Does the SmartThings WiFi mesh router include a smart hub?

Best answer: Yes — the SmartThings WiFi mesh router system also doubles as a smart hub that can connect up to 100+ different SmartThings gadgets.

Amazon: Samsung SmartThings WiFi Mesh Router ($280)

The SmartThings WiFi mesh router doubles as a smart hub

The SmartThings WiFi mesh router is really two different products in one.

In addition to providing ample Wi-Fi coverage for your home, it also works as a smart hub for all of your other SmartThings devices. So, if you were already planning on getting a mesh router system and are invested in the SmartThings ecosystem, going this route just makes sense.

Everything’s controlled through the SmartThings app

Whether you want to turn off your lights, adjust the thermostat, or customize your home network settings, everything is controlled through the main SmartThings app.

For buyers that already use the app for controlling other smart home devices, having your Wi-Fi options handled through here too is a really nice treat.

You can buy a single router or get a three-pack

If you’re interested in buying the SmartThings WiFi system for yourself, you can purchase just a standalone unit or pick up a three-pack for maximum coverage.

Although it’s more expensive upfront, we recommend going the three-pack route as it offers excellent Wi-Fi range (up to 4,500 square feet) and provides the most bang for your buck at around $93 per router instead of $120.

Our pick

Samsung SmartThings WiFi Mesh Router

$280 at Amazon

Mesh router + smart home hub in one

Samsung’s SmartThings WiFi mesh router not only blankets your home in reliable internet coverage, but it also doubles as a hub for all your SmartThings devices. This bundle comes with three routers for one low price.

Blizzard announces Diablo Immortal, coming to Android

Blizzard has just announced a brand new, mobile-first Diablo game at BlizzCon.

Blizzard kicks off BlizzCon today, and hot off the heels of the Diablo 3 Nintendo Switch release (our review) is the next addition to the Diablo franchise: Diablo Immortal, coming to mobile devices on Android and iOS.

There’s not too much known about Diablo Immortal right now, but they did say that this game takes place after Diablo II: Lord of Destruction and before the events of Diablo III. This will be a full-fledged massively multiplayer online action RPG (MMOARPG) for mobile, and graphically speaking, it will look similar to Diablo III.

Tyreal the Archangel is dead, and a shattered Worldstone is scattered all over, tainting and bringing forth ancient evils who want to harness the Worldstone’s power to control mankind.

If you’re wondering how the gameplay on a touchscreen will be, don’t worry. This is the first game that Blizzard has designed with mobile in mind, and it’ll feature a virtual joystick in the bottom left, with several buttons for abilities on the right.

Diablo Immortal will feature six playable character classes that most people will be familiar with: Barbarian, Wizard, Monk, Necromancer, Demon Hunter, and Crusader. Oddly enough, the Witch Doctor from Diablo III seems to have been omitted, though more classes could be added later. These six classes were the only ones that were shown off at BlizzCon.

With Diablo Immortal, every class gets new abilities that we haven’t seen before. There will also be new zones, new stories, and new dungeons to play through. And like the full console and PC games, there’s an online multiplayer experience, so you can team up with others and slay the demons of hell together. It appears that up to six people can play together at once, which is more than previous Diablo games (up to four).

Diablo started out as a PC game, but Diablo III (originally released in 2012) has made its way onto the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and now Nintendo Switch.

You can pre-register here to find out more info for the game as they reveal it, as well have a chance to get in on the beta and get exclusive in-game rewards.

Play your NES or SNES classic wirelessly with the $15 Nyko Super Miniboss

Play from (almost) anywhere.

Amazon has the Nyko Super Miniboss Wireless Controller on sale for $14.97, which marks this item’s steepest price drop to date. Typically it costs $5 more.

This controller can be used wirelessly with your Nintendo NES Classic and your Nintendo SNES Classic. You can play up to 20 feet away, and the Turbo button enables a mode that requires less button mashing. You can wirelessly access the Home menu by holding down the Turbo and Select buttons, and the rechargeable battery can be topped up with the included USB cable.

So far, the reviews are favorable, leaving this with 4.2 out of 5 stars.

See at Amazon

Grab Snow Joe’s 22-inch electric snow blower for $185

Be gone, snow!

Right now Amazon has the 22-inch Snow Joe electric snow blower on sale for $185. This is about $25 less than it’s recently been selling for, and nearly $50 less than it sold for earlier this year. It has a 22-inch path to clear the snow, and is powered by a 15A motor to make your sidewalk and driveway clean up a breeze. It has a built-in headlight, and can clear piles up to 13 inches tall in a single pass.

You’ll want to make sure you have a long, heavy duty, extension cord available to use with it as well. Be sure to grab this stuff now, while it’s discounted, instead of scrambling to find one when the snow starts falling.

See at Amazon

Best portable monitor for your Kano Computer

When you’re on the go, the last thing you want to have is an arm that’s so weighed down by heavy objects that you start to wonder whether you’ll survive the trip or not. Thankfully, I travel a lot of the time, so I value portability over everything else. Below you’ll find three monitors, each one having a different look and feature that makes them stand out as being one of the best portable monitors around. Each also will work with your portable Kano Computer.

Ultra-light with low power consumption

The Gechic 1303A 13.3″ Portable Monitor

The Gechic 1303A 13.3 Portable Monitor is amazingly flexible and so easy to set up. With plug-and-play, you won’t need to worry about setting up, and with HDMI included, the power consumption from this monitor is incredibly low. It’s also great for those who love to get creative, as it is easy to attach the monitor to a camera, smartphone, console or other devices.

$190 from Amazon

High quality for a low price

The Elecrow 11.6 Portable Monitor

With built-in speakers and a sturdy, yet slim frame, it’s obvious that this monitor is not one to miss. The Elecrow monitor also includes an 11.6 inch HDMI LED display, a metal rack to mount it on, an HDMI cable, and a power adaptor. It’s also compatible with your game consoles and car monitors.

$128 at Amazon

Versatile in every way

The Lilliput 7-inch LCD Monitor

What it may lack in size, it makes up for with its wide-viewing angles and high definition multimedia interface. The Lilliput may seem too small for some, but it truly is perfect for when you’re on the go. Its screen display is fantastic for taking it outside, so you can see your screen 24/7 with little to no hassle.

$158 at Amazon

Here I’ve provided you with three outstanding portable monitors, all there for you when you want to travel with your Kano Equipment in to. All three are able to fit in a backpack if necessary, and neither is so heavy that you’ll wake up the next day with your arms feeling as though they’re about to drop off. All three are fantastic, but if I had to pick a personal favorite? The The Lilliput 7-inch LCD Monito may look far too small, but its versatility is hard to ignore. It isn’t just made for the Kano, but for everything else too.

Apple Seeds First Beta of macOS Mojave 10.14.2 to Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming macOS Mojave 10.14.2 update to its public beta testing group, two days after seeding the beta to developers and a few days after releasing macOS Mojave 10.14.1.

We don’t know what improvements the second update to macOS Mojave might bring, but it is likely to include performance improvements and bug fixes for issues that weren’t able to be addressed in the macOS 10.14.1 update.

Nothing new was discovered in the macOS Mojave 10.14.2 update provided to developers, so this software may be focused on under-the-hood changes that might not be discovered until it’s released. Apple’s release notes only mention an upcoming change requiring TLS certificates issued after October 15 to meet Apple’s Certificate Transparency policy.

macOS 10.14.2 requires that publicly-trusted Transport Layer Security (TLS) server authentication certificates issued after October 15, 2018 meet the Certificate Transparency policy to be evaluated as trusted on Apple platforms.

macOS 10.14.2 follows macOS 10.14.1, an update that introduced Group FaceTime support for chatting with up to 32 people at one time and new emoji characters.

Related Roundup: macOS Mojave
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Eight Hidden macOS Features You Can Access With the Option Key

The Option (⌥) key – or Alt key, depending on your keyboard layout – can be used to unlock all kinds of features hidden in your Mac’s operating system.

Try holding it down next time you access an app’s menu bar options, for instance, and you’ll often see several tweaked actions available to you.

Additional Finder File actions revealed via the Option key
In the Finder File menu shown above, Open becomes Open and Close Window (if you have a file selected in Finder, selecting this opens the file and also closes the Finder window), Close Window becomes Close All, and Move to Trash becomes Delete Immediately, amongst other options.

Below are just some of our favorite uses for the Option key in macOS. Feel free to share any other Option key actions you frequently use in the comments section at the bottom of this article.

Finder View Actions

In Finder’s List view, hold Option and click the triangle next to a folder to expand it, and the contents of any subfolders nested inside will also be revealed.

In Column view, you can also resize all columns in a window by Option-clicking on the column selector.

Menu Bar System Icons

Holding the Option key when you click menu bar system icons often reveals hidden actions. Option-click the Wi-Fi icon for example and you’ll see extensive information on the currently connected network.

Do the same for the volume icon and you’ll be able to change not only the audio output device but the input device, too. Elsewhere, Option-clicking the Time Machine icon will let you Browse Other Backup Disks, and you can also Option-click the Notifications Bar icon to turn it on and off.

Safari Browser

To clear all history including cached website data and cookies, you would select Safari -> Clear History… from the Safari menu bar. If you hold the Option key though, Clear History… becomes Clear History and Keep Website Data.

Hold down the Option key when you click a tab’s close button, and all other tabs will close except for that one. In Safari’s File menu, the Close Tabs option also becomes Close Other Tabs with Option held down.

Preview File Formats

When you come to save or export a file in Preview, Option-click the Format dropdown to get access to several more available file types.

Open Preference Panes

If your Mac’s keyboard has icons printed on some of the functions keys, you can press them to perform special features. For example, pressing the F11/12 keys with speaker icons adjusts the volume.

If you hold down Option when you press one of these keys, this will open the System Preference pane associated with the feature. Option-F11/12 opens the Sound pane, for instance.

Scrollbar Behavior

In the General preference pane, you can select between two forms of scrollbar behavior: Jump to the next page and Jump to the spot that’s clicked.

You can actually switch between the two behaviors on the fly: simply Option-click anywhere in a window’s scrollbar to jump to that location in the open document or webpage.

Force Quit Apps

If an application is acting up, hold down Option and right-click its icon in the Dock to reveal a Force Quit action in the popup menu.

You can also Option-click an app icon to bring its window to the forefront and simultaneously hide another app’s active window.

Resize Windows

When you drag your mouse from one side or corner of a window to resize it, you can hold the Option key to resize the dimensions of the window from its center point instead.

Adjusting from one corner affects all corners with the Option key held

Related Roundup: macOS Mojave
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Blizzard Announces Full-Fledged Diablo Game for Mobile Devices

At today’s Blizzcon event, Blizzard announced the upcoming launch of Diablo Immortal, a full-fledged action RPG that’s set in the Diablo universe.

Developed alongside NetEase, Diablo Immortal takes place between the events of Diablo II and Diablo III. The Worldstone has been shattered and Skarn, Herald of Terror is collecting the shards to resurrect Diablo.

According to designer Wayne Cheng, who spoke about the game in an App Store feature, players will see Westmarch during its golden age and roam through new locations like the Shassar Sea in eastern Kehjistan. Nine outdoor zones will be available at launch, according to Blizzard.

Six classes will be available to play at launch: Barbarian, Wizard, Demon Hunter, Monk, Crusader, and Necromancer, all with a combination of fresh and familiar skills and abilities.

Immortal will expand Diablo’s gameplay into a massive, shared online world. Players can play solo or alongside others, with a public hub available for teaming up for raids, upgrading gear, and crafting items.

Huge news! @Blizzard_Ent is bringing the award-winning Diablo franchise to iOS with Diablo Immortal.

For more on this awesome announcement, click here: https://t.co/aRs9PF9SBf#DiabloImmortal pic.twitter.com/CIRyliOnwC

— App Store (@AppStore) November 2, 2018

“We’ll have dungeon instances – similar to World of Warcraft – that allow you to form groups of four to take on much more difficult challenges,” Cheng said.

There’s no word on PvP gameplay yet, but Blizzard is interested in including such systems to foster a sense of competition and danger from other players.

According to Blizzard, Diablo Immortal is being built from the ground up as a mobile experience, and it will “feel familiar and intuitive” to mobile gamers and those who have previously played Diablo on console.

Blizzard plans to continually add new content to Immortal, evolving the game over time. The company says players can expect a “steady influx” of new story lines, character classes, challenges, and loot.

With just a single input form your thumb you can begin an ability, charge the ability up, aim it and then release to fire off the ability pic.twitter.com/yFwgzvns0d

— Diablo (@Diablo) November 2, 2018

There is no word on when Diablo Immortal is going to launch, with Blizzard planning to provide more details “in the coming months.” Players can pre-register for the game using the Diablo Immortal website.

Blizzard today also announced that it is working on a remastered version of Warcraft III that will come to Mac and Windows.

Blizzard also debuted a new Hearthstone expansion pack and new Overwatch heroes.

Tag: Blizzard
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New MacBook Air might not be as fast as you think, early benchmarks show

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The 2018 MacBook Air was revealed by Apple on Tuesday, October 30, but early Geekbench benchmarks for the new laptop have already been spotted online. Performance testing results show the processor onboard the MacBook Air is just slightly faster than the one in the MacBook, but that it also packs considerably more power than last generation of devices.

Geekbench testing found by MacRumors on the new MacBook Air netted it roughly an 18-percent single core jump and a 16-percent multi-core jump compared to the 12-inch MacBook. Specifically, the Intel eighth-generation Amber Lake 1.6GHz dual-core Core i5 8210 Y-series processor gained the MacBook Air a single-core score of 4,248 and a multi-core score of 7,828. Higher scores are always better, but considering that the base 2017 12-inch MacBook with a 1.2 GHz Intel Core M-Series processor brings home a single-core score of 3,527 and a multi-core score of 6,654, the difference is very subtle.

Still, the Geekbench results account for a big difference from the previous generation MacBook Air. Running very outdated fifth-generation 1.8GHz Intel Broadwell processors, the older laptop comes home with a single-core score of 3,335 and a multi-core score of 6,119. Roughly, that accounts for a 24-percent performance difference against the newer Intel eighth-generation Amber Lake processor on the new MacBook Air.

The chipset on board the 2018 MacBook Air was previously unknown at the time of Apple’s reveal, but recent listings on Intel’s website have led it to be part of the 5W Amber Lake Y-Series processors announced in August. That is a significant change from previous generations of the MacBook Air, which come with 15W U-series chips. The difference in chips accounts for more battery power, but also a cut in performance. Since Apple claims the new MacBook can net 12 hours of battery life wireless web browsing and 13 hours of iTunes movie playback, that is especially important.

Geekbench scores don’t always indicate real-world performance and more testing time is obviously needed to measure the MacBook Air. Instead, it will be interesting to see how it handles more demanding web browsing, video encoding, and gaming tests which are more indicative of common usage. The new MacBook Air is set for release on November 7.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Apple could announce a new MacBook this week. Here’s what we want to see
• MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro
• Score a professionally refurbished MacBook Air for less than 300 bucks
• Apple MacBook Air (2018) vs. Apple MacBook
• MacBook Air (2018) hands-on review

Samsung’s dominance slips further as phone market slumps by 6 percent

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

The global smartphone market has suffered a drop of 6 percent in overall sale numbers, according to a report on the third quarter of 2018 from the International Data Corporation (IDC).

Similar to the drop in smartphone sales in the first quarter of the year, the IDC points at a slowdown in the Chinese market as being one of the primary factors for the global slump. Since China accounts for roughly a third of the overall global sales for smartphones, a reduction in Chinese buying tends to hit the market hard.

“China’s domestic market continues to be challenged as overall consumer spending around smartphones has been down,” said Ryan Reith, IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers program vice president. “High penetration levels, mixed with some challenging economic times, has slowed the world’s largest smartphone market.”

Another significant reason for the slump is a drop in sales for Samsung. While the Korean company still sits pretty atop the pile with a 20.3 percent market share, sales have fallen 13.4 percent from 83.3 million in the third quarter of 2017 to 72.2 million this last quarter. According to the report, pressure in India and Indonesia from manufacturers like Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi are the most likely reasons for Samsung’s drop in sales. While the Galaxy Note 9 sold well, Samsung’s lack of strong midrange and budget range devices is starting to seriously hurt the company in certain markets. However, Samsung is looking to alter that by offering more feature-packed midrange options like the Galaxy A9.

Other manufacturers did better amid the slump. After passing Apple to become the second-largest phone manufacturer, Huawei’s reach has grown by another 32.9 percent — for a total of 52 million sales in this quarter. Apple’s sales grew too, though only by 0.5 percent to 46.9 million. The IDC expects that the recent release of a new iPhone range will mean stronger sales during the holiday period.

Xiaomi also continues to grow, adding 6 million sales to its numbers from the third quarter of 2017. If it keeps up its strong growth, we could see another Chinese company surpass Apple — but that seems unlikely for at least the next few years, even with further expansion into the U.K.

This is the fourth consecutive quarter the smartphone market has shrunk, and it shows no sign of stopping. It seems most consumers are happy to wait for longer before upgrading their phone — and that delay is hurting the market as a whole. However, it might not be forever, and the IDC predicts growth will return in 2019.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Huawei overtakes Apple as the second-largest smartphone seller
• Wearables are still in style as the global market sees solid growth
• Samsung’s new ‘Opera House’ store is its biggest in the world
• Midrange Samsung phones may get new features before flagships do
• Xiaomi U.K. launch: News, devices, networks, rumors