Wear 3100 will be available before the end of 2018.

Editors’ Recommendations

• New Wear OS smartwatches have arrived! Here’s why you shouldn’t buy them
• Skagen’s new Falster 2 smartwatch comes with built-in GPS, heart-rate tracking
• Diesel’s neon-soaked On Full Guard 2.5 is a Vegas marquee on your wrist
• Fossil adds Noonlight’s emergency feature to its latest lineup of smartwatches
• Qualcomm’s newest smartwatch chips are made just for kids

Google’s Pixelbook 2 ads reveal bezel-less design ahead of October launch

Image credit: Bill H via Chrome Unboxed

With Google slated to announce its updated Pixel hardware lineup next month, there has been a number of leaks over the past few days of what Google’s latest hardware designs for its Chromebook could look like. Google is widely expected to take the wraps off of what appears to be two distinct Pixelbook 2 models at its October media event, and the latest images of show what appears to be a convertible Chromebook design with a virtually bezel-less display.

Given that the ad depicts what appears to be a Chrome OS device with a similar convertible form factor to the Pixelbook, this design may be for the Pixelbook 2 model with a code name of Atlas. Like the current generation model, this design allows the Pixelbook 2 to convert between laptop and tablet modes with its 360-degree hinge. What’s interesting is that the images for this device come by way of official Google ads on Facebook and not from leaks.

Images of what is believed to be the Pixelbook 2 Atlas were posted by Chrome Unboxed. At this time, it’s unclear if this will be the final design of the device or if Google is merely trolling the internet. The narrow bezels could be the result of photo manipulation, a practice that’s not uncommon for rendering images in advertisements. However, if the design is accurate, the practicality of having virtually no bezels is questionable, as it would make this device hard to hold while being used as a tablet.

But this could still be a trend that Google will pursue for its next generation of Pixelbook designs — just not to this extreme. In an earlier leak, a developer build of Chrome OS revealed an animation of a tablet with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and slimmed down bezels. If Google does indeed choose this design route for the Nocturne, as its ad would lead us to believe, it would need a new placement for the webcam since the screen extends fully to the top, sides, and bottom edges.

Over the weekend, a short Pixelbook 2 video was leaked, showing a device with slim bezels and a keyboard design with rounded keys. The video’s close-up view of the device doesn’t reveal too much about the overall design, but it’s believed that the Pixelbook 2 shown is a tablet with a detachable keyboard design. This would make this second Pixelbook 2 model more competitive against tablets, like Microsoft’s Surface Go and Surface Pro models as well as Apple’s iPad tablets. If the convertible model is referenced as Atlas, then the Pixelbook 2 tablet with its detachable design could be the Nocturne model.

Despite the number of leaks in recent days, it’s still unclear whether Google plans on unveiling both or either Pixelbook 2 models or designs at its October event.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Google’s Pixelbook 2 tablet could debut with fingerprint security
• 5 features we want in Google’s Pixelbook 2
• Google Pixelbook review
• Google may launch two Pixelbook 2 laptops in October
• Samsung Chromebook Pro review

Yi-One smart mug will cool your coffee just enough for you to drink it

In today’s busy 24/7 world, who has time to wait for a hot cup of coffee to cool down? Certainly not the folks backing an unusual, but exciting new Kickstarter campaign for an innovative mug called the Yi-One. Updating the thermos for the new millennium, the Yi-One promises to keep your freshly brewed hot coffee at a scalding 200-degree Fahrenheit temperature, until you want to take a sip, at which point it will cool it to a drinkable 150 degrees in just three seconds flat.

“The technology is well proven and simple,” Yanming Wen, CEO of International Patent Acquisition, the company behind the technology, told Digital Trends. “The double-walled vacuum cavity and the cavity of the temperature equaling heat exchanger are partitioned by an insulated layer — with a centered hole for inserting of a solid and long-lasting drinking straw and a few communicating holes serving as coffee flowing passage. The temperature-equalizing metal of the cavity quickly and simply equalizes 20 to 30 cubic centimeters of scalding hot coffee that flows into the cavity by [50°F] within 3 seconds.”

In terms of the project’s origins, Wen tells a familiar story: That of the caffeine connoisseur forced to undergo an agonizing wait each day for their coffee to cool down.

“There was no way I could resist the alluring aroma of coffee that I needed so badly to kick-start my day,” he explained. “I often took a few sips of the hot coffee that ended scorching my lips and often spilled on me and my car seat. Sipping hot coffee kept in a mug on the go was always an inevitable trouble.”

If Wen has managed to crack this problem (which, as he noted, is one shared by millions of coffee drinkers), Yi-One will be onto a winner. We’ll wait until we’ve gotten the chance to test it for ourselves before proclaiming it a savior for coffee-drinkers everywhere, but it certainly sounds intriguing. As ever, we offer our usual warnings about the potential risks inherent in crowdfunding campaigns. However, if you’re keen to get involved, head over to the project’s Kickstarter page, where a Yi-One cup starts at $79. Shipping is set for early 2019.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Beat the heat with this super-cool personal air conditioning unit
• The best PS1 games of all time
• How to wall mount a TV: Tips and tricks to cut down on frustration
• ‘Fortnite: Battle Royale’ tips and tricks
• The best coffee makers of 2018

Yi-One smart mug will cool your coffee just enough for you to drink it

In today’s busy 24/7 world, who has time to wait for a hot cup of coffee to cool down? Certainly not the folks backing an unusual, but exciting new Kickstarter campaign for an innovative mug called the Yi-One. Updating the thermos for the new millennium, the Yi-One promises to keep your freshly brewed hot coffee at a scalding 200-degree Fahrenheit temperature, until you want to take a sip, at which point it will cool it to a drinkable 150 degrees in just three seconds flat.

“The technology is well proven and simple,” Yanming Wen, CEO of International Patent Acquisition, the company behind the technology, told Digital Trends. “The double-walled vacuum cavity and the cavity of the temperature equaling heat exchanger are partitioned by an insulated layer — with a centered hole for inserting of a solid and long-lasting drinking straw and a few communicating holes serving as coffee flowing passage. The temperature-equalizing metal of the cavity quickly and simply equalizes 20 to 30 cubic centimeters of scalding hot coffee that flows into the cavity by [50°F] within 3 seconds.”

In terms of the project’s origins, Wen tells a familiar story: That of the caffeine connoisseur forced to undergo an agonizing wait each day for their coffee to cool down.

“There was no way I could resist the alluring aroma of coffee that I needed so badly to kick-start my day,” he explained. “I often took a few sips of the hot coffee that ended scorching my lips and often spilled on me and my car seat. Sipping hot coffee kept in a mug on the go was always an inevitable trouble.”

If Wen has managed to crack this problem (which, as he noted, is one shared by millions of coffee drinkers), Yi-One will be onto a winner. We’ll wait until we’ve gotten the chance to test it for ourselves before proclaiming it a savior for coffee-drinkers everywhere, but it certainly sounds intriguing. As ever, we offer our usual warnings about the potential risks inherent in crowdfunding campaigns. However, if you’re keen to get involved, head over to the project’s Kickstarter page, where a Yi-One cup starts at $79. Shipping is set for early 2019.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Beat the heat with this super-cool personal air conditioning unit
• The best PS1 games of all time
• How to wall mount a TV: Tips and tricks to cut down on frustration
• ‘Fortnite: Battle Royale’ tips and tricks
• The best coffee makers of 2018

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2060 might launch next year without ray tracing

Gamers looking to pick up Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX series graphics card for its ray tracing capabilities may want to steer away from the low-end variants. There’s speculation that because of the taxing hardware demands of ray tracing, Nvidia may limit the new ray tracing capability to its higher-end cards.

“The cards will come out; we’ll start with the ray tracing cards,” Nvidia CFO Colette Kress answered during a Q&A session at the Citi 2018 Global Technology Conference. “We have the 2080 Ti, the 2080, and the 2070 overall coming to market. This is a major leap in terms of something that people probably weren’t expecting for another 10 years to 15 years.”

Kress’ statement about how Nvidia will start with the ray tracing cards and subsequent listing of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, 2080, and 2070 cards led Hot Hardware to theorize that the entry level RTX 2060 card may not support ray tracing, a hallmark feature of Nvidia’s RTX series. The reason is that ray tracing is GPU-intensive, and there’s an inverse correlation between frame rates and resolution when ray tracing is enabled.

“In a game like Battlefield V, with NVIDIA RTX enabled, the game runs at just over 60fps at 1,080p and between 40 to 50fps at 1,440p (in pre-release form with unfinished GPU drivers),” the site said. “When you crank the resolution to 4K, you’re looking at below 30fps with a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.”

On lower end RTX chips where gaming performance would suffer with ray tracing enabled, Nvidia may choose instead to drop support for the feature, Hot Hardware speculated. If this is true, Nvidia’s ray tracing feature would only be found on a RTX 2070 card or higher, which would raise the cost of entry for gamers and enthusiasts looking to try out the feature. Nvidia announced that the RTX 2070 will retail for $500, and pricing goes as high as $1,199 for the RTX 2080 Ti Founder’s Edition.

Still, it might be a while until we learn more about Nvidia’s plans for the RTX 2060 and details about capabilities and features of that GPU model. Segment Next speculates that the RTX 2060 may not launch until next year to give Nvidia time to clear out inventory of its existing chips. If you don’t need the performance gains and the ray tracing capabilities from the RTX series, you may be able to score a bargain on Nvidia’s existing GTX series graphics cards.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 20 Series starts at $500 and features real-time ray tracing
• ‘Tomb Raider’ devs respond to RTX 2080 Ti, ray tracing performance concerns
• Nvidia’s new GPUs look amazing, but that doesn’t mean you should buy one
• New 3DMark benchmark will support Nvidia’s RTX 20 Series possibly this October
• Leaked benchmark shows the RTX 2080 outperforming the GTX 1080 Ti