Roost Smart Smoke Alarm RSA-400 review – CNET

The Good The Roost Smart Smoke Alarm includes the easy-to-use Roost Smart Battery, which allows it to reliably send you push notifications when your alarm sounds.

The Bad The alarm itself adds nothing to the experience. You’d get the exact same functions by installing a Roost Battery in your own alarm.

The Bottom Line Think of buying the Roost Smart Smoke Alarm like buying a dumb alarm packaged with a smart battery. If you need both, it’s worth a purchase, but if you only want smarts, get the battery on its own.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

The Roost Smart Smoke Alarm is a logical step forward for the company that made the Roost Smart Battery.

The battery is a useful, Wi-Fi-connected 9-volt that fits in your existing alarms and sends push notifications to your phone when the alarm sounds or the battery runs low. The problem with the Roost Smart Smoke Alarm is that it adds nothing to connected smoke detection that the included Roost Smart Battery can’t do on its own.

Roost just put its name on a Universal Security Instruments (USI) alarm and called it smart. It’s not.

If you do need a new alarm, Roost actually has two options. We tested the $80 RSA-400, which senses smoke, fire, carbon monoxide and natural gas. You can also get the $60 version of the Roost Smart Smoke Alarm — the RSA-200 — which just senses smoke and fire. The RSA-400 is reasonably priced. A similar USI smoke and CO detector costs $50, plus the $35 Roost. The RSA-200 is less so, as a USI detector that just smells smoke is only $12.

Either way, I don’t recommend replacing a working smoke alarm with a Roost Smart Smoke Alarm just to add remote notifications. You can get that with a $35 Roost Battery and your existing alarm. If you want wholesale smart replacements, I recommend spending a little more for the $100 Nest Protect.

The Roost Smart Smoke Alarm plays it safe
See full gallery

1 – 5 of 12

Next
Prev

High hopes

I really liked the Roost Smart Battery when I reviewed it last year. It looks just like an ordinary 9V, so if you can replace a battery, you can install a Roost. Hidden in that familiar form are a Wi-Fi antenna, a microphone and a replaceable power pack that snaps free from the bottom of the battery. Supposedly, a Roost lasts five years. When that time expires, you’ll get a notification and you can buy a new power pack for $15.

The Roost App is simple and intuitive. Alerts arrived promptly when we tested it. Now, the Roost works with online rule maker IFTTT so it can integrate with a larger smart-home setup. For example, you can create a recipe that tells your smart lights to flash when your alarm sounds.

View full gallery

The Roost springs into action when your alarm sounds.

Screenshots by Andrew Gebhart/CNET

Because of how much I liked the Roost battery, I had lofty expectations for the Roost Smart Smoke Alarm. One criticism I had of the battery is that the in-app silencing feature doesn’t work on hard-wired alarms. That’s understandable, as it’s just a battery and it silences the alarm by cutting the power. I thought the Roost Smoke Alarm would certainly address this problem, as well as close the gap between the Roost Battery and Nest in other ways by adding a light, a motion sensor or the ability to talk to other smoke detectors. Nope, nope and nope. The Roost Smoke Alarm adds nothing. In fact, Roost’s Smart Battery would be more useful in a different, battery-powered — app-silenceable — smoke detector.

Origin PC Evo 15-S review – CNET

The Good This slim, modern-looking laptop has VR-ready graphics, and enough ports to plug in all the accessories PC gaming often requires. Origin PC has a great rep for service and support.

The Bad The minimalist laptop body lacks personality, and its power button is poorly placed. You can find other laptops with the same Nvidia graphics card for less. The display is non-touch, and limited to standard full-HD resolution.

The Bottom Line The Origin PC Evo 15-S shows a premium gaming laptop, even a VR-ready one, doesn’t have to be a backbreaker.

Configure at Origin PC.

For a long time, gaming laptops have been too big, too heavy and too ugly. At least over the past few years, the gaming power in these semiportable rigs has closed the gap with gaming desktops, but for the most part these laptops were were still back-breaking monsters. The big change over the last two years is that PC makers have finally decided it was time to work on the look and feel of these systems, and that’s put us much closer to achieving my dream gaming laptop.

The Origin PC Evo 15-S is one of this new generation of gaming laptops that slim down, while running graphics cards powerful enough to work with virtual reality hardware, such as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Razer was a trailblazer in this category, and mainstream brands like Alienware are catching up. Now even Origin PC, a boutique PC builder known for massive no-compromise systems, has a slim 15-inch gaming laptop with one of Nvidia’s new GeForce 1060 GPUs inside.

View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET

It’s a break from the traditional look of the many Origin PC laptops we’ve tested or reviewed previously, even if the overall look of this matte black laptop chassis is a bit generic. That’s because boutique PC builders like Origin PC, Falcon Northwest and others typically don’t design and produce laptop bodies — which is a very expensive endeavor only a handful of big PC makers can take on. Instead they take off-the-shelf bodies from component suppliers such as MSI (which also sells its own systems direct to the public), and tweaks and fine-tunes the components and software to create a custom gaming masterpiece. (Interestingly, Origin PC has designed a couple of custom desktop PC designs, the Chronos and Millennium, and both are excellent.)

By choosing this slim body for the basis of the Evo 15-S, Origin PC sets itself up nicely to provide excellent gaming power, reasonable design and portability, and very importantly, enough connectivity. The Achilles’ heel of many slimmer laptops aimed at power users is the lack of ports. Especially when hooking up VR gear, in addition to a mouse and/or gamepad, you’re going to need a lot of ports, and not just a couple of USB-C ones, as offered by the latest MacBook Pro.

View full gallery

The Evo 15-S, compared to larger gaming laptops from Origin PC and Asus.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Pay to play

Of course, you’re going to pay a premium for packing this kind of power into a slim, well-built laptop. The Evo 15-S is offered in a single basic configuration, with a Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, 16GB of RAM, a fast 256GB PCIe SSD combined with a big 2TB hard drive (but note it’s a 5,400 rpm drive), and the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphic card, which is essentially the same part whether you get it in a laptop or desktop. That very capable combination of parts runs $2,099, which is more than some other laptops with that new Nvidia 1060 cost. For the UK or Australia, the company can provide a custom quote, and the US price converts to about £1,659 or AU$2,816, but there may be a hefty shipping fee and additional taxes.

Origin PC Evo 15-S

The newly redesigned Alienware 15 or even a stock version of this from MSI can cost a few hundred less, but the Origin PC version doubles the storage to 2TB compared to those other two. Other interesting options include the Alienware 13, which has the same CPU and GPU, but adds a higher-res OLED touchscreen for the same $2,099. That’s a really fun system, but suffers from a lack of ports. You could also go whole-hog and get a big 17-inch Eon-17X from Origin PC, it’s flagship gaming laptop. We’ve tested one of these impressive beasts recently and it’s very powerful, but has a more old-school design.

View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET

The Evo 15-S shares a design sensibility with the classic 15-inch MacBook Pro, although it’s closer in size to the recently retired version than the new slimmer Touch Bar model. It has a minimalist interior, with an expansive wrist rest and large touch pad, but also has a grille for airflow above the keyboard. Cooling is clearly important here, there are also vents on either side and a slightly raised felt-like cover on the bottom, giving the bottom fan vents a little more room to breath.

It’s also surprisingly light, just about 4.3 pounds, versus 4.0 pounds for the new 15-inch MacBook Pro.

RayVio Ellie UV Sterilizing Pod Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

In today’s world of blogs and WebMD, we all know how we’re supposed to parent. But after a few months, or years, or kids, not everything feels life-or-death important. We’ll give the 1-year-old a blanket at night; we’ll feed the 6-month-old formula that’s been at room temperature for an hour; and yes, we’ll use our own mouths to “clean” off the binky junior just chucked on the floor for the ninth time.

A lot of us feel guilty or anxious when we do things we know aren’t “ideal.” But RayVio, a company whose Indiegogo project has reached nearly twice its $40K goal so far, is proposing a solution to at least one of those anxieties: the $130 Ellie UV Sterilizing Pod. The question is, does every anxiety need a solution?

RayVio

Honestly, RayVio’s Ellie UV Sterilizing Pod does appeal to me for a few reasons. First, the tech behind it is compelling: put anything inside Ellie’s lunchbox-size compartment, and high-powered UV LEDs flip on, killing, the company claims, 99.99% of harmful bacteria on it in about 60 seconds. Cool, right?

Second, I’m a new parent, and just keeping track of pacifiers is hard enough. Plus, cleaning them often entails extra stress and time away from the kiddo. To toss all my son’s paraphernalia in a device that cleans it for me would be super helpful.

Of course, the Ellie doesn’t actually clean the stuff. Maybe I’m particularly lazy, but boiling my son’s binkies isn’t the end of the world — it’s the constant scrubbing of bottles to get nasty formula out. And while a sterilizer is well suited to disinfecting bottles growing bacteria, no amount of UV light will clean the gunk out of those bottles. So practically, the Ellie isn’t going to change parents’ daily routines much.

And that’s the problem with the Ellie: it impresses at first brush, but the details destroy that shiny first impression. Suddenly, you have to find room for a lunchbox-size container in your already-overstuffed diaper bag. And you have to find room in your already stretched-thin budget to drop an extra $130. And those aren’t even the biggest problem.

My most serious question regarding the Ellie is whether killing all the bacteria on pacifiers is a good thing. Just a quick online search will yield dozens of articles talking about the immune system benefits kids get when their parents just clean off the binky with their mouth. That’s right: what you thought was just laziness might actually be good parenting.

Looking for baby shower gifts? Check these out.

• An app-connected baby monitor
• The best sleeper on the market
• A clever infant tub to make bathtime a breeze
• An ear thermometer that keeps parents in the know

And this raises a broader question. Should the response to parental anxiety be (1) research to find the best solution for the child’s health, or (2) devices designed to assuage parents’ anxieties? The Ellie seems to represent the latter, not the former. Personally, I’d like to see empirical evidence supporting its use before shelling out cash on a device like the Ellie, or recommending anyone else do so.

RayVio plans to ship the Ellie UV Sterilizing Pod by April 2017 — a goal to be taken with a grain of salt, as with all crowdfunded project goals. The tech behind the Ellie seems promising, but I’d like a little more evidence of its health benefits for kids before recommending it.

Acer Iconia One 10 (B3-A30) review – CNET

The Good The Acer Iconia One 10 is cheap, has clear-sounding front-facing speakers and an expandable microSD card slot.

The Bad The screen looks pixelated. It’s clunky to use and feels flimsy to hold.

The Bottom Line If you’re strapped for cash, the Acer Iconia One 10 is one of the most affordable 10-inch tablets to get, however if you want a good tablet, you’ll need to spend more

The $129 Acer Iconia One 10 reminds me of the $50 Amazon Fire tablet ; it’s not good, but it’s good for the price.

It’s a lot cheaper than any iPad and $100 less than another cheap 10-incher, the Amazon Fire HD 10 ($230), which has the same screen resolution. The $200 Lenovo Tab 2 A10 is the next best thing, offering a sharper screen but not much else.

Acer Iconia One 10 is easy on the wallet,…
See full gallery

1 – 5 of 12

Next
Prev

The Acer’s front-facing speakers are a great addition (since most tablets have them on their edges, making them easy to block) and they sound crisp and clear for movie dialogue. Unfortunately, like most tablets, heavy bass in music sounds muddled.

The front-facing speakers direct sound toward you.

Josh Miller/CNET

Its sub-par screen makes it a less desirable candidate for anyone interested in using it to watch a lot of video. HD video just doesn’t look as sharp as it should and pixels stand out like a fresh pimple on a forehead. Also, its maximum brightness level is on the dim side and the screen is very prone to reflection.

For a tablet as cheap as the Acer Iconia One 10, I the lackluster build quality didn’t surprise me. The plastic back and the angular design looks kind of cheap and it it feels like it might break if you squeeze it too tight.

I’ve seen better-looking tablets.

Josh Miller/CNET

The tablet runs smoothly when doing basic, casual tasks, like checking email and browsing the web, but big games like Hearthstone and Asphalt 8 take their time to load. Once loaded, the games run rather smoothly, save for some slow frame rates if downloading apps or files in the background.

2017 Ford Fusion Hybrid review – Roadshow

The Good Tweaks to the electrified side of the 2017 Ford Fusion Hybrid’s powertrain yield 1-2 additional mpg across the board. The sedan’s cabin sees a variety of styling and quality improvements. Sync 3 and the addition of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay revolutionize the Ford’s dashboard.

The Bad Performance is decent for an eco car, but the the 2.0-liter hybrid powertrain is a bit underpowered for this class of vehicle. The eCVT’s dynamic performance leaves a much to be desired.

The Bottom Line The 2017 Ford Fusion Hybrid makes many small, but positive changes that make this already competent midsize hybrid yet easier to recommend.

I’ve been a fan of the Ford Fusion Hybrid’s particular flavor of economy and efficiency for two generations, dating back to when the hybrid model was introduced in 2009. The second generation sees a subtle but significant mid-cycle refresh for the 2017 model year with better tech, improved efficiency and subtle style and packaging changes.

Hybrid powertrain improvements

The 2017 Fusion Hybrid sees styling tweaks to both its front and rear fascias, but the engine room for the second generation model hasn’t changed much at all. It’s still home to 2.0-liter, Atkinson-cycle engine that makes 144 horsepower and 129 pound-feet of torque. That petrol-powered engine is mated to an 88 kW electric motor and a 1.4 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. All together, the Fusion’s hybrid powerplant sends 188 combined horsepower in the direction of the front wheels via an electronic continuously variable transmission (eCVT).

The electric portion of the powertrain has been tweaked and now can drop into a fully electric driving mode at speeds up to 85 mph. The revised regenerative braking system, which draws from lessons learned on the Focus Electric, now allows the car to recapture up to 94 percent of energy when coming to a stop, improving efficiency.

How much of an improvement? Well, not a whole lot, but every little bit counts, right? EPA-estimated fuel efficiency is up to 42 mpg combined, 43 mpg city and 41 mpg highway. That’s a 1 mpg bump to the combined figure and 2 extra mpg on the highway.

Looks the same, but better where it…
See full gallery

1 – 6 of 16

Next
Prev

On the road, the hybrid system feels almost exactly like last generation, which is to say pretty good. Of course, the Hybrid is tuned for efficiency, so the outright acceleration won’t win many drag races but the Fusion still boasts enough electric torque to feel peppy off of the line in the city and for confident merges at highway speeds. The eCVT saps pretty much all of the fun during more the dynamic driving you’d experience on a good, curvy road, but generally felt unintrusive and smooth during more relaxed commuter-type driving.

Also, the Fusion Hybrid’s steering and handling feel a bit more dialed in and direct than I remember the previous model feeling, which makes the sedan feel more precise and confident during quick lane changes and when tucking into an off-ramp. I’d go so far as to say that the Fusion is almost fun to drive, if you can temper your expectations a bit.

All-new Sync 3 infotainment

The cabin sees a variety of small quality of life changes and improved materials, depending on the trim level chosen, but the most obvious change to all Fusion models is the switch to dial-type gear selector. The rotary selector is twisted to toggle between forward and reverse gears and takes up less vertical space in the cabin. With an eCVT behind the scenes anyway, I’m alright with this interface change and welcome the removal of one more thing to bump into. Having driven cars from Jaguar to Chrysler that feature rotary gear selectors, this wasn’t a very big change for me. Passengers, however, reacted with varying degrees of wonder and revulsion at the odd knob on the console.

Ford’s LCD Smartgauge digital instrument cluster is just as gorgeously rendered and packed with information as it has ever been and a new EcoSelect feature allows the driver to toggle even more fuel efficient operation from the powertrain and climate control systems.

Antuan Goodwin/Roadshow

As you’d expect from a hybrid that runs partially or completely on silent electric power, the cabin is very quiet, which allows the optional Sony stereo system to do its thing with clear audio and very little distortion from the speakers or rattling from the cabin even at fairly loud volumes.

2016 Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid review – Roadshow

The Good The Malibu hybrid beats the Ford Fusion, Hyundai Sonata and Toyota Camry hybrids with better efficiency and cleaner looks.

The Bad That battery takes up a lot of room in the trunk. Be prepared to pack light.

The Bottom Line The Chevrolet Malibu hybrid drives exceptionally smoothly and offers many safety features not found in other mid-size hybrids.

A report issued by AAA says that gas prices may just sink to a national average of below $2 per gallon for the first time since 2009. Looks like Chevrolet picked a terrible time to introduce the 2016 Malibu Hybrid. And that’s too bad, as this fuel-sipping hybrid delivers an excellent ride wrapped up in a sleek little package.

The Malibu is Chevrolet’s midsize sedan, slotting in between the compact Cruze and the full-size Impala. This year the Malibu is completely redesigned and features a whole host of safety features and driver’s aids.

This is the first year the Malibu is offered as a full hybrid. Previous models were available as a mild hybrid, where the electric motor functions merely as a power booster to the gasoline powered engine. The gasoline engine in mild hybrids shut off during braking, coasting, and when stopped, saving fuel.

Chevrolet

The first thing I noticed was how easily it switched from the electric motor to the 1.8-liter gasoline engine. It’s very quiet and seamless, with no telltale jerk on the chassis.

The second thing I noticed was the new braking system. Many early hybrids suffered from a non-linear braking feel, a result of capturing the kinetic energy from the braking and storing it in the battery. The system has gotten better over the years, and the Malibu Hybrid shares the same blended regenerative system as the new Chevrolet Volt. The result is smooth braking from first touch to final stop.

Also borrowed from the Volt are the two electric motors and the transmission. However, the Malibu gets a larger engine and a smaller battery than its brother: a 1.8-liter four banger good for 122 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque and a 1.5 kWh battery. Combined, the electric motor and engine produce 182 horsepower. The Malibu can cruise at speeds up to 55 mph on electricity alone, but I found it difficult to do as it requires a very light touch on the throttle.

The Malibu can jump off the line quite quickly with all that electric torque behind it, but in the end the 122 horsepower isn’t enough to maintain that kind of rapid acceleration. Still, it’s a fun little burst of speed that can brighten up your day.

While most buyers of the Malibu hybrid won’t be out for late-night drives on twisty roads, neither will they be disappointed in the handling of this mid-size sedan. The steering feels a tad light but it has a good on-center feel. The ride is neither harsh nor floaty, providing enough stiffness to keep the car from rolling too much in the turns while soaking up the bumps in the mean streets of San Fransisco. In all, it’s a comfortable place to spend a commute.

Lenovo Phab 2 Pro review – CNET

I’m walking around the conference room, aiming my Tango phone at the space between two chairs where Lenovo executives are sitting. A third empty chair, a plush leather one, sits on the carpet. I’m walking around it, seeing how it looks. But it isn’t real: it’s augmented, generated by an app on my phone screen. As I move around, it stays in place convincingly. I think to myself…I could use this to furniture-shop for my living room without even lifting a finger.

More from Lenovo

• ​World’s first Google Tango phone
• ​Motorola’s new Moto Z ditches the headphone jack
• Lenovo’s concept flexible phone flips between handset and smartwatch

If you haven’t used Google’s Project Tango, or don’t even know what it is, let me simplify: it’s a depth-sensing 3D camera system that can scan the world around you and help place virtual objects in the real world. It might be the future of where smart cameras are headed. And it could be a sign of how phones might evolve further into world-scanning powerhouses.

Josh Miller/CNET

Google’s been developing Tango for years as a way to measure distances in 3D space, map out indoor areas, and create virtual and augmented reality, floating virtual objects into real space. Now, Lenovo’s got the world’s first ready-to-buy Tango phone, and it’s calling it the Lenovo Phab2 Pro. And it’ll be available this September.

Update, November 1: After an short additional delay, The Phab 2 Pro is now on sale.

What Tango can do

CNET’s seen Tango in action many times, doing all sorts of funky things: simulating furniture shopping, navigating museums, diving in giant VR aquariums. Tango has been in a developer-kit tablet for a while, where it was used for lots of experimental ideas. Tango’s chief skills are depth-sensing, location-mapping, and placing virtual objects into reality with a better sense of accuracy. On the tablet, most apps were used in landscape mode. On the Phab2 Pro, most Tango apps are still landscape-mode oriented, too.

The Lenovo Phab2 Pro scans the world around…
See full gallery

1 – 4 of 8

Next
Prev

The apps I got to try were varied. One placed virtual furniture in the room I was in, allowing me to experiment with what would fit in real, physical space. Lowe’s is making one of the first potential Tango killer apps with Lowe’s Vision, which measures living space and then can layer in additions, furniture and decor to model in the space. Think Microsoft HoloLens, but instead of floating in front of your face you’re viewing things on your phone screen. The rear trio of Tango-enabled cameras have an infrared depth-sensing, a wide-angle lens, and can track motion.

There was another app where I was able to walk around the room I was in, while the Tango camera started generating a 3D photo-mapped model of where I was. This is Tango’s most amazing feature: with a bunch of these, you could walk around and map out interior spaces in full 3D. Tango’s also unique because it can not only measure, but learn about the shape of areas: where objects begin and end, and where walls and doorways are. At Google I/O, Google said it’s aiming to use this tech to map out interior places with the accuracy of outdoor maps. Maybe it’s to beef up Google Maps’ worldwide database. As an everyday person, however, I’m not still not sure how this would help anyone.

Josh Miller/CNET

That’s the biggest challenge with Tango: it still feels like tech seeking a killer app or purpose. But it definitely has a bunch of clever tricks up its sleeve.

There are a few games, too. I tried running around and shooting at virtual alien-things that hopped around the room I was actually in — the conference table, the chairs — much like some augmented reality phone games have already allowed for years. On Tango, the position tracking is far more accurate. It still feels a little silly. More impressively, I laid virtual dominoes on the nearby table and watched them knock down one by one. I walked around my domino creation, and it mostly stayed put — with a bit of drift that Lenovo says will be corrected by launch. I looked a 3D velociraptor model standing in the corner of the conference room.

Lenovo promises 22 Tango-ready apps for launch this year, and estimates up to 100 apps by the end of 2017. Those numbers may sound conservative. Tango still feels like a development project, in a lot of ways.

Smart cameras are the future (probably)

Tango isn’t the only type of smart camera tech lurking around: Intel’s 3D RealSense cameras have been around for years, and can also track depth. They’re making their way into other devices including helmets. Microsoft’s developed similar positional-tracking tech in the Kinect and in the HoloLens. Amazon tried something similar in spirit with the Fire Phone and its array of cameras. And Apple acquired Primesense, the company that created the Kinect, back in 2013.

Josh Miller/CNET

There have been many attempts at similar tech. Will Tango get it right?

Smarter cameras equipped with more advanced computer vision processing and deep learning could be the magic equation. Face and object recognition, auto navigation, and advanced mixed-reality applications that fuse the virtual and real. If phones get upgraded, smarter cameras, they could be doorways into a new future.

The Tango phone is called the Lenovo Phab2 Pro

Lenovo’s new Phab2 phone line comes in three models, all of them with massive 6.4-inch screens. The one with Google’s new magic Tango cameras — the Phab2 Pro — costs more ($499 unlocked in the US, equivalent to £345 UK or AU$672), and has an extra camera array on the back, arranged down the middle. There’s a wide-angle camera, plus infrared depth sensing and motion tracking.

The Phab2 Pro has a Quad HD-resolution display, 4GB of RAM, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor that’s specifically built for Tango. The phone’s large size means it feels more like a tablet than a phone. But it’s smaller than the previous developer-edition Tango tablet, and more affordable. Plus, it’s a connected phone. For those reasons alone, it’ll likely be the new Tango device of choice. Whether it becomes more depends on apps.

Specs

• 6.4-inch Quad HD (2560×1440) IPS display
• 4GB RAM
• 64GB storage
• microSD up to 128GB
• 4,050mAh battery with fast charging
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor
• Dual SIM slots (or 1 SIM, 1 microSD)
• Rear 16MP fast-focus camera with Tango depth sensor and motion tracking
• Front 8MP fixed-focus camera, F2.2 aperture
• Triple-array active noise cancellation
• Dolby Atmos + Dolby Audio Capture 5.1
• 0.57 lb (259g), 180 x 89 x 10.7mm
• Aluminum alloy construction with 2.5D curved glass
• LTE Bands 2/4/5/7/12/17/20/30 in North America, compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile