Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Price & release date

• List price: $1,299.99 / £999.99
• Released March 2026

The Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal comes in at $1,299.99 / £999.99 — while it’s far from cheap, it’s pretty good value for what it offers. That being said, there are other robot vacuum cleaners with equally impressive features and better software at a similar price point.

Plus, you’ll need to maintain some parts of the vacuum; in particular, refills for the multi-floor cleaner ($13.99 / £14.99) and the odor-neutralizing puck ($9.99 – $14.99 / £7.99 – £15.99), as well as the usual replacement for things like side brushes and mop pads. Over time, these can add up, but you’ll scarcely find a robovac that doesn’t come with added costs at similar prices these days.

• Value: 4/5

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Design

Out of the box, you’ll find the vacuum, base, power chord, an anti-odor puck, one refill bottle of Shark’s multi-floor cleaner, two side brushes, plus the usual array of instructions and warranty documents.

The base stands at 17 x 18 x 14 inches / 43.2 x 45.7 x 35.6 cm, and comes in either black or white — mine was the latter, and I think it looks a lot more premium than the tackier black colorway. Enclosed in the lid of the base are the 2.74-litre / 96.65oz clean and 1.18-litre / 41.62oz waste water tanks, which lift out easily thanks to the retractable handles, as well as the bagless dirt compartment — I really appreciate that Shark opted for this so there’s one less thing to routinely replace.

You can remove the container with the press of a button situated on the side of the dock, and it’s also HEPA-filtered. There’s also a set of two filters you’ll need to clean every 1-2 months, depending on how often you use your robot vacuum, and a slot for one of Shark’s anti-odor pucks should dusty smells be an issue for you.

The vacuum itself is a fairly standard, rounded 2-in-1 robot vacuum, but a little tall and hefty at 5.35 inches / 13.6cm tall. The top houses its raised puck for LiDAR sensing, which works in tandem with the front of the device, where the cameras and other sensors, including a camera as well as LED and UV lights, to navigate your home and spot messes ripe for cleaning.

If you’d rather not use the app, you can use the four touch-sensitive buttons to activate mop and vacuum modes, send the vacuum home and connect to the Wi-Fi. A soft bumper surrounds the edges of the vacuum to prevent damage from any collisions, which are remarkably rare thanks to its top-tier obstacle avoidance, and you can remove its dust bin and mop plate from the rear of the device.

On the underside, you’ll find the wheels, brush bar, side brush, and a singular, flat mop pad. These aren’t my favorite type — a rondel will typically offer a deeper clean, better post-clean drying and less water waste. However, Shark has designed the robot vacuum to wiggle this mop pad to agitate dirt, which goes some of the ways to make up the difference.

Of note is that the vacuum seems to be a total dust magnet. I have mine placed beneath a desk, where I wouldn’t expect excessive levels of dust — however it’s constantly lined with a thick layer of the stuff.

• Design: 4/5

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Performance

Setup for the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal is pretty simple; using the app, you’ll connect the vacuum to your Wi-Fi, give it a name (I loved some of the suggestions like Clean Latifah), and after that, the robot vacuum will run its first mapping pass. Broadly, mine was accurate; my apartment has a slightly tricky layout for robot vacuums, including a half-tiled, half-carpeted kitchen-living room, and lots of doors to dodge.

After this first pass, the app will offer you a second mapping run, this time to detect flooring types. If you plan to regularly mop hard floors and have carpets or rugs to avoid, make sure to get this out of the way during setup; I couldn’t find any way to update this map after the fact.

Cleaning tests

I performed my standard pickup tests using oats, cornflour and brown rice to compare performance to other robot vacuums I’ve tested, and the results were a mixed bag. When setting the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal off for a standard, vacuum-only clean, I was immediately impressed as it zig-zagged across my floors, leaving them visibly refreshed — plus, it’s pretty quiet in action.

On hard floors, it excels thanks to a combination of its side brush, solid suction and the jet of air it blasts at hard-to-reach debris, ensuring floors are spick and span post-clean. On carpet, it’s slightly less impressive, especially in the edge cleaning department, but it still does a decent enough job. Its pickup of larger debris was very impressive on carpet, leaving little to nothing behind, but there was a small amount of powdery debris left behind on my medium-pile rugs — hair, however, is no problem, be it human or pet.

Next up, I tried a regular combination clean with vacuum and mopping, and that’s where my experience with the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal became a bit more mixed. The robot vacuum first fills its water tank at the base, proceeding to concurrently vacuum and mop your floors rather than splitting out the tasks. This helps to save time and battery; however, it does increase the risk of soggy carpets.

To avoid this, the robovac will lift its hind to keep the mop pad from drenching carpets — this reduces its effectiveness on carpets, though, as it crushes the side brush, and sometimes, while navigating, it will spin round and spit water across the floor, too. However, once it reaches hard floors, the results are pretty impressive; the mop pad agitates spills and stains with a back-and-forth scrubbing motion, and will reach into corners to make sure every spot is well-cleaned.

It does use a lot of water, though, and especially if you’re cleaning up larger spills, that means the PowerDetect UV Reveal can leave a streaky mess in its wake. I noticed this even more so when there was lots of debris to vacuum up during the clean; the PowerDetect UV Reveal left a clump of soggy oats behind like an owl pellet as well as white streaky marks across the floor, but I wouldn’t typically recommend regularly using your robot vacuum to collect large volume spills anyway. I have especially reflective kitchen tiles, so I noticed this a lot; on my less shiny bathroom tiles, it wasn’t as much of a problem.

Powering up to a higher suction or mopping setting does result in a more thorough cleaning job, especially on carpets, but it’s worth noting that this seems to make the excess water usage more noticeable.

Object detection and navigation

When the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal works, it really works, but I encountered a fair few bugs and limitations that do impact its overall effectiveness — for example, when doing a combination clean, it sometimes skips cleaning certain areas and rooms, or neglects to clean areas I’ve specifically asked it to.

Its LiDAR scanner makes accurate room maps, though they’ll be a bit odd-looking if you have lots of furniture at floor level. That’s unavoidable, to a degree, but I wish it had investigated those areas more closely to find the real edges of the walls; that way if furniture moves around your home, you wouldn’t need to remap.

Its object detection is incredible — perhaps too good, as the robot vacuum avoided my low-hanging (but not floor-length) curtains like the plague, giving wide berth to even the most inconsequential of obstacles. Generally, it’s not too much of a problem, but improved smarts would mean there’s slightly less preparation required pre-clean to ensure your entire floor gets cleaned properly. I was also massively impressed by the ease with which it lifted itself over and cleared thresholds, chair legs, and the like, leading to quicker cleans.

UV detection

After its standard cleaning cycles, the robovac will return to its base, but the cleaning isn’t over quite yet. It’ll issue an ominous warning once it’s refreshed itself: "I detected stains. I'm heading back out to aggressively attack them."

Here’s where the magic of the PowerDetect UV Reveal is really on show; as it cleans, it flares a blue UV light, with which you can see for yourself the stubborn and sometimes invisible stains on your floor, which it will then return to after a standard cleaning run. It was pretty cringe-inducing to watch it navigate areas I hadn’t cleaned recently and see just how much grime was there.

Dock

After the job’s complete, it’ll return for a final time to the base and begin the mop pad maintenance process quietly in the background with just a low humming noise, washing it with hot water before drying it to reduce contamination. In my testing, the robovac lived up to its estimated 3-hour battery life; a 45-minute clean on standard settings dropped the battery by 25%. A full recharge takes roughly 4 hours, and the vacuum won’t perform new tasks when at less than 20%.

• Performance: 4/5

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Software and app

The app is quite restrictive when it comes to home and schedule customization; you can only have one map, so multi-floor cleaning isn’t possible, no-go zones are always rectangular and you can only create two schedules per day.

I also noticed that the robot vacuum would often get confused when it initiated a clean, forging straight to the corner of my living room and spinning there for a good few minutes before figuring out its path to the hallway. On closer inspection, this happened most frequently when I sent it to clean somewhere other than its home room; for some reason, it wanted to head straight through my wall instead of around and through the doorway.

I couldn’t find a quiet mode, either, meaning if you ever wanted to use the vacuum at night or when little ones are sleeping, they might awaken to an ominous threat from your robovac.

These issues, among other software quirks, make for the primary complaint I have surrounding the Shark PowerDetect UV reveal; its app and on-board smarts hold back an otherwise high-performance robot vacuum.

• Software: 2.5/5

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Specs

Should I buy Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal?

Buy it if…

You value well sanitized floors
With its UV detection, the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal offers peace of mind and broadly great results, especially in the mopping department… if you can handle slow-drying floors.

You have pets
Again, the UV detection comes in clutch here for invisible pet messes, but it’s also a deft hand at hair collection.

You have a large home
With its great battery life and efficiency, the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal is unlikely to run out of juice before finishing the job even in larger homes.

Don’t buy it if…

You have lots of wooden floors or shiny tiles

While it’ll clean these floor types within an inch of their life, the residual water and cleaning solution could warp or damage wooden floors and leave streaky marks on particularly reflective ones.

You have lots of carpet
Don’t get me wrong, this is an accomplished vacuum for carpets, but if you want to do combination cleans, you might end up with a few soggy spots left in its wake.

You want to vacuum multiple floors — or other smart features

I liken the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal to a power washer in the hands of a caveman; it’s only as good as the software allows it to be, and with frustrations like single-floor mapping, ignored instructions and

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Also consider

How I tested the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal

I tested the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal for two weeks in my home, completing my standardised pickup, edge cleaning and mopping tests in addition to simulating tests for features like UV detection. I used the app, making a map of my home and testing various features like scheduling and room-by-room cleaning tasks, closely observing the vacuum when in use to note any navigation or performance issues during testing.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed June 2026

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: two-minute review

The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone arrives in an increasingly crowded robot vacuum market, yet it still manages to stand out thanks to a handful of genuinely innovative features. Chief among these is the OmniCyclone docking station, a bagless dust collection system that uses Dyson-style cyclonic technology to capture detritus without relying on pricy disposable dust bags. As a result, it's a great system for anyone with molting dogs or cats, as long as the bin is emptied on a fairly frequent basis.

The X12's floor sweeping credentials aren’t exactly anything to write home about, mind, especially its performance on hard floor.And while its navigation is mostly precise and systematic, I have seen evidence of it occasionally missing some areas.

However, it's the mopping system that really sets this machine apart. Rather than dragging two damp spinning pads around the floor and potentially smearing dirt all over the floor, the X12 employs an extendable roller mop that is continuously supplied with clean water, while simultaneously collecting dirty water into a separate tank. The result is a far more hygienic clean, particularly on hard floors where conventional robot mops can often leave a thin film of grime in their wake. This model also has a unique FocusJet system that squirts water on deep stains before mopping them up, but I simply couldn’t get it to function as it should.

No question, the X12 OmniCyclone is extremely well engineered and packed with clever technology, but me thinks it might be worth a trip back to the drawing board to fix some of its frustrating anomalies.

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: price & availability

• List price £1,249 / €1,399 / $1,499.99
• Launch date April 2026
• Availability Worldwide

In the UK, the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone’s retail price is £1,249 but you can purchase it right now direct from Ecovacs or Amazon for a knockdown £949. At this price, the odd glitch in its performance makes it a lot more justifiable. However, if you mainly want a robot vacuum to collect dry debris from hard floors, the X12 still remains difficult to fully recommend, even at this lower price point.

As of writing, US buyers don’t get the same rosy deal as those in the UK – it sells direct from Ecovacs or Amazon for the full price of $1,499.99 – though you can be sure that big discounts will be applied in the not-too-distant future. The same applies to most of Europe, too, where the X12 OmniCyclone is retailing at a quite considerable €1,399.

If the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone feels too specialized for your needs. or you’ve been put off by some of my reported performance issues, there are several strong alternatives on the market. For instance, the Roborock Saros 20 (£1,249) offers a much more balanced blend of hard-floor vacuuming, carpet performance and premium mopping. Likewise, the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete is also an excellent all-rounder with particularly strong obstacle avoidance and cleaning coverage. Finally, don’t discount this model’s predecessor, the Deebot X11 OmniCyclone, which delivers much of the X12’s roller-mop appeal and bagless convenience for a lot less money (£699 to be precise).

• Value score: 3/5

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclon:: specs

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: design

• Excellent dock with cyclone emptying
• Impressive roller mop system
• Pre-spray system isn’t reliable

I’ll admit that, in this day and age with so many robot vac brands and models on the market, it’s difficult to get too excited about yet another robot vac-and-mop unless it’s bringing a smorgasbord of new tech to the table. Thankfully this one introduces at least three tantalising features that I personally haven’t seen in a robot vac before, and you can read about these below.

As with all robot vacs, setup was very easy because there are only three items in the box: the dock, the robot and the clip-in ramp for the dock. Everything was self-evident, although I will add that there was a surfeit of protective cellophane wrapping on almost every inch of the dock and robot, and I guarantee you will find a piece of cellophane still lurking somewhere that you completely missed on unboxing a few weeks earlier.

Once it was plugged in and ready to go, I launched the Ecovacs Home app and added the robot to my account and Wi-Fi network. I then sent it out on its first mapping run so it could acquaint itself with its new home, and it took a spritely 10 minutes to map my entire floor space of four rooms. The resulting map on the app looked clean and precise and intuitively layout out, though I did have to merge and split some rooms, which is very common and easy to do.

Robot design

The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone may, at first glance, resemble the vast majority of hybrid robot vacuum leaners, but its engineering sets it apart from much of the competition.

The first thing I should address is that, at 3.85 inches (9.8cm) in height, the X12 won’t be able to scoot under low-slung furniture like the squat Roborock Saros range. However, as is the case with the Saros 10R, this model uses solid-state direct Time-of-Flight LiDAR to navigate so it doesn’t come with an ugly LiDAR turret, and that keeps its height to an acceptable level for most low furnishings.

Aside from its dToF-based navigation system, the X12 also utilises Ecovacs’ AIVI 3D 4.0 which combines an RGB camera and depth sensors with AI processing to detect, identify and manoeuvre around most household obstacles. The camera can also be used to send a live stream to the app and it’s the sharpest image I’ve seen from any robot vac, not that you’ll use it much.

And then there’s something called TruEdge 3D Edge Sensor 2.0, which combines vertical and horizontal lasers to allegedly detect irregular edges, skirting boards, and recessed areas for improved edge cleaning.

Most robot vacs have a pair of manual controls on top of the robot so you can perform a full clean at the touch of a button or, more importantly, tell it to end its cleaning without having to reach for the app. Sadly, this model only has a single on/off button that you press to continue cleaning after a hiccup in its navigation, and press and hold for three seconds for it to return to dock. I personally prefer having two buttons: one to turn it on and off, or pause it mid clean, and another to end the task and return to dock. Had I not checked the manual, I’d never have know its on/off button served two functions.

Heading to the undercarriage, the X12’s single tapered six-inch brush roller makes a very fair fist of dealing with hair tangles by coaxing it towards the tapered end where it’s sucked into the vacuum path. The roller itself is comprised of four soft rubber paddles for carpet beating and two bristled paddles for hard floors.

I’ve been watching suction-power stats of robot vacs for some time, and over the past five years they have has exploded from an average of 2,000–2,500 Pascals to between 20,000 and 36,000Pa for today's flagship models. Mind, suction stats are largely a marketing ploy because real-world cleaning relies much more heavily on brush design and airflow. This model boasts 22,000Pa which is about average for its price range.

One of this model’s most distinctive design elements is the extendable roller mop, which automatically extends one inch beyond the robot's chassis to clean along skirting boards and into 90-degree corners that are often left untouched by standard robot mops. I much prefer a roller system like this over twin spinning mop pads because the roller is continually washed during operation, with contaminated water extracted and transferred to a dedicated dirty-water tank while fresh water is supplied to the roller. This ensures that muck is removed rather than redistributed over other sections of flooring.

The X12’s carpet protection is equally innovative because a protective sleeve rotates beneath the roller, effectively isolating the damp roller and preventing unwanted moisture from transferring to carpet. The mopping system is theoretically further enhanced by Ecovacs’ unique FocusJet Stain Pre-Dissolving technology, which allegedly targets dried-on spills before mopping. This system is said to improve cleaning performance on stubborn messes, but I’ve found it to be very hit-and-miss, which even Ecovacs admits to in a warning written just below the app’s FocusJet setting.

I don’t have any tall thresholds in my home but if you do, you’ll be pleased to learn that the X12 comes with something called TruePass Adaptive four-wheel-drive Climbing System that will, according to Ecovacs, help the robot to scale single thresholds of up to one inch (2.4cm) in height and "navigate continuous double steps of up to 1.57 inches (4cm) with ease".

I wouldn’t say that this model’s battery capacity is especially noteworthy, at least when used extensively. However, Ecovacs says the battery can be restored by 13% in just three minutes to help elongate its operation time if the robot is being pushed to the limits, so that’s a very good thing.

Like quite a few high-end hybrid robotic cleaners, the X12 also uses an AI Agent to "autonomously map your home, identify floor types via intelligent scene recognition, and then schedule and execute a weekly cleaning plan". I personally always turn AI off because I’m human and have a brain capable of setting my own schedules, thank you very much.

Score ref: 3.5/5

Dock design

The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone’s charging dock combines an impressive range of automation features with styling that looks more like a miniature Art Deco skyscraper from Batman’s Gotham City or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis than a household appliance.

Rather than relying on disposable dust bags, which may need replacing on a two-week basis if shedding pets are in the home, the X12’s dock uses cyclone technology to suck dust and debris from the robot’s small bin into a large 1.69-quart (1.6-litre) collection chamber. To empty, simply unclip it, take it to the kitchen bin and slide down the blue lever. Voila, the debris falls out of the bottom just like a Dyson vac.

As a dog- and cat-owner, I’m a big fan of this type of system because it not only reduces ongoing costs — and environmental waste — but it also helps maintain strong suction performance between the robot and the dock while vastly reducing any issues of clogging that can sometimes occur if the robot has collected too much pet hair.

The dock also houses two large clean and dirty water reservoirs (3.7 quarts/3.5L and 2.85 quarts/2.7L apiece) for the roller mop system which minimises the need for frequent refilling or emptying. It also incorporates two cleaning-solution tanks, including a dedicated one that’s used by the X12’s FocusJet system to tackle dried-on spills and stubborn marks before mopping.

As with most premium hybrid robots, the dock’s maintenance is almost entirely automated so the station washes the roller mop using heated, pressurised water, extracts dirty water into a separate tank and then dries the mop with hot air to reduce rancid odours and bacterial growth. Ecovacs has also equipped this dock with some self-cleaning functions, including automatic cleaning of the washing tray and dirty-water system.

Score ref: 4.5/5

• Design score: 4/5

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: performance

• Top-notch dock performance
• Very good roller mopping to the edge
• Disappointing hard floor performance

Navigation performance

After a very successful initial mapping run, the X12’s navigation seemed a bit wayward for the first few excursions but improved as the robot seemingly learned the quickest route from room to room.

However, I have been perplexed by some of its behavior in our furniture-cluttered lounge which is a mixture of hard wooden floor and thin rugs. It doesn’t help that the app has so many customizable floor-cleaning options that you’re forced to experiment and the surfeit of carpet settings alone is enough to drive you round the twist as you fiddle and mess about with options like ‘clean carpet first’, ‘avoid fringed carpets’, ‘carpet recognition’, the list goes on.

Possibly as a result of some setting I may have incorrectly adjusted, the X12 has never performed a complete clean of the lounge, at least according to the image of its trail on the app. At first I had ‘AI Agent' turned on, and I never trust AI when it comes to automation because you never know what it’s going to do next. Besides, I prefer to be in control of my gadgets. Anyway, after 15 minutes of online research I noticed a tiny grayed-out ‘exit’ word just below the AI Agent option that had been there all the time. So I turned AI Agent off and breathed a sign of relief. Did it make a difference to its lounge-cleaning navigation? Not much, as far as I can tell.

I’m not really sure what it doesn’t like about my lounge, but for some strange reason it usually misses cleaning the 15 inches of wooden floor gap between two thin rugs and it doesn’t completely vacuum under my sofa, even when I’ve lifted the valence. Instead, it performs one pass under the front edge of the sofa and then leaves.

And another thing… When it started my most recent lounge-cleaning attempt there was a dog bed on the floor, which it deftly skirted around. But when I removed the bed while it was cleaning nearby, I expected it to notice the sudden lack of bed and proceed to clean that area too. But no, it simply went home.

The X12 also has a habit of stalling at the edge of every rug before moving forward. It heads towards the rug at full speed and as soon as a wheel detects a slight incline – we’re talking millimeters here – it stops dead while it assesses the situation before proceeding to cross the rug. No great shakes but it was something I noticed that rarely bothers other bots. Thankfully and despite these slightly confounding anomalies, the X12 has behaved perfectly well in every other room with full clean-ups as one would reasonably expect.

Score ref: 2.5/5

Obstacle avoidance

If the X12’s overall navigation has room for improvement, there’s no such issue with its obstacle avoidance. For this test I set its AIVI 3D obstacle avoidance to ‘high sensitivity’ and used a number of dog toys but also placed two cigarette lighters and a small remote. I was very impressed by how quickly it negotiated a path between them with no collisions to report. At other times the X12’s obstacle avoidance has been set to ‘standard’ and even in this setting it has never ridden slipshod over anything, so I call that a result.

Score ref: 4/5

Vacuuming

I set up two vacuuming tests, one on hard floor, the other on carpet rug using a mix of rice, oats, icing sugar and granola. Test one was on my kitchen hard floor and unfortunately it was a bit of a failure. While this test was extreme, it was no different to every other robot vacuum test I perform on hard floor. Firstly, the act of creating a zone using the Scenario option was far too complicated, but I got there in the end. I went for the full vacuum power, deep clean and two-passes option to give it a better chance.

When it arrived at the zone, it first drove straight over the detritus with its motor off, which was a strange thing to do. It then proceeded to start its cleaning run and collected some of the debris, but left far more behind than it should have done. It also seemed to work haphazardly and made just one pass along the skirting board without cleaning up any of the ingredients. When it finally left the scene, the floor looked in quite a state so I reached for the Dyson Gen5detect, which cleaned up everything in one pass.

I couldn’t tell if this disappointing result was due to sub-par suction power – at 22,000Pa it should pick up debris much better – or if the brush bar is badly designed, but the results for this hard floor test were unacceptable. However, I should add that, during its day-to-day sweeping, I’ve never had too much cause for concern because it has always vacuumed the kitchen and most other hard floor areas efficiently enough. Perhaps I pushed it too far for this test.

Thankfully the rug test was more successful, though I wouldn’t say it was exceptional by any means, especially considering that I had maxed out all the settings. The first horizontal pass clearly showed that it had collected most of the crumbly debris, but it took a return pass and another two vertical passes to leave it fairly clean. I say fairly because most robots leave behind some detritus in a test like this, which is why you should never get rid of your cordless stick vac or any other form of manual vacuum cleaner. While robots are great for keeping on top of things, homo sapiens is thankfully still way more advanced than any robot when it comes to household duties.

Score ref: 2.5/5

Mopping performance

Despite having the X12’s FocusJet activated since installing the product, I have never actually seen it in operation, which has really confused me because I thought that the moment the robot spots a large stain area it jet washes it first to break up the stain and then mops it. But maybe that’s not the case — answers on a postcard please.

For my kitchen mopping test I squirted some tomato ketchup on the floor and adjusted the cleaning settings to Vac and Mop (for some bizarre reason there is no mop-only feature), standard water dispensing, Deep Cleaning, and two passes. As I anticipated given all the mopping tech on this bot, the X12 performed well in this test; indeed better than most spinning mop systems I’ve tested. Yes, it was a bit erratic in its chosen path, but it eventually cleaned the mess up and left far fewer smears than I have normally experienced.

Did it use the FocusJet on this unmissable ketchup stain? No, it simply approached the stain and duly mopped it without once using the squirty jet thing. And yet it did squirt water at least twice on an area with no stains whatsoever.

I personally don’t see a need for this water-spraying function because the task of cleaning a specific stain is a lot quicker if you just grab some kitchen towelling or a proper mop and bucket and do it yourself. The mere fact you need to reach for the app and make an educated guess where the stain is on the map and then wait five minutes while the robot gets ready to trundle over to what you hope is the correct spot, is way too long a process in my opinion. And even when it gets there, there’s no guarantee that it will actually use the water spraying system in the correct place, or even use it at all.

Score ref: 3.5/5

Dock performance

The X12 OmniCyclone's charging dock is among the most capable and innovative docking stations I’ve come across. Its bagless OmniCyclone dust collection system has performed particularly well, emptying the robot's onboard dustbin with no clogging to report, though I will admit that I have set it to empty the bot’s bin several times during its daily routines. Yes, I have had to take the bin to the kitchen bin twice in a month for emptying but even this has been a breeze. In fact, it has a better emptying mechanism than a lot of cordless stick vacs I’ve reviewed.

The dock also automatically washes the roller mop using heated water, removes the dirty water into a dedicated reservoir and then dries the roller with hot air to help prevent unpleasant smells and mould growth. And like most premium models, the dock’s self-cleaning functions also do a grand job of helping to keep the removable washing tray free from accumulated muck.

Score ref: 4/5

Battery performance

The X12’s 4,000mAh battery has a charging time of around two and a half hours. My lounge is roughly 12m² and, according to the app, the double-pass vacuum test in my lounge took 28 minutes to complete, while missing the space between two rugs that I have already mentioned above. After this run the battery showed 54% remaining, which seemed a bit low to me. Anyway, I then set it off to do two vacuum passes at full suction in the kitchen (around 17m²), after which the battery showed just 15%. As a result it headed back to the dock for a top-up before heading out again 20 minutes later to complete the task.

I’ve also noticed it heading back for a near-full top-up midway through an entire house clean and this suggests that the X12 might not be the best model for larger homes. Granted, one is rarely bothered by how long it takes a robot to clean a whole home, but there will be times when you need a quick cleanup in an emergency only to discover that the X12 is too busy charging itself from an earlier task.

Score ref: 3.5/5

• Performance score: 3/5

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: app functionality

• Relatively easy to navigate
• Far too many custom options
• Some annoying programming traits

At first I thought the Ecovacs Home app was one of the most intuitive and well laid-out robot app I’d come across – ‘very easy to navigate’, I said in my notes. However, in hindsight I think it’s too complex and confusing for its own good. Don’t get me wrong, I love an app that provides loads of customisation but this app tips it into anorak territory with so many custom options available that it’s difficult to know where to start.

This is especially noticeable when you select ‘Robot Advanced Functions’ because advanced they most certainly are. Yes, some are self explanatory but when you tap ‘Carpet Settings’ you’re met with two pages of settings relating to every carpet-cleaning scenario imaginable. As a result you can find yourself in a rabbit hole of experimentations that take ages to carry out because it’s a robot and robots always do things at their own pace – very slowly.

On the plus side, the app does cleverly divide all settings into Robot and Dock, and provides instant access to one’s pre-programmed routines, or Scenarios as Ecovacs calls them. However, it might take you a while to find the area where you create them, and when you finally get there and create your series of personalised routines and name them accordingly – like ‘Lounge Vac’, ‘Kitchen Mop’, etc – don’t just click on ‘done’ because there’s also a faint ‘save’ button on top and if you don’t click that, you may be back to square one. Also, as mentioned above, I had issues trying to turn off Agent Mode which I simply don’t trust, especially given the amount of engineered wood flooring in my home.

This is far from the worst robot app I’ve ever used. In fact it’s quite similar to my favourite Roborock app for functionality and personalisation. But as I said above, I think the IT department went a bit over the top when they designed this app and ended up providing too many options.

• App functionality score: 3/5

Should you buy the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

How I tested the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone

I tested the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone across a typical mixed UK home environment, combining hard flooring, rugs and high-traffic kitchen areas. The focus was on real-world performance rather than lab conditions, including everyday debris such as crumbs, dust, huge amounts of pet hair and sticky spills. I ran multiple cleaning cycles using the highest levels of vacuum and full mopping modes, observing how well it handled edge cleaning, room transitions and obstacle avoidance. Particular attention was paid to its roller-mop system, water delivery and the behaviour of the Focus Jet and OmniCyclone dock during emptying and refilling.

I also assessed its noise levels, maintenance demands and app control usability over repeated use. The aim was to determine whether its headline mopping innovations genuinely translate into better everyday cleaning performance. It mostly did in this regard but there’s definitely room for improvement regarding its overall navigation and hard floor sweeping.

First reviewed June 2026.

• Google is officially retiring its range of Nest Audio speakers
• That includes the Google Nest Audio and the Google Nest Mini
• They’ll be replaced by the Google Home Speaker when it launches shortly

It’s fair to say that there’s a lot of expectation around the Google Home Speaker — after all, it’s the company’s first smart speaker in six years and we’ve been waiting since its August 2025 announcement for it to arrive. But its launch next week spells bad news for the Google Nest Audio range, as we’ve just heard that it’s finally being sent off to retirement.

Speaking to Tech Advisor, a Google spokesperson said: “As we continue to build the future of the smart home, we are refining our portfolio of Google Home and Nest devices. As part of this evolution, we have ended production of the Google Nest Mini and Google Nest Audio.”

Yes, that means both the Nest Mini and the Nest Audio are out of stock on the Google online store and instead redirect to the page for the Home Speaker. Not only that, but Google is apparently phasing out the Nest branding for its speakers and displays, with Home taking its place.

Interestingly, Google Gemini for Home — the tech giant’s artificial intelligence (AI) model tailored for smart home usage — is compatible with all existing Google speakers and displays, meaning it will continue to work just fine on Google Nest audio devices.

What this news means for you

It’s not all bad news for Google Nest speaker owners. Google said it remains “deeply committed to our smart home ecosystem and to the millions of people who use our products every day.” To that end, “Existing Nest Mini and Nest Audio devices will continue to be fully supported with regular software updates, security patches, and customer care,” the company added.

With Gemini for Home still working on Nest products, you’re not missing out if you already own one of these speakers, at least from an AI standpoint. And while Google’s online stores no longer stock the Nest Mini and Nest Audio, you can still find them at third-party retailers.

But considering the age of the Nest Mini and Nest Audio — they first launched in 2017 and 2020, respectively, with neither device being updated since the latter date — it’s perhaps unsurprising that Google has finally called time on these speakers. With the Google Home Speaker set to land any day now, we’ll soon see if their replacement is up to scratch.

• Google has confirmed the launch of its new Google Home Speaker
• You can pre-order now, with the device expected to ship from June 25
• The speaker comes with basic Gemini features, but you'll need a Google Home Premium subscription to use advanced tools

Since Google first teased its next smart speaker back in August 2025, we’ve been keeping an eye on all the latest rumors around the new Gemini-powered Google Home Speaker —and now its official launch date has finally been confirmed.

Pe-orders for Google's first smart speaker in six years, which will replace the company’s Nest Audio, and Nest Mini, are open now. According to the Google Home Speaker pre-order page, shipping will commence on June 25.

The new Google Home Speaker is priced at $99.99 / £99.99 / AU$199, and comes in four colors: Jade, Berry, Porcelain, and Hazel. All four of those shades are available in the US, but Porcelain and Hazel are the only options for users in the UK and Australia.

Google has been keeping us on our toes in recent months when it comes to its anticipated new speaker and, as per a leak from Best Buy Canada, we had the speaker pegged for a late-June launch. When Google officially announced the device in October 2025 following its tease, it unveiled a slew of new upgrades, starting with its design.

Much like the Apple HomePod Mini and Amazon’s Echo Studio hub, the Google Home Speaker adopts 360-audio, which Google says you can pair with a supported Google TV Streamer device to create an immersive home theater audio setup. It comes with a 3D-woven fabric finish, and a light ring on its base to let you know when it's listening and responding — but the biggest upgrade is its Gemini powers.

For years, Google Assistant has been the company’s voice assistant for its smart hubs, but the Google Home Speaker is its first flagship device with Gemini capabilities, designed to be even smarter when responding to complicated requests and queries. It all sounds great on paper — but there’s one notable catch.

While the Google Home Speaker will come with basic features such as reminders, smart home controls, and quick answers, you’ll need to subscribe to one of the Google Home Premium tiers (Standard or Advanced) to use Gemini in its entirety — and additional outlay I imagine most potential users won't be happy about given the up-front cost of the speaker.

One of the advanced features locked into Google Home Premium Standard tier is Gemini Live, a conversational chatbot you can talk to, interrupt mid-sentence, and ask follow-up questions of about all kinds of topics. Whether you need a substitute ingredient for a specific recipe or are looking for outfit inspiration for an event, Gemini Live will have you covered.

The advanced features don’t end there however. With a Google Home Premium membership you’ll get additional storage for footage from security cameras and video doorbells that are integrated into your setup. If you’re signed up to the Advanced tier you’ll also get access to Home Brief, a tool that summarizes your footage highlights and gives you more detailed descriptions of the events that occur on your cameras.

It's not all bad news, because Google is offering six months of Google Home Premium for free when you purchase the new Google Home Speaker before September 30.

If you want to continue your time with Google Home Premium, you’ll have to pay a subscription to one of its tiers. Standard is $10/ £8/ AU$15 a month, while the Advanced tier is $20/ £16/ AU$30. You can read more about what each tier has to offer on the Google Home Premium sign-up page.

• Aura has added Google Photos support for its digital photo frames
• Albums / individual photos can be uploaded to frames from linked accounts
• Aura Frames can also be pre-loaded with existing Google Photo albums

Aura features heavily in my best digital photo frames guide. In fact, I have two of its frames in my home; the Ink with its natural, print-like E Ink display, and my absolute favorite, the punchy and classy Walden. Now, as a Google user, those frames just got better with the addition of Google Photos integration.

To add the feature, you'll need the Aura app (which is super handy for syncing frames anyway). In the app, select the 'Add Photos' option, tap 'Connect' on Google Photos, sign into your Google account, and then select which albums / individual photos you'd like to add. It's as simple as that.

Those photos will be added to your frame, and any new photos added to albums later will be included automatically.

Aura frames are collaborative too, in that you can invite family and friends to add their own photos to a frame, from anywhere in the world through the cloud. There are plenty more ways to add images besides the Aura app and now Google Photos, including iCloud, email, web and even by text message.

I've enjoyed personalizing an Aura frame as a gift before; photos can be pre-loaded to a frame, and that now goes for the new Google Photos integration too.

Photos shared, the proper way

I regularly find myself huddled around a phone with my wife and children when curated memories pop up from our Google Photos albums. We've got years worth of memories stored in a Google Photos account, with new photos added automatically.

As much as I love the spontaneity of our family slideshows around the small screen of a phone, there's something that little bit more special seeing those photos in a slick wall-mounted frame or one on a sideboard.

This Aura update, therefore, massively improves my experience with Aura frames, especially for displaying family memories. Most Aura frames also play video with sound, but not the Ink frame, which has the most authentic print-like quality, but is photo-only.

If you're totally new to digital photo frames, I've included links to the best deals for my favortire Aura frames below, and for more buying advice, check out my digital photo frames guide.

Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen): two-minute review

A video doorbell is a parcel monitor, a deterrent, and a low-key surveillance node pointed at your own front step, and Ring has spent the better part of a decade making that proposition feel normal.

The second-generation Battery Doorbell Plus is the company sharpening its best idea: taking the head-to-toe doorbell and giving it the resolution it always deserved.

Where ordinary doorbells frame a visitor's torso and chin and little else, the Plus shows a tall, square 1:1 field of view — 140 degrees in both directions — that takes in the person, the doorstep and whatever's been left on it.

This generation shoots in 2K Retinal resolution (1920 x 1920) with HDR, so you can identify a courier, read a label and confirm whether the parcel is on your step or your neighbour's — and a 6x Enhanced Zoom lets you pinch in without the image collapsing. It's the spec that separates a useful doorbell from a novelty, and the upgrade that justifies picking the Plus over Ring's cheaper Battery Doorbell.

Night performance has been rethought, too. Rather than dropping straight to grey mush after dark, the Plus uses true-color low-light sight to hold onto colour in dim conditions, only switching to adaptive black-and-white night vision once it's dark.

Two-way talk with noise cancellation does the doorstep-conversation job cleanly. The other quality-of-life change is the Quick Release Battery Pack: instead of unmounting the whole unit to charge, you pop out the battery, recharge it and slot it back.

Installation takes under 30 minutes, connecting to Wi-Fi through the app and mounting with the supplied tools, then lining it up so the head-to-toe view actually reaches the floor. No hub required. If there's a grumble, it's a small one: in 2026, a $179.99 / £149.99 / AU$249 doorbell still charges over Micro-USB rather than USB-C, so you'll be hunting for the right cable.

On the upside, it runs dual-band Wi-Fi 6, so a 2K stream holds up better than Ring's older 2.4GHz-only doorbells, with Ring recommending a 10Mbps upload to keep it smooth.

Then there's the Ring tax, in two senses. Financially, person alerts, package alerts and saved recordings all live behind a Ring subscription; without one, the doorbell is reduced to real-time alerts and live view, which rather undersells a 2K camera.

Philosophically, buying Ring means accepting its history of police-data partnerships and the broader unease about Amazon-owned cameras pointed at public pavements. None of that is new, and none of it stops the hardware being good, but a review that ignored it wouldn't be doing its job.

Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen): price & availability

• List price: $179.99 / £149.99 / AU$249
• Announced March 2026
• Available in the UK, US, and Australia

Sitting in the upper-middle of Ring's range of video doorbells, the Plus costs more than the $99.99 / £79.99 / $149 standard Battery Doorbell and less than the $249.99 / £219.99 / AU$399 Battery Doorbell Pro, which steps up to Retinal 4K and 3D motion detection.

With a list price of $179.99 / £149.99 / AU$249, the Battery Video Doorbell Plus isn't an impulse buy, but Ring discounts aggressively and its doorbells routinely sell well under list, so few people pay full price for long.

You should also factor the subscription into the lifetime cost. Plans start affordably for a single device and climb for multi-device households. Although the doorbell functions without a subscription, the experience is hollow: you'll be notified that something happened without being able to review what. Treat the subscription as part of the purchase, not an optional extra, and the value equation looks honest.

• Value score: 4/5

Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen): subscription plans

Features such as instant notifications, Live View and Two-Way Talk are available out of the box and for free on all Ring devices. A Ring subscription (branded Ring Protect) allows you to review, save and share your videos.

With a Ring subscription, starting from $4.99 / £4.99 / AU$4.95 per month per device, you can store unlimited Ring footage in the cloud for up to 180 days, to rewatch, download to your own device or share with friends and family. Person and package alerts also require a subscription.

You get a 30-day trial subscription when you first set up your Ring device. Video storage defaults to 30 days, with the option to extend it to up to 180 days.

Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen): specs

Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen): design

• Well-built
• Quick-release battery
• Hub-free wireless install

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Ring’s bulky designs, but the second-gen Plus is a bit more suitably restrained: a slim, rounded slab that won't embarrass a period porch or a new-build alike.

Build quality is reassuring, and the button has a satisfying press, though for UK and Australian customers it only comes in a single Nickel Silver finish, so there's no matching it to your door furniture the way some rivals allow.

The most practical design feature is the Quick Release Battery Pack. On older Ring doorbells, recharging meant unscrewing and removing the whole device — exactly the sort of faff that leads to a flat battery and a fortnight of excuses. Here you release the battery alone, charge it and reinsert it, with the doorbell staying put.

Buy a spare — the standard pack or the new Quick Release Ultra Battery Pack — and downtime drops to seconds. If a permanent supply suits you better, it hardwires to existing doorbell wiring for continuous trickle charging.

Setup follows Ring's well-worn path through the app, and crucially needs no separate hub or bridge. The only thing to get right is the angle: head-to-toe view only delivers its full benefit if you mount the doorbell so the frame reaches the doorstep, so it's worth spending a minute on placement rather than slapping it up at eye level out of habit.

• Design score: 4/5

Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen): performance

• 2K Retinal head-to-toe view
• True-colour low-light
• Subscription gates smartest features

Fitted to a typical front door, the Plus does the important things well, and the move to 2K makes the difference obvious. The higher resolution and tall, square frame capture a visitor from hairline to doormat, so you see the face and the parcel in one shot.

The 6x Enhanced Zoom lets you crop in on a label or a face without the picture completely falling apart. Motion alerts arrived promptly during testing, live view loaded quickly, and two-way talk was clear enough to hold a proper exchange with a courier rather than barking over each other.

It might split opinion, but Ring uses AI-powered features to identify and announce who is at your door. Instead of generic motion alerts, I received AI prompts such as “A person is walking in the room with a vacuum cleaner”. I loved it, my cleaner hated it, and well, I guess that’s the point.

After dark, true-color low-light sight holds onto color under external lighting, so a late-night clip is worth reviewing; only in near-total darkness does it fall back to adaptive black-and-white.

It’s worth noting that I tested this sample on an internal front door, but one with intermittent infrared communal lighting at night, so the low-light functionality became incredibly useful when the lights cut out. Being battery-powered and available with Ring’s additional adhesive stick-on mounting kit makes it suitable for rental properties, too.

Connectivity is more of a quiet improvement: dual-band Wi-Fi 6 gives the 2K stream more headroom than Ring's older 2.4GHz-only doorbells, with Ring recommending a 10Mbps upload speed to keep things smooth.

The performance ceiling, though, is set by the subscription. Person and package alerts — the difference between 'motion detected' and 'a parcel has arrived' — require a Ring plan, as does the ability to go back and watch what you missed, with recordings held up to 180 days.

Without a plan, the doorbell still rings and still streams live, but it stops short of the intelligence its hardware is clearly capable of. As a generational upgrade, it's a real one: 2K Retinal, HDR, sharper zoom and better low-light all land, so first-gen Plus owners have a genuine reason to look, even if a working 1536p unit is still perfectly serviceable.

• Performance score: 4/5

Should you buy the Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen)

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen): also consider

If you're not sure whether the new Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus is the right option for you, here are two other doorbells to think about.

How I tested the Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen)

• Tested at a domestic front door
• Assessed video, head-to-toe framing, zoom, night vision and audio
• Trialled the subscription experience

I used the doorbell outside to assess image quality, but mainly mounted the doorbell on an internal front door and used it as my main entry camera, paying particular attention to whether the head-to-toe view and the new 2K sensor delivered on the promise of capturing parcels and people together.

I checked live-view responsiveness, pushed the 6x zoom on faces and labels, held two-way conversations with visitors, and reviewed low-light and night clips after dark.

I've reported on Ring's privacy considerations because they're a material part of the buying decision, not a footnote.

For more details, see how we test, rate, and review products at TechRadar.

First reviewed June 2026

Fitting a video doorbell is an excellent way to boost your home security, but if you rent your home or live in an apartment, they're just not possible. That's where the catchily-named EZVIZ EP4 Wire-Free Peephole Door Viewer comes in. This little 4K camera fits in your front door's spyhole, and provides you with all the best features of a video doorbell without any drilling or damage.

Installing the EP4 is incredibly easy, and I managed to complete the whole process in around 10 minutes thanks to EZVIZ's handy video guide (the video shows an earlier model, the CP4, but the process is identical). The most time-consuming part was waiting for the EZVIZ app to download on my phone.

The peephole camera comes in two parts: the camera that fits on the outside of your door, and a 5.5-inch color screen that sits on the inside. There's also a set of six screws (don't worry, there's no drilling involved), a charging cable, and two small plastic plates that keep the camera's connector and charging port covered.

To get started, unscrew the peephole from your front door and put it somewhere safe. You might need to use a pair of pliers to get this started, but it seems mine was never installed very well to begin with, and it came away effortlessly.

Now measure the thickness of the door and select the right pair of screws (my door is relatively thin and required the shortest ones), screw them a little way into the back of the camera, and push them through the peephole, along with the data cable. You can wrap them in a rolled-up piece of paper to make this easier, but I found I didn't need to.

Take the mounting plate off the screen, slide it onto the screws, and tighten them up (making sure that the screen is level before turning them all the way). Then just push the data cable into the screen and cover it with a plastic plate, slide the screen into position, and press the power button for three seconds.

Select your language when prompted, pick your Wi-Fi network, and enter the password when prompted. Then just install the app, create an account, and scan the QR code that appears on the camera's screen to initiate pairing. This only takes a moment, and once it's connected, the camera is ready to use.

EZVIZ provides you with a seven-day free trial of its cloud storage service, which you can extend to 30 days by entering your payment details, but you can skip the fees by installing a microSD card (up to 512GB) instead. The app makes it easy to pick which type of storage you want to use.

From the app you can see a live video feed from your camera, capture a still image, or start recording. The EP3 records in 10-second clips, which is ample time to identify the person at your door and see what they're up to.

The EP3 can also start recording automatically when it detects a person (sending an alert to your phone as well, if you like), and can identify specific individuals using a feature called 'Familiar Faces', which is currently in beta. Upload a picture of someone you know, and the camera will use on-board AI to alert you when they're at the door.

It's an interesting idea, and great if you often have friends over, but at the moment it only seems to be possible to switch alerts on when a Familiar Face is recognized. You can't ask the camera to ignore certain people, so if you've added yourself, you'll get alerts telling you that you're at the door. Hopefully that's something EZVIZ is working on.

The EP4 also offers two-way talk, so you can use the mobile app speak with the person at the door — using your own voice, or a voice-changer if you want to stay anonymous. I noticed a delay of about five seconds on two-way-talk, which is better than some of the best video doorbells we've tested on TechRadar over the years.

I'll share a full review soon, but so far I'm very impressed by what I've seen of the EP4. It was incredibly easy to fit, and is an excellent option if you can't alter your door. Once EZVIZ has refined the facial recognition feature, I think it'll be onto a real winner.

Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite: two-minute review

Smart locks in Britain have always been the awkward cousin of the smart home. American buyers get deadbolts and endless choice; we get multipoint mechanisms, lift-to-lock handles and a nagging sense that retrofitting anything to the front door will either void the insurance or fall off.

Yale's answer with the Linus L2 Lite is to keep things small, cheap and reversible — and, crucially, to build in Matter over Thread so the lock works with whatever smart home system you already rock.

The L2 Lite is a compact, round-knob unit that mounts on the inside of your door over the existing thumb-turn. Your key still works from the outside, which matters both for emergencies and for landlords.

Inside the Yale Home app, you get the modern smart-lock toolkit: digital keys and PIN codes you can share and revoke, an activity feed of who came and went, Auto-Unlock that opens the door as you approach with your phone in your pocket, and KeySense — a button on the knob for a quick press-to-lock or a long-press delayed lock as you leave.

Because it supports Matter over Thread alongside Bluetooth 5.4, the L2 Lite joins Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa or Samsung SmartThings locally and responds fast, no Yale-specific bridge required — provided you already own a device that acts as a Thread border router, such as a recent Apple HomePod or Amazon Echo.

If you don't live in a Matter ecosystem and still want to lock the door from the pub, you'll need Yale's optional ConnectX Wi-Fi Bridge, sold separately. There's no Wi-Fi baked in, unlike the pricier Linus L2.

Living with it, the L2 Lite is reassuringly unremarkable in the best way. Installation took 15 minutes, it disappears against the door, and KeySense quickly becomes muscle memory.

It runs on three CR123A batteries — not the sort of cell you keep in a kitchen drawer. There's no USB-C top-up, and it lacks DoorSense, so it knows whether it's locked but not whether the door is actually shut.

There's no Apple Home Key tap-to-enter either, which makes sense for an interior-only design but will disappoint iPhone devotees.

Get past the spec-sheet gaps, and the bigger question is door compatibility, because this is where UK smart locks live or die, and the L2 Lite is fussier than its friendly styling suggests.

Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite: price & availability

• List price £129.98 (about $170 / AU$250) compared to £220 (about $290 / AU$420) for the regular Linus L2
• Launched December 2025
• Available in black or silver

With a list price of £129.98 (about $170 / AU$250), the Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite undercuts the standard Linus L2 by a meaningful margin while keeping most of the day-to-day features. That makes it one of the cheapest routes to a Matter-over-Thread smart lock in the UK, though at the time of writing it's not available worldwide.

Pleasingly, there are no subscription fees to concern yourself with, but there are some other cost caveats.

CR123A batteries are included, and Yale rates them for up to six months, but replacing them is more expensive and less convenient than AAs. Second, if you're not in a Matter household, the ConnectX Wi-Fi Bridge is effectively mandatory for remote control, setting you back another £70.

Reassuringly, pairing the lock with a Yale Platinum Three Star cylinder brings a £3,000 Total Trust Guarantee if it's ever breached. That compares to £5,000 offered by smart lock rival Ultion Nuki. Its base model, the Ultion Nuki Go, costs £239 with Wi-Fi built in.

• Value score: 4/5

Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite: specs

Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite: design and installation

• Compact design
• Reversible install
• Door compatibility tricky

For something doing a serious security job, the L2 Lite is endearingly low-key. It's a small round knob in black or silver that sits on the inside of the door over your existing thumb-turn, and from the outside, there's no sign anything has changed.

The casing is plastic, which sounds cheap but feels solid enough in the hand. Installation lives up to the drill-free promise. In my case, I was carrying over an Ultion cylinder left in the door from a previous smart-lock install, and the supplied two-piece thumb-turn adapter eventually made the swap painless.

Fix the mounting plate around the cylinder, clip the adapter over the thumb-turn, attach the lock and calibrate it in the app. Because nothing is drilled and the cylinder isn't replaced, it comes off just as cleanly if you're renting or wary of committing.

The catch is what counts as a compatible door. The L2 Lite works only with lift-to-lock mechanisms; your cylinder needs to protrude at least 3mm on the inside, and it explicitly won't work with split spindles or auto-engage multipoint locks.

Plenty of UK front doors are lift-to-lock multipoint and will be fine; a meaningful number aren't. Use Yale's online compatibility checker before you buy, and note that if your current cylinder doesn't fit the bill, Yale's Linus Adjustable Cylinder is designed to solve exactly that.

• Design and installation score: 4/5

Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite: performance

• Fast operation
• KeySense and Auto-Unlock useful
• Battery and DoorSense omissions niggle

Day to day, the L2 Lite locks and unlocks reliably, on command, without fuss. Paired into a Matter home, it responded quickly to app and voice commands, and Auto-Unlock greeted me at the door as advertised, sensing my approach over Bluetooth.

KeySense, the press-to-operate button on the knob, turns out to be the feature I used most: a quick press to lock behind me, a long press for a delayed lock as I gathered bags and left. One practical wrinkle on lift-to-lock doors: you still need to lift the handle as you leave, or KeySense has nothing to throw the bolts into.

Matter over Thread is always appealing, and it works. Through Apple Home, the lock appeared as a native tile, automations fired, and there was no bridge-dependent lag.

Sharing access is painless — digital keys and PIN codes go out to family or a cleaner and can be revoked from the app, with an activity feed confirming who came and went.

Want a code or fingerprint on the door rather than a phone? It pairs with the additional Yale Smart Keypad 2 or the Yale Dot.

The motor isn't silent, throwing a businesslike whir as it turns the cylinder, though it's no louder than rivals. The omissions are what stop a higher score. The lack of DoorSense means it reports whether it's locked, but has no idea whether the door is actually closed, which undermines the 'Is the house secure?' peace of mind.

The CR123A batteries are a recurring irritation rather than a dealbreaker, and the absence of Apple Home Key means no tap-to-enter with an iPhone or Apple Watch from outside. None of it spoils the core experience; it merely reaffirms this isn’t the flagship.

• Performance score: 4/5

Should you buy the Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite: also consider

If you're not sure whether the Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 is the right smart lock for your home, here are two others to bear in mind.

How I tested the Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite

• Installed on a domestic door
• Tested via Matter, Bluetooth and the Yale Home app
• Assessed installation, daily reliability, KeySense, and Auto-Unlock

I fitted the L2 Lite myself to gauge how true the drill-free claim is, swapping it onto an Ultion cylinder already in the door via the supplied two-piece thumb-turn adapter. I lived with it as a daily lock, locking and unlocking by app, voice and the KeySense button.

I paired it with Matter to test hub-free operation and response times, and used Auto-Unlock on repeated approaches. I shared and revoked digital access, checked the activity feed, and paid particular attention to the consequences of the missing DoorSense and the CR123A battery choice. Battery longevity can't be verified in weeks, so I've reported Yale's six-month figure alongside my shorter-term experience rather than guessing. For more details, see how we test, rate, and review products at TechRadar.

First reviewed June 2026

• A Google executive has teased the new Google Home Speaker's imminent arrival
• The new smart home hub could go on sale as soon as next week
• It would be Google's first smart speaker in six years

We've been waiting for Google to announce a new Google Home Speaker since the device was teased at the tech giant's Made by Google event almost a year ago, and now it looks like it could be arriving — and within a matter of days.

In an email sent out yesterday (June 11) to Gemini for Home early access testers, Google thanked participants for their feedback, which it said resulted in over 2,500 bug fixes and a wider launch to 20 countries in 10 different languages. Google has also been consistent with software updates, which also saw the return of the much-loved Continued Conversation feature.

As noted by 9to5Google, Chief Product Officer for Google Home & Nest, Anish Kattukaran, sent out the email to users stating the following:

“I’m writing to you from my living room, surrounded by the same speakers, displays, thermostats and cameras in many of your homes. With over 100 of my own smart home devices connected around me and my family, I am deeply aware of the incredible potential and occasional inconveniences of smart home life”.

Since the early access program launched, it’s garnered a staggering 3.5 million sign-ups from users who’ve wanted to get a taste of what the new Google Home Speaker will have to offer, and Kattukaran is still encouraging users to send feedback.

But he signed off his email with what looks very like confirmation that the new Google Home Speaker will be announced next week.

At the bottom of the email, Kattukaran says “for those of you who have been patiently waiting for a certain speaker… keep a very close eye on your inbox next week,” which I think can only be referring to the launch of a new Google Home Speaker.

I imagine that, like us, you’ve also been keeping your eyes peeled for signs of the new speaker since the company officially announced it in October 2025.

At the time, Google teased a "spring 2026" release date, and it could still meet that deadline, technically, as while most people go by the meteorological definition of spring, which is March-May in the northern hemisphere, astronomical spring doesn't end until June 21.

As of now the new Google Home Speaker is prominently displayed at the Google Store, where you can sign up to be notified by email when it goes on sale — and we've had a hint as to when that might be. Best Buy Canada recently slipped up when it listed the device along with a June 25 release date label.

Shortly after, Nest Mini and Nest Audio speakers started mysteriously vanishing from the Google Store and third-party retailers, which suggested a new speaker was on the way.

It’s been six years since Google came out with the Nest Audio and a lot has changed in the realm of the best smart home devices on both the hardware and software fronts, so the bar is set high. But from the feedback from Gemini for Home users and the device features list on the Google Store, there’s a chance that Google could actually hit this one out of the park.

I've been using my Amazon Echo Pop for the best part of two, nearly three years, and it's served as the ideal smart speaker to cover all my basic needs. It's not a complex device, which has its perks, but I feel I've used it to its full extent, and I'm looking for that extra something. Perhaps the new Google Home Speaker will be my sign to finally take the plunge and upgrade.

• Philips is launching a ceiling light that mimics the look of a real skylight
• It automatically adjusts daylight temperature as the day goes on
• The skylight looks very realistic, but lacks smart home support

Philips is one of our favorite home lighting brands, and it’s launching a new ceiling light that mimics daylight and creates the effect of a skylight — and it looks spectacular.

The Philips Skylight is designed to replicate natural lighting and outdoor environments indoors, using a blend of advanced LED and Philips’ NatureConnect technologies. Signify, Philips’ manufacturer, says the skylight is “inspired by the natural brightness, depth and rhythm of sunlight”.

It’s a great option for windowless rooms if the design of your roof doesn't allow you to fit a skylight, or you want to save yourself the hassle and expense of having one fitted.

Before now, Signify limited the Philips Skylight to professional settings (offices, medical environments, and so on), but now the ceiling light will be available for everyone when it launches later this month in most regions (Signify says the Skylight be available in the US in September).

The Philips Skylight comes in four models: the Philips Skylight Medium, Philips Skylight Large, Philips Skylight VitaUp Medium, and Philips Skylight VitaUp Large, with prices starting at 499.99 euros (about $580 / £430).

Each variant comes with a slim ceiling profile for mounting, a remote control, five preset lighting scenes, and Philips’ Day Rhythm tool which automatically adjusts color temperature and brightness throughout the day. All models have an IP44 rating, meaning the Philips Skylight can be fitted in bathrooms and other humid environments.

The VitaUp models come with an integrated UV-B module built to support the body’s natural vitamin D production indoors. This also includes a handful of safety measures, including automatic shut-off which happens after eight hours.

In images shared by Philips, the Skylight's outdoor light imitation looks surprisingly convincing, and there are obvious benefits for wellbeing. More people are spending more time indoors and out of natural daylight, so devices like this are becoming increasingly sought after.

However, despite its cleverness, the Philips Skylight is not a Hue product. Philips produces some of the best smart lights out there, but its new ceiling light doesn't offer smart connectivity. This means it doesn’t connect to Wi-Fi or work with Matter over Thread, so you can't integrate it into your existing smart home setup, and you’ll have to use the included remote to control it manually.

Given how impressive the Philips Skylight looks, and its price tag, that's a shame. Let's hope Philips adds smart home connectivity to a future version.

• The Nest Mini and Nest Audio smart speakers are unavailable on the Google Store
• Third-party retailers are still listing them, but the options are limited
• It could be Google's way of preparing for the arrival of the new Google Home Speaker

The long-awaited Google Home Speaker is getting closer to a full launch — and another strong clue is that company’s older models are becoming increasingly difficult to buy.

Suddenly, Google's Nest Mini and Nest Audio speakers have been vanishing from online retailers, which was first spotted on Google’s US store. Not only does the listing for both models read "out of stock", but it also says that both devices are "unavailable".

As for Google’s Canada store, it’s the same case, however customers in the UK and Australia can sign up to receive an email notification if it ever comes back into stock.

Outside of the Google store, it’s even more of a challenge to find them in stock. At the moment, availability is sparse, but there are still ways for you to get your hands on one. In the US, Amazon is your best shot at scoring the Nest Mini, while Best Buy is listing the Nest Audio in its clearance sale for $74.99.

If you’re based in the UK, Amazon is the only retailer listing the Nest Mini in stock for £69.99, but stores such as Argos, Currys, and Very no longer list either model. There are also limited options if you’re in Australia, but there are still some kicking about on Amazon.

Will the Nest Mini and Audio be back?

It’s not completely surprising that Google has paused the sales of its smart speakers as it prepares to launch its next-gen device, but whether the Nest Mini or Nest Audio will go back on sale after the Google Home Speaker launches is unknown.

Since Google has spent quite a bit of time rolling out Gemini tools to the Nest Mini and Nest Audio, it wouldn’t make sense to completely stop production and sales for these models, and since Google is notifying UK customers when they'll be available again, it gives us more reason to believe they’ll be back sooner or later.

The Nest Mini and Nest Audio speakers have been Google’s flagship smart hubs for the best part of seven years, and now it seems as though the company is getting ready to embrace the new Google Home Speaker as their successor — but it’s been quite the process.

The new Google Home Speaker first appeared during last year’s Made by Google event, and was officially announced in October 2025 with a launch scheduled for Spring 2026 (or sometime between March and May for those in the southern hemisphere).

While Spring has passed and no such speaker has been released, Best Buy Canada listed the device saying it would be due on June 25. Google still hasn’t confirmed this, but its new smart hub is very much in sight, and it would be great news if this were true.

• Suitable for peepholes from 14mm to 50mm diameter
• Wireless operation and local microSD storage
• UK and Europe: £159 / €249

If you'd like a smart video doorbell but don't have anywhere to put one — or permission from your landlord to make any permanent changes — then the new EP4 door viewer from EZVIZ looks like an excellent alternative. It's a smart video camera that delivers all the key features of the best video doorbells, but instead of screwing it into the door, frame or wall you simply replace the door's existing peephole.

Because it's wireless and doesn't require additional mounting, if you're moving elsewhere in the future you can simply take it out and pop the original peephole back in again.

There's another key benefit here: the EP4 supports local storage. If like me you're trying to avoid signing up for yet another subscription service that's a big plus.

EZVIZ EP4 Wireless Peephole Door Viewer: what it does, what it costs and where to get it

The EZVIZ EP4 comes in two sections: the camera, and the viewing screen. The camera is designed to replace peepholes between 14mm and 50mm in diameter, so it should fit most existing peephole doors, and it has a rechargeable 7,100 mAh battery so you're not going to be recharging it every few weeks. My video doorbell battery is 5,000 mAh and I usually get two-ish months from that in a fairly busy street.

The camera streams 4K video to the portable viewer, which has a 5.5-inch touch screen. There's a live view and a two-way talk mode, AI-powered face recognition, human shape detection and infra-red detection, and you can customize the detection sensitivity so it's not alerting you of irrelevant passers-by. Local storage is via microSD card, with support for cards up to 512GB.

The camera features a wide 155 to 160-degree field of view with automatic distortion correction so your visitors don't look like they're auditioning to be in an emo band's video. There's no night vision here, although that shouldn't be an issue for internal doors in apartment blocks and similar spaces.

EZVIZ sells through Amazon, and the EP4 is available now for an RRP of £159.99 on Amazon UK.

In Europe the RRP is €249 but I'm already seeing it discounted to €189. Pricing and availability for the US and Australia hasn't been announced just yet.

I don't know about you, but my fridge at home is decorated with numerous snapshots of family and friends spanning many years, precariously fixed in place with souvenir fridge magnets. It's into this mix that I've recently added a few Vidabay Snaps.

A Vidabay Snap looks like an instant-film print, but it is in fact a tiny, magnetic E ink display. So, unlike an actual print, you can change the picture displayed and easily attach it to a range of surfaces.

It's optimized for iPhone (and compatible with various Android devices), and any image from your gallery can be uploaded via the (free) Vidabay app using NFC, whenever you like.

Think of Vidabay Snaps as, like, tiny digital photo frames, just set within a Polaroid-style border, and with an E Ink display that's much more basic than the fabulous Aura Ink.

Vidabay Snaps are available from the Vidabay website in white, black, yellow or red (see below), with prices starting at $29.99 for a single Snap (was $35.99) or $86.99 for a pack of three (was $99.99). Vidabay ships to most regions, including the UK and Australia, and price is calculated at checkout.

A genuine instant print from the likes of a Polaroid Go Gen 3 or Fujifilm Instax Mini 13 costs around $1 / £0.80 / AU$1,50 a go — much cheaper than a Vidabay Snap. Even pricier (and larger) formats like Polaroid I-Type are around $3 / £2.50 / AU$4.50 per print, while regular photo prints from the lab are typically the cheapest of the lot. However, the image on a Snap can be changed as often as you like.

I have a small collection of the best instant cameras, and am not short of instant prints to put on my walls (and fridge). And now that it's been a month since I got my Vidabay Snaps, I can tell you they don't hold the same magic as an instant print.

My experience using Vidabay Snaps with an Android phone has been mixed, which I'll unpack next, but there's one fundamental flaw to the product — the frames don't display the color blue (not for me, anyway), which is very limiting for color images.

However, I can totally appreciate these neat, low-cost E Ink devices for what they are, and the concept is pretty well executed. And even though they feel pricey compared to prints, I believe Vidabay Snaps are great little gifts. Let's take a look at how they work.

How to get started

To get started, you need to pair a Vidabay Snap with your NFC-enabled device — they're optimized for iPhone, but I've done the whole process with an Android phone. Once that's done, you select the desired picture from your phone's gallery, choose the paired Snap, and then hold the two devices together to upload to the frame.

Using a recent Oppo Find X9 Ultra phone, I found the NFC connection for image uploads — which takes around 30 seconds to complete — exceptionally fiddly, but persevered for around 15 attempts each time before my first success.

The trick is locating NFC in your device, and Vidabay does point out that not all Android devices will work. The company says there's a Bluetooth dock on the way, which will simplify the process and widen compatibility for Android. Until then, you'll need to check with Vidabay if your device is compatible. I haven't tried a Snap with an iPhone, but I imagine the process will be much easier.

The Snap's display flickers as the uploading image appears, and then there you have it — a lo-fi E ink (aka E Paper) image in a handy magnetic display.

E ink displays like this are typically lo-fi — don't expect fine detail or a vibrant and wide color range. Quite the opposite, they don't even display the color blue, meaning that in a photo of my son with two teammates in their blue-and-black-striped soccer gear, the jerseys were essentially monochrome. You can imagine what happened when I attempted to load a photo of a sailboat out on the water on a sunny day. The screenshot (above) demonstrates the difference in quality between an original image and how it appears loaded on a Snap.

I picked up five Vidabay Snaps and had mixed success. Three of the five loaded fine (after several attempts); the other two refused to load in color, period, and I eventually gave up.

The app could also do with some work; there's no way of recomposing / cropping the photo within the square frame, nor can you rename a frame once it's registered. I had five frames all identically named, making it extremely difficult to track which frame was which in the app. Writing a number on the back of each one with a Sharpie was my solution.

Each Vidabay Snap has a magnetic back for attaching to surfaces like a fridge. It's also fitted with NFC for image uploads and charging. Being a tiny E Ink display, it consumes next to no power – a true lo-fi product. An individual Snap can be purchased with a leatherette tag to attach to something like your bag, and this bundle costs $48.99.

If you have that sentimental person in your life who happens to be an iPhone user, then Vidabay Snap is an easy, low-cost gift recommendation. Until the Bluetooth dock lands and it proves to address my user experience issues, I'm hesitant to recommend the product for Android users.

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier: two-minute review

The Blueair Mini Restful Sunrise Clock Air Purifier is a three-in-one device — technically a four-in-one if you include the built-in USB charger — that combines an air purifier, a sunrise alarm clock and a wake-up light in a single unit. It launched as part of Blueair's Sleep collection with a clear USP: rather than cluttering your nightstand with separate devices, one appliance handles the air quality, the light and the alarm. If you've been browsing the best compact air purifiers for a bedroom, the Mini Restful sits in a category of its own.

The purification uses Blueair's HEPASilent technology, which captures 99.97% of particles down to 0.1 microns — finer than a standard HEPA filter — and my hayfever symptoms were noticeably more manageable on mornings after I'd had the Mini Restful running.

It runs across three fan speeds plus a Night mode, covers rooms up to 33m² / 355 sq ft, and is QuietMark certified. The brand claims noise levels of 21dB on its lowest setting whereas my own tests averaged 32dB, much of which was ambient.

In reality, it's whisper quiet and I could easily run it through the night without disturbing my sleep. I even forgot to switch it off a lot of the time because it's so quiet, I didn't realize it was still running.

What makes it stand out most from other purifiers I've tested is the wake-up light: a circular ring below the touchscreen display that brightens gradually over 15–30 minutes before your alarm time. This is designed to mimic natural sunrise, and you can also choose from multiple alarm sounds via the app, including birdsong, soft tones, and rainfall.

This wake-up light is impressively bright for its size and the whole appliance's design is attractive enough for you to actually want on your bedside table. I tested the Blueair Mini Restful in summer so while it helped rouse me gently, it's hard to judge exactly how effective it would be in the depths of winter, say, when a more gentle wake-up is most needed.

At 11.8in / 30cm tall and just 2.36lbs / 1.07kg, it sits comfortably on a standard nightstand, and the USB-C port at the back means it can charge your phone too, saving you even more space by eliminating the need for a separate charger.

My biggest complaint about the Mini Restful is the Blueair app, which doesn't quite live up to the rest of the device's performance. When it works, it's great — intuitive and clean. Yet there's no way to track air quality levels, and during my review period there was often a lag between adjusting settings and the device responding. This became frustrating quickly. The connectivity dropped completely three times during the four weeks of tests and I had to fully reconnect to my Wi-Fi and phone.

For anyone who suffers from allergies and has been meaning to try a sunrise alarm, the Mini Restful makes a compelling case that one device can do all of it well. But even if you already own one of the best air purifiers on the market and a separate sunrise alarm, the Mini Restful makes a strong argument for consolidating. It will definitely feel like an upgrade.

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier review: price and availability

• List price: $199.99 / £169
• Available in the US and UK

The Blueair Mini Restful is available directly from Blueair US and Blueair UK, as well as from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Walmart and John Lewis. It has a list price of $199.99 / £169, which converts to about AU$280, but at the time of writing it's not available in Australia.

On purification alone, it's easy to find cheaper options. Blueair's own £79 Blue Pure Mini Max, the £59.99 GoveeLife Smart Air Purifier Lite and the £149.99 Levoit Core 300S are all strong compact options that cost less and if all you want is cleaner air in a bedroom, any of those will do the job well. However, none of them has a sunrise alarm or wake-up light. Nor do they charge your phone.

In fact, there is no direct equivalent on the market — no other purifier currently combines HEPASilent filtration with a built-in sunrise alarm and wake-up light in a single bedside device. This means the real question isn't how it compares to other purifiers, but whether it's cheaper and better than buying two separate devices.

On that measure, it mostly wins. The Hatch Restore 3 ($169.99 / £220) is widely considered the best standalone sunrise alarm clock you can buy, while a compact bedroom purifier like the Levoit Core 300S adds another $99 / £90 on top. That's $260 / £240 for two devices that take up more space, require two separate apps and two separate power outlets. The Mini Restful does both jobs for $199.99 / £169 in a single unit that sits comfortably on a bedside table.

The trade-off is that neither function quite matches what a dedicated device delivers. The sunrise graduation isn't as smooth as the Hatch Restore 3, and the purification coverage is limited to spaces up to 33m² / 355 sq ft. If you need serious room coverage or a flawless sunrise simulation, you'd be better served buying separately. But for a standard bedroom and anyone who wants to simplify their nightstand, the value case is very strong.

Replacement filters cost $29.99 / £24 and need changing every nine months — a running cost worth budgeting for, even though it's in line with most other comparable purifiers.

• Value for money score: 4 out of 5

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier specs

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier review: design

• Compact and attractive enough to earn its place on a nightstand
• Soft woven fabric exterior
• Touchscreen display doubles as clock face
• Controls can feel awkward at table height

The Mini Restful is one of the better-looking air purifiers I've had in my bedroom, which matters more than it might sound.

Most purifiers are designed for corners and shelves where nobody has to look at them. They're functional, but they largely earn their keep by blending in. The Mini Restful is instead designed to stand out, and Blueair has clearly put effort into the aesthetic. The woven fabric exterior, which is available in Coastal Beige or Midnight and can be removed and cleaned, feels closer to an Alexa speaker than a home appliance. For comparison, the Levoit Core 300S — a purifier I rate highly for performance — is a plain white cylinder that would look out of place on my nightstand.

At 11.8 inches / 30cm tall and 6.7 inches / 17cm across, it has a similar footprint to a bedside lamp, albeit slightly more imposing. It's taller than I had expected for something described as a bedside device and it's not as compact as I'd like (the Blueair Blue Pure Mini Max, for instance, is shorter and lighter) but it does fit comfortably. I could fit the purifier and my phone charger on my nightstand without it feeling cluttered.

At 2.36lbs / 1.07kg, it's also light enough to pick up and move without any effort. The cord runs neatly through the base and plugs into a standard outlet, and at the back there's a USB-C port for charging your phone overnight. This is easy to reach without having to move the unit, and it's one of those small additions that makes a real difference to how the product fits into a bedside routine.

All of the controls sit on the top of the device, arranged around a circular touchscreen display. The display shows the time, current fan speed and filter status at a glance, and is the main interface for adjusting settings manually. It's responsive and readable in low light and the icons are intuitive — power, fan speed, display lock and purification mode are all clearly differentiated. I found I could adjust settings without turning the main light on after the first few days of use. The display can also be locked via the app if you want to prevent accidental changes overnight.

Just below the display is the light ring — a circular band that serves as both the wake-up light and a soft night light. It's a smaller lit area than you'd find on a dedicated sunrise alarm like the Hatch Restore 3, which uses its entire face as a light source, and I was skeptical that such a narrow ring could produce enough light to actually wake me. It did, and it looked elegant doing so.

Setup is straightforward. The Mini Restful arrives in a simple box with the device, a cord and a plug — thread the cord through the base, attach the plug, remove the plastic cover from the filter inside and you're done, in under two minutes.

From there you download the free Blueair app, create an account, and connect the device to your home Wi-Fi. The whole process took me around five minutes, and the app walks you through each step clearly. It's here that you'll set your alarm times, choose your wake sounds, adjust the sunrise duration, and create purification schedules.

The one ergonomic issue I found is that having everything on top means you need to lean over to adjust anything manually when the unit is at table height. It's a minor inconvenience rather than a dealbreaker, and in practice I used the app for most adjustments after the first week, but it's not ideal. Overall, this is a product that has been designed with the bedroom specifically in mind, and it shows in almost every decision Blueair has made.

• Design score: 4.5 out of 5

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier review: performance

• Powerful purification even on lowest settings
• Near-silent on Night mode and speed 1
• Wake-up light impressively bright for its size
• Sunrise graduation can be abrupt

The Mini Restful has two jobs to do — clean the air and wake you up gently — and it approaches both with more conviction than I expected from a device of this size.

I tested it over four weeks as my primary bedroom purifier and alarm clock, running it every night and monitoring air quality via the Blueair app each morning. I also measured noise levels at each fan speed using a decibel meter, and ran the sunrise alarm as my sole alarm throughout the review period rather than keeping a backup.

Starting with the purification. The HEPASilent filtration captures 99.97% of airborne particles down to 0.1 microns, which is finer than a standard HEPA filter, and covers dust, pollen, pet dander and most common allergens with ease. I suffer from hayfever and the review period coincided with peak pollen season, which gave me a useful real-world test. On mornings after running the Mini Restful through the night on speed 1 or 2, I noticed a genuine difference: less of the throat tightness and eye irritation I'd normally get.

To test the purification speed specifically, I sprayed deodorant directly at the unit for five seconds on both the lowest and highest settings, then timed how long it took for the air quality reading in the app to return to normal. On the lowest setting it took around 45 minutes to fully clear. On the highest setting it took just 12 minutes — a significant difference. The app's air quality history chart, which shows readings over the past 24 hours and 30 days, is useful for tracking these changes and gave me a clear picture of how conditions shifted.

On noise, the Mini Restful is super quiet. Blueair claims 21dB on the lowest speed; my measurements put it at around 32dB. This sounds like a huge difference but the purifier is almost inaudible, even in a quiet room. Speed 2 registers around 35dB, which produces a gentle white noise that actually helped me sleep rather than disturbing me. Speed 3 is noticeably louder at around 48dB — not unpleasant, but enough that I wouldn't choose to run it while trying to fall asleep. The Night mode handles the transition well though, stepping the fan down to its quietest setting automatically, and I left it on this mode for the majority of the review period.

Blueair says the Mini Restful works best in rooms between 14–33m² / 151–355 sq ft, which will cover most standard bedrooms. I tested it in a medium-sized room and found it kept up well, with the air quality sensor registering improvements within 20–30 minutes of switching on after a day with the windows open. It won't cope with large open-plan spaces — for that you'd need something with considerably more power, like the Dyson HushJet Compact — but for a bedroom it's more than adequate.

The wake-up light is the more interesting part of the performance story. The light ring is small relative to a dedicated sunrise alarm but on its highest brightness setting it lit the room enough to wake me without the alarm sound triggering at all on several mornings. The three manual brightness levels via the touchscreen are useful, and the app's slider control allows finer adjustment if you want to dial it in precisely.

The issue is with the graduation. The light is supposed to brighten gradually over 15–30 minutes before your alarm time, mimicking a natural sunrise. For the most part it does, and on the mornings it worked as intended the experience was gentler than waking to a conventional alarm. But on several occasions — I counted at least six across the four-week review period — the light jumped to full brightness abruptly rather than easing up to it, which is jarring. It doesn't ruin the experience entirely but it stops the Mini Restful from matching the consistently smooth graduation of a dedicated wake-up light. If the sunrise simulation is the primary reason you're considering this, that inconsistency is worth noting.

Elsewhere, the alarm sounds themselves are pleasant and varied — birdsong, soft tones, rainfall — and the volume is adjustable via the app.

• Performance score: 4.5 out of 5

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier review: app

• Required for full setup and alarm customization
• Doesn't show air quality levels
• Clean, well-organized interface
• Lag between app and device is frustrating
• No HomeKit, Alexa or Google Home support

Despite a small number of flaws, I can barely fault the hardware of the Blueair Mini Restful. The same can't be said for the app though, sadly.

Firstly, the Blueair app isn't optional. You can use the touchscreen to turn the device on and off and cycle through fan speeds, but doing anything of note, such as setting alarms, choosing wake sounds, adjusting the sunrise duration, creating purification schedules and checking air quality history, all require the app.

This is great when it works. The interface is clean and logically laid out, with the device status and filter life all visible without having to dig through menus. Setting a sunrise alarm takes seconds: you pick a time, choose a sound, set the brightness duration between and you're done.

The filter replacement reminder is useful; the display lock feature is a sensible addition for overnight use; and the scheduling tools are flexible enough to set different purification levels for different times of day.

However, knowing how to view live air quality readings isn't obvious, and I ended up having to Google for help. Even then, you can only see the current outdoor air reading (via the Outdoor air section on the homepage) and not a live, room-by-room chart.

Then there's the problem with lag. There was a consistent, frustrating delay between adjusting a setting in the app and the device responding throughout almost the entire review period. This could be anything from a few seconds to almost 30 seconds on occasion. Switching fan speeds via the app often took longer than just tapping the top of the unit, which defeats part of the point of having remote control in the first place.

What's more, during my four-week review period the connection dropped completely three times, requiring a full reconnection through the app each time. I'd find myself checking the app before bed to make sure the alarm was still set and the connection was still live, which is exactly the kind of friction a product like this should be eliminating.

The absence of any smart home integration is also a real gap. There's no HomeKit support, Alexa skill or Google Home compatibility, which means the Mini Restful exists entirely within its own ecosystem. For anyone who controls their bedroom environment through a smart home setup — lights, heating, other devices — the Mini Restful sits outside all of that. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's a limitation that feels out of step with both the price and what other, similar connected bedroom devices offer.

Blueair has clearly invested in the app's design and the range of features it offers, and the bones are good but the execution needs a lot of work.

• App score: 3 out of 5

Should you buy the Blueair Mini Restful air purifier?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier: also consider

If you're not sure whether the Blueair Mini Restful is the right air purifier for you, here are two other options to consider:

How I tested the Blueair Mini Restful air purifier

• Tested over four weeks as purifier and alarm clock
• Used the sunrise alarm as my sole morning alarm
• Measured noise levels at each fan speed with a decibel meter
• Tested purification speed by spraying deodorant at the unit and timing air clearance
• Monitored air quality data via the Blueair app

I used the Blueair Mini Restful as my main bedroom purifier and alarm clock for four weeks, running it every night and monitoring the air quality readings in the app each morning.

To test purification speed, I sprayed deodorant directly at the unit for five seconds on both the lowest and highest fan settings, then timed how long it took for the air quality reading in the app to return to normal.

I measured noise levels at each fan speed using a mobile phone decibel meter and ran the sunrise alarm as my sole morning alarm throughout the review. I also tested the app's scheduling tools, the USB-C charging port and the manual touchscreen controls.

Read more about how we test.

First reviewed May 2026

Dyson is making big strides in the world of robot vacuums, and its latest robovac — the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai — uses a camera combined with artificial intelligence to tackle tough stains that other robot vacuums tend to miss, and get your floors as clean as possible. But why did Dyson choose to tackle that particular problem, and what does the future hold when it comes to household robots?

I visited Dyson's UK Innovation Campus in Wiltshire, where many of the company's advanced engineering teams work on new products and technologies, using rapid prototyping to develop and test ideas. The campus is also the home of the Dyson Institute, where undergraduate students from around the world come to learn, and work on real-life projects.

There, I sat down with Jake Dyson, the company's Chief Engineer, to learn more about his own experience, and Dyson's approach to AI and robotics.

Despite being the son of founder James Dyson, Jake hasn't always worked for the company. After a brief spell at Dyson at the age of 22, he left to pursue an independent career in industrial design. He built his own workshop and began to specialize in lighting, separately from the family business, before returning, bringing that experience with him. I asked him how that early work translated into his current endeavors.

"It comes down to identifying problems and solving them," he explained. "When LEDs first entered the market, I realized people weren’t cooling them properly. The promise of LEDs is that they should last a lifetime, but in reality they were being treated like disposable lightbulbs. I visited Osram in Asia, and they explained that if you keep the diode temperature below about 50C, you can maintain brightness, color quality, and lifespan. That became my goal."

"I looked at how satellites manage heat. In space, temperatures swing from extremely hot to extremely cold, so they need precise thermal control. I applied similar thinking by designing systems that passively dissipate heat. For example, the heat moves away from the chip and is cooled by airflow, maintaining a stable temperature even at high power.

"That process, spotting a problem and solving it, is what drives everything."

Stairs and arms

Dyson's latest robot vacuum has been designed to tackle the specific problem of tricky stains on hard floors, which other wet-and-dry cleaners fail to tackle. The Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai uses a high-definition camera and an LLM that includes over 190 different household objects and stains.

I asked Jake why Dyson had chosen to tackle such a (literally) ground-level problem when other companies are debuting robot vacuums that can climb stairs and lift objects with mechanical arms. He explained that Dyson has been tackling those more advanced problems for about 10 years already, but the solutions aren't yet genuinely useful and reliable.

Having seen some other companies' ambitious robots, I can see what he means. The Roborock Saros Z70, for example, has a pincer arm that can lift lightweight objects out of the way, but in our tests it failed to identify and move them independently, instead relying on you to control the pincer remotely. It also has a lower success rate on carpet due to what Roborock calls a "hardware limitation".

Stairs are also a major challenge. My colleague Ruth Hamilton saw two stair-climbing robovacs in action at last year's IFA tech show, but explained that the legs/treads used to navigate stairs aren't actually attached to the robots themselves (they are more like a cradle that holds the bot), which means they can't clean the stairs as they go. Only one robot managed to tackle the first step with confidence as well. According to Ruth, the other "approached this initial challenge at the speed of a geriatric turtle".

They're interesting concepts, but neither looked ready for the mainstream — and as Jake explains, they're attempting to solve a very difficult problem.

"Every staircase is different height, spacing, materials and then you add in pets, children, and people moving around. It becomes a very complex and potentially unsafe problem," he said. "Something going up and down stairs autonomously needs to be extremely reliable. It’s actually more complex than autonomous driving in some respects."

"So while it’s an interesting challenge, and being able to clean an entire home, including all floors, with one machine would be ideal, it has to meet a very high bar for safety and usefulness. Until it does, we focus on delivering products that work reliably in real homes today."

Safer decision-making

Dyson has never been shy about dropping products that don't work out (such as the CR01 Contrarotator washing machine and the Dyson car), but its work on cordless vacuums continues apace. We recently reviewed the super-compact Dyson Pencilvac Fluffycones, and just a few weeks ago the company debuted its first self-emptying cordless vacuum. I asked Jake whether he thinks robots will eventually handle all your cleaning tasks, or whether there will always be a place for stick vacuums.

"No, I don’t see that happening, at least not completely," he said. "Right now, robot vacuums are very good at regular maintenance, keeping floors tidy day-to-day. But people still want a to clean with a cordless vacuum when they do a deeper clean, as well as being able to clean surfaces other than the floor."

However, he added that the world of robotics is advancing incredibly quickly, especially when it comes to AI.

"Previously, robots could see and navigate, but they struggled when they encountered something unfamiliar. Now, with reasoning, they can make safer, more informed decisions.

"We’re also seeing rapid development globally, the US is leading in AI and ‘brains’, and China is producing robots at scale and more affordably.

"In the future robots will learn from each other via the cloud,; one robot’s experience will instantly improve others, and one robot will be able to repair a fault on another robot. That will massively accelerate development.

"However, regulation and safety will slow adoption. These technologies may be ready soon, but it could take around 10 years before they’re widely allowed in homes. Elon Musk said he thinks humanoid robots will be in many homes in three years, and I agree with him. Though they use up a lot of energy to walk for example, so a robot vacuum cleaner is much more energy efficient than a humanoid [robot] using a vacuum cleaner.

"So yes, robots will become more capable, but I think traditional tools will still exist alongside them."

Although you might like the idea of handing over all your household chores to a robot, it seems cordless and handheld vacuums will be around for a while yet — and you'll still need to climb the stairs and pick up socks yourself for now.

• Shark has launched a new Luxe Collection of robot and cordless vacuums
• The range features muted colors, satin finishes, and metallic accents
• It was designed in partnership with designer and TV personality Jeremiah Brent

Robovacs are perfect for keeping your home tidy between deep cleans, but they're not very attractive. Even the best robot vacuum is usually a piece of black or white plastic that sits in a matching dock, and is something you'd probably prefer to hide away if possible — some owners even build miniature garages to keep their bots out of sight. Now, Shark has come to the rescue with a robot vacuum that looks more like artwork than an appliance.

The company has teamed up with interior designer Jeremiah Brent of design studio AD100, who you might remember as the interior design expert on seasons 9 and 10 of Queer Eye. He's used his expertise to help develop a new version of the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal 2-In-1 Vac & Mop that looks much more appealing than the original, while cleaning just as well.

We awarded the PowerDetect UV Reveal 2-In-1 Vac & Mop four stars out of five in our review, and were particularly impressed by its obstacle avoidance, edge cleaning with extending mop pads, and its ability to lift itself over thresholds. It's not much to look at though, which is unfortunate for such a conspicuous appliance.

Now, however, the same vacuum is available in four subtle new colors — Evergreen, Ivory, Espresso, and Deep Harbor (navy blue) — all of which have co-ordinating satin-finished metallic trim.

These new Luxe Collection robot vacuum is available for the same list price as the original black model ($1,299.99, which works out at about £970 / AU$1,820), though it's worth noting that the black version is currently discounted to $949.99 (about £710 / AU$1,330) in Shark's online store.

At the time of writing, the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal 2-In-1 Vac & Mop Luxe Collection is only available in the US, but I'm hopeful it will be ready to clean homes globally very soon.

Cordless and chic

If you're fed up with an ugly cordless vacuum occupying space on your wall, the Shark Luxe Collection also includes a more stylish version of the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean & Empty. This lightweight vacuum with its flexible head now comes in four extra colors (Oatstone, Harbor Slate, Sagewood, and Walnut), which are again finished with muted metallic accents.

Each vacuum has a list price of $499.99 in the US, or £499.99 in the UK (about AU$700). They're not currently available in Australia, but will hopefully roll out there before long.

Our tester Tim Gee gave the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean & Empty four and a half stars in his review, saying: "It did a great job picking up fine dust and larger debris in our tests on carpet and hard floors, has good edge cleaning, and can easily be moved around the house making it an ideal occasional cleaner."

• The new Google Home Speaker could be arriving on June 25
• Best Buy Canada updated its product listing with a release date
• The Google Store still reads 'Coming Spring 2026'

Just when I thought the upcoming Google Home Speaker would never see the light of day, a possible release date has surfaced — and it could be here in a matter of weeks.

A product listing for the Google Home Speaker on the Best Buy Canada site points to a June 25 release date, so if you’ve been patiently waiting for the arrival of Google’s first smart speaker in six years, you could get your hands on it sooner than you think.

Though this is exciting news for those who’ve been waiting to upgrade, it’s best to take this placeholder date with a pinch of salt before you get your hopes up. At the moment, there’s no mention of an official release date on the Best Buy US page, and Google Store also hasn’t been updated either.

As far as pricing goes, we have more information on how much the Google Home Speaker will cost depending on region. It’s listed for $99.99 / £99.99 on the Google Store, and CA$139.99 on Best Buy Canada. When it comes to color options, the speaker will be available in four different shades in the US (Berry, Jade, Hazel, and Porcelain), while the UK and Canada will only have two (Hazel and Porcelain).

Back when Google first showcased the smart speaker in October 2025, we were lucky enough to get hands-on with it to see how it differs from the Nest Audio. Its biggest upgrades are the 360-audio design (which resembles the Apple HomePod Mini), and its connectivity improvements, allowing you to group multiple Google Home Speakers which you can pair with the Google TV Streamer to enhance your audio.

That said, the Google Home Speaker will also get some major Gemini upgrades, where you can ask pretty much any topical question and make smart home commands for a more casual, conversational-like experience. Additionally, Gemini works to better understand the context of your voice commands and questions to give you more accurate answers.

To say the Google Home Speaker’s release has been a long slog is an understatement. We first caught a glimpse of Google’s next gen smart speaker during its Made by Google event in August 2025, when it teased a mysterious Nest smart speaker.

The company unveiled the smart speaker right after Amazon announced the next generation of its own line of Echo devices, and was projected for a spring 2026 arrival, which we assumed would be between March - May, and it’s been a waiting game ever since.

Google is really cutting it close with its smart speaker release as we’re officially past the expected release timeframe. Spring officially ends on June 21, meaning that if Google goes ahead with its June 25 release, it would have just missed the Spring cut-off.

While I prefer the term "thrifty," some might call me cheap. I manage expenses pretty closely, which means I don't typically sign up for subscription services on various smart home devices. But that's the only way one could experience Ring's still-in-beta Familiar Faces feature, and it is kind of a game-changer.

To be clear, I still did not sign up for the necessary Pro Tier $20-a-month service to gain access to the new facial-recognition-powered feature. Ring's parent Amazon offered to give me temporary access so I could get a feel for Familiar Faces, and I'm glad they did.

How it works

As the name implies, Familar Faces can automatically identify known and unknown faces as they appear in front of your Ring camera. Since it relies in part on video resolution to generate those IDs, you'll need at least an HD-grade video doorbell. My Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 supports "HD+" (1536p). Ring actually recommends one of its pricier 4K models for the best Familar Face performance.

Nothing changes on the hardware side, but once you enable the feature in your ring app, it'll start capturing faces.

On the Ring Video Doorbell interface, the timeline shows when an unknown face appears in front of your doorbell. Click on it, and you get a handful of face thumbnails, and then you can label it.

I must admit that once I started using Familair Faces, it felt a little weird seeing all the faces it captured. There was my mailman. Then I saw the guy who repaired my door, and I saw my neighbor when he dropped by to deliver a package that was mistakenly delivered to his home. Then there were my family members. It felt like I was spying on people.

Even so, I diligently went about labeling whomever I could, even the mailman, whom I called "Mailman." Also, unless someone comes to the front door, Familar Faces won't identify them. Ring still takes note of activities, but its ability to perform facial recognition is limited to faces a few feet away from the front door.

In some instances, I noticed that when family members appeared, Familar Faces correctly identified them. Still, it could not properly reidentify the mailman.

I was surprised that even though Ring now knows my family's faces, and my Ring Video Doorbell is connected to my Alexa+-powered Echo Show, I couldn't use Alexa+ to show, for instance, all the times my wife appeared at the front door. Instead, Alexa+ just wanted to show me all the videos from the last two weeks.

Faces in the cloud

The ID doesn't happen on the Ring device or even your smartphone. Instead, face data is encrypted and sent to Ring's cloud, where it's stored for further face matching.

You can go in and delete identified faces at any time, and then they're deleted from the cloud, too.

For the faces I've captured and identified (up to 50), I can see everyone's comings and goings, including my own. It's nice to know when my wife arrived home safely (and not confuse it with the postal service showing up). But I hesitate to show this to any of my family members who might find it invasive.

In that case, they'll probably be pleased that my Pro trial will end soon, as will my access to Familiar Faces beta. I'll lose the ability to instantly identify and video people as they approach my front door. I'll also lose access to that archive of up to 180 days of video. That, I may miss the most (all those dogs and squirrels).

• Researchers at Graz University of Technology unveiled FROST, a browser side‑channel attack
• The method can reveal visited websites and opened desktop apps, but requires large file creation
• Limitations exist, yet the study highlights how modern browser features expand the attack surface for surveillance

Security researchers have come up with a new way of spying on internet users, and they’re calling it FROST. Recently, more than half a dozen researchers from the Graz University of Technology (Austria) published a new report called “FROST: Fingerprinting Remotely using OPFS-based SSD Timing” in which they claim that there is a way to spy on user activities directly through the browser.

This is a remote side-channel technique that exploits a standard browser feature called the Origin Private File System (OPFS). Generally, a side-channel attack is a way of stealing secrets by measuring physical side effects, such as how long an action takes, how much power it uses. In this case, the researchers measured solid-state drive (SSD) access speeds, allowing them to track which websites a victim visited, and what desktop applications they opened.

“Web browsers have evolved from simple document viewers into complex platforms capable of running sophisticated applications,” the research paper says. “Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Adobe have developed full-fledged office suites, photo- and video editors, or even integrated development environments (IDEs) that run entirely within the browser.”

Limitations exist

“While these features enhance the capabilities of web applications and allow completely novel use cases, they also increase the browser’s attack surface, and some have already been shown to introduce new vulnerabilities.”

Unlike real-life exploits, those discovered in controlled environments have limitations, which make it somewhat harder to pull off in the wild. For example, the attack only works if the victim’s activity and the browser are running on the same SSD. The attack requires creating an exceptionally large file to bypass the computer’s memory cache, which can noticeably drain the victim’s free disk space and since Firefox limits storage space per website to 10GB, the attack is a little more difficult to pull off on that specific browser.

It was also said that the attacker cannot perform a quick, short measurement, because the large file must first be cleared out of the system’s memory cache. And finally, if a user runs software that completely moves their browser profile into RAM, the zero-interaction attack is successfully blocked.

Still, if you are worried about someone using FROST to snoop on you, just make sure you only keep one tab open at a time.

Via Ars Technica

IMOU AOV PT: two-minute review

Founded in 2015 as a spin-off from the Chinese surveillance giant Dahua Technology, Hangzhou-based IMOU has quickly become a major player in the value segment of the smart home market. A few months ago, I looked at the IMOU Cell 3C, another budget outdoor security camera. I liked the model, but it was a lot more basic than this model (and much cheaper, too).

For starters, the AOV PT features a separate, rather than the integrated solar panel found on the Cell 3C. For many set-ups this is an important distinction because often the best place for a camera, such as under an eve or in a porch, is the worst place for a solar panel. Having a separate panel means it can be located up to four metres away in a sun-drenched spot using the long USB-C cable provided.

Whereas most battery cameras stay in a deep sleep until a PIR is triggered, this latest IMOU features the company’s Always-On Video (AOV) technology — hence the AOV moniker. It’s like a sort of low-power mode where the camera records a frame every two seconds continuously, creating a low-frame rate timelapse of the entire day. Then, when the AI detects a human or vehicle, it ramps up to full-speed 3K (5MP) recording. Particularly clever is the smart tracking option which means once the pan-and-tilt camera detects movement it will follow the ‘target’ as it moves around. It’s all a bit Big Brother-y maybe, but useful if you want to track certain individuals or vehicles.

Usually, where security cameras manufacturers make their money is in selling you a monthly subscription to store your video footage in the cloud. Not only is this a potential cybersecurity risk, it can also get very expensive (I’m looking at you Ring). Even the average price of a subscription is £5 (about $7 / AU$10) a month, which I think is a bit excessive for basically storing your video clips.

With the IMOU AOV PT not only is a MicroSD card slot provided for storage, but IMOU has even thrown in a 32GB MicroSD card gratis — it’s a really nice touch, especially if you're always scrabbling around for a card to record onto! If you want more storage, though, the device can support up to 512GB. Alternatively, it is possible to sign-up to one of IMOU’s subscription plans (see details below).

Usefully, in addition to a MicroSD card, the IMOU also comes with a 4G SIM. This enables you to control the camera via the IMOU Life app without it having to be hooked up to the home’s Wi-Fi. IMOU provides a modest 100Mb of data (with a trial offer for a 6GB plan). However, for those monitoring properties where Wi-Fi connectivity is either non-existent, or at best patchy, it’s a potential game changer.

On the downside, though, the camera only supports the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi frequency rather than the higher 5GHz Wi-Fi frequency which is better for faster data transfer.

Designed to be mounted permanently outdoors, the IMOU boasts an IP-66 weatherproof rating for heavy-duty waterproof protection. It also comes with two reasonably powerful spotlights, a built-in microphone and speaker for two-way communication and a siren for warding off intruders (though this isn’t the loudest). There’s also a clever smart night vision feature so that when the camera detects an object, the spotlight is automatically activated, and recordings are displayed in color.

IMOU AOV PT: subscription options

Basic Plan: Covers seven days of event history and basic AI detection, between £2.59-£3.50 ($4-$5 / AU$5-AU$7) per month or approximately £30 ($40 / AU$70) a year.

Plus Plan: Offers 30 days of event history, enhanced AI detection, and sharing with up to 20 users. Costs around £5.99 ($9 / AU$12) per month or £60 ($80 / AU$110) per year.

See https://www.imou.com/uk/imou-protect for more details

IMOU AOV PT: price and availability

How much does it cost? IMOU AOV PT, $170 / £129 / AU$260

When is it available? Since December 2025

Where is it available? UK / US / Australia

Chinese firm IMOU is known for its competitively priced home security products. This one is no exception. OK, it’s quite a bit more expensive than the IMOU Cell 3C we reviewed which also comes with a solar panel. But then the AOV PT offers so much more and is still under £150.

In fact, when you consider the package includes a separate 5W solar panel, a pre-installed 32GB MicroSD card, and a 4G SIM card, the IMOU AOV PT is actually really very good value for money. That’s not to mention other useful features such as 360-degree field of view thanks to the pan-and-tilt camera and smart tracking so you can monitor the movements of intruders!

Compared to 4G rivals from Arlo or Reolink, which often require separate purchases for solar panels or storage, the IMOU really is a cost-effective, all-in-one solution for those needing off-grid security. Best of all is that you don’t need to pay for a monthly subscription — although that option is available from around £3 a month if you want it. Instead, you can store video clips on the MicroSD card provided or upgrade to one holding 512GB (these are now widely available for under £50/$50).

• Value score: 5/5

IMOU AOV PT: design

• Pan-and-tilt design
• Separate solar panel
• IP66 waterproofing

It’s fair to say that the IMOU AOV PT won’t win any security camera beauty competitions. Built for utility rather than stealth, it comprises a not particularly attractive black pan-and-tilt camera inside a large white plastic housing, plus a separate lightweight solar panel designed to tilt up to 45 degrees for maximum solar gain.

Installation isn’t the easiest either. Because of its weight and the way it protrudes from the wall, it requires a very secure mount. It’s not a camera you can casually stick up with a couple of small screws. Instead, you’ll need the full four-screw bracket provided (plus wall plugs if drilling into brick) to prevent it from vibrating in the wind or feeling flimsy.

For added protection/security the camera snaps firmly into the mount and can only be released by pressing a button underneath the unit. Here you will also find a rubber flap covering the power on and the USB-C input for connecting to the solar panel and for recharging the camera (it comes with an integrated 1000mAh lithium-ion battery).

For our set-up we installed the camera on a wooden summer house/home office with the solar panel located nearby and angled towards the sun (the app tells you when it is receiving power from the panel). However, 4m of cable is provided if you need to locate the solar panel a bit further away to capture the sun’s rays. Thankfully, the solar panel is much simpler to install than the camera but the two units together do take up quite a lot of space, compared to other designs.

Finally, one slightly odd aspect of the design is the panel for the MicroSD card and 4G SIM card slots. Located at the back of the camera lens, this can only be accessed with a Phillips screwdriver. Perhaps it’s to deter casual thieves from easily stealing the MicroSD/SIM cards, or maybe to provide further protection from the elements?

• Design score: 4/5

IMOU AOV PT: performance

• 360-degree field of view
• 3K resolution
• Color night vision

When it comes to performance, the IMOU AV PT is one of the best I’ve reviewed — especially at this price level. When it comes to functionality, it’s difficult to imagine any other cameras matching it. However, what’s impressive is that it combines this functionality with very good performance too. For example, the 3K image quality is crisp enough to identify faces at a distance, and the full-color night vision is excellent, using two bright spotlights to illuminate intruders.

What I particularly like is the pan-and-tilt camera which effectively gives the camera a full 360-degree view, much wider than most cameras which are limited to a maximum of around 150 degrees. Either you can move it around using the left/right, up/down keys on the app or you can use the ‘smart tracking’ option in the menus so that it tracks movement automatically.

During testing it was great fun, picking up neighbours on balconies, even family members walking close to the patio doors inside the kitchen. However, I could see it would have a serious function too if ever I was burgled, capturing the culprit as they approached the house and closing in on their physical details.

Any criticisms? Well, a few, but they are minor. Firstly, it is worth bearing in mind that the ‘smart tracking’ option really does drain the 10,000mAh battery. During a day of heavy testing, it dropped 11% in just 24 hours, even with some additional solar power from the panel. For long term use it’s probably best to switch it off completely or limit the use of the camera to certain hours of the day.

Using the app, recording times can be set for each day (so the camera only records footage at night) or you can quickly put it into ‘privacy mode’ where the lens turns around completely so you can’t record. It’s also possible to set areas where you don’t want to record, such as a neighbor’s garden or a busy main road using the ‘activity zone’ option.

As with many security cameras, one small bugbear is that the IMOU AV PT is a little too sensitive, creating a few false alarms. Not only can this get a little bit annoying after a while (getting an alert every time a bird flies past), it can further drain the battery. Finally, while the siren works effectively enough, it’s certainly not the loudest we’ve ever heard.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the IMOU AOV PT?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

IMOU AOV PT: also consider

If you're not sure whether the IMOU AOV PT is the right camera for you, here's how it stacks up against two of its rivals.

How I tested the IMOU AOV PT

• I used the camera outdoors for seven days
• I set it up myself using the fittings provided by the manufacturer
• The security camera and solar panel was installed on the outside of my summer house/office

I am forever climbing up and down step ladders changing over outdoor security cameras on my summer house, so much so that the neighbours must think I’m paranoid about getting burgled. This is the latest in a long line of solar panel cameras I’ve looked at recently and I think one of the best so far.

I really enjoyed the smart tracking feature, watching the camera following the movement of family members and my dog Poppy, as well as the occasional glimpse of neighbours standing on a balcony. If I had the device for a long time I would probably switch this off as it is a major drain on the battery as well as being overly intrusive (although less so than using the pan-and-tilt camera in the house).

I can also see the benefits of the 4G SIM. While my Wi-Fi is generally OK in the garden, thanks to a Wi-Fi repeater near the back door, there are many homes especially in rural areas where this option could be a game-changer.

First reviewed May 2026

That brand-new smart fridge might be keeping your groceries cool, but it could also be leaving your personal data out in the cold.

Today’s smart devices, ranging from security cameras and thermostats to seemingly harmless smart lightbulbs, often ship with notoriously weak security protocols. Worse still, they frequently "phone home," sending a constant stream of your usage data back to manufacturer servers.

Unlike your laptop or smartphone, you cannot simply download and install security software on a smart plug. These Internet of Things (IoT) devices are essentially closed boxes, leaving consumers with very few options for on-device protection.

If you want to secure these gadgets, the most effective solution is to secure the network they connect to. By setting up hardware-level encryption directly on your Wi-Fi router, you can automatically protect all connected IoT devices simultaneously.

To that end, finding the best VPN with router support is your first port of call.

However, it is vital to understand the limitations of this approach. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) restricts data protection to transit only. It will securely tunnel your data, but it cannot fix underlying firmware vulnerabilities or stop manufacturer-side data leaks once the information reaches their proprietary cloud servers.

The hidden security risks of smart devices

Many budget-friendly IoT devices rely on unencrypted channels to communicate. This leaves your network traffic vulnerable to local eavesdropping, meaning anyone nearby with the right tools could potentially intercept your data.

Even when encrypted, the continuous cloud connections required by smart homes allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and third-party trackers to map your daily routines. By simply monitoring spikes in your network activity, an observer can easily deduce when you wake up, when you leave for work, and when you go to sleep.

While a VPN will effectively hide this traffic from your ISP, it cannot prevent manufacturers from collecting and storing data once it reaches their servers.

To truly enhance your privacy, you need to combine a network-level VPN with strict in-app privacy settings and manually opt out of data-sharing agreements in your companion apps.

How a router VPN can help

By installing a VPN directly on your router, you encrypt all outgoing traffic from your home. This process successfully masks the specific signatures of your smart devices, making it incredibly difficult for outside observers to identify what hardware you are running.

For added security, combine a VPN with a separate guest Wi-Fi network. By relegating all your smart gadgets to a secondary network, you prevent hackers from "jumping" from a compromised smart plug to your primary laptop or smartphone.

Some of the best VPN providers like NordVPN and ExpressVPN now feature military-grade AES-256 encryption and Post-Quantum Encryption (PQE) protection as standard, ensuring your network is future-proofed against emerging threats.

If you are intimidated by network configuration, ExpressVPN’s Aircove router simplifies setup for beginners, offering built-in VPN protection straight out of the box. Alternatively, tech-savvy users can manually flash open-source firmware like DD-WRT or OpenWrt onto compatible routers as a highly cost-effective DIY alternative.

Just be aware of the trade-offs. Router-level encryption demands processing power, which can reduce your overall internet speeds and occasionally introduce technical troubleshooting hurdles when devices refuse to connect.

Take back control of your data

Securing your smart home is about more than just blocking malicious hackers; it is about reclaiming ownership of your personal data.

VPNs remain a powerful tool in your privacy arsenal, but they work best when deployed alongside regular hardware firmware updates and strict network isolation.

Ready to upgrade your home network? Check out our comprehensive guide to the best VPN routers and our ultimate best VPN service round-up for 2026.

Dyson HushJet Compact Air Purifier: two-minute review

The Dyson HushJet Compact Air Purifier is Dyson's first dedicated small-format air purifier, and it's a notable departure from what's come before. Unlike the imposing, bulky tower fan-purifiers of old, the HushJet has been engineered to better fit into your home — or at least, that's the idea.

Yes, it's smaller than Dyson's current range, but it's far from tiny. It fits on a desk and kitchen countertop, but not comfortably or subtly, and its design makes it stand out rather than blend in. The black and blue colorway I tested looks out of place wherever you put it, while the star-shaped HushJet nozzle, which is inspired by jet engine aerodynamics, looks as industrial as its name suggests.

There are few controls on the device itself and Dyson is relying on people using the MyDyson app to monitor air quality and adjust settings. Thankfully this isn't a chore because the app is super intuitive and simple. Plus you also have the option to control everything with you voice, via Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri, if you'd rather not pick up your phone.

Also, in day-to-day use, the Auto mode does most of the heavy lifting anyway. Intelligent sensors monitor air quality in real time and ramp the fan speed up or down as needed, which in practice means the HushJet spends most of its time running almost silently in the background, only surging when something pollutes the air.

Inside the purifier, the electrostatic filter captures 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns. This includes dust, pollen, pet dander, and mold spores. The activated carbon filter then takes care of gases and odors, including cooking smells and NO2 from gas hobs. Both filters come pre-installed, which makes setup refreshingly painless, and they have long shelf lives. The electrostatic filter lasts up to five years, while the carbon filter should only need to be replaced once a year, keeping the running costs down.

The jet engine design isn't just an aesthetic choice, it means that the HushJet can channel purified air into a "focused, high-velocity stream" that covers rooms up to 100m2 / 1,076 sq ft. Most homes won't need this, but it's reassuring to know that you can place this purifier anywhere in your home and it's got you covered. These numbers would be impressive for any air purifier, let alone one this size.

At $349.99 / £349.99 / AU$549 the HushJet is a significant investment, especially when you consider that it's a purifier only, with no fan or heating function to justify the spend. However, if clean air is a priority and you want the best compact air purifier on the market right now, it's hard to argue with what Dyson has built here. It sits at the top of its category, and in my tests it earned its place, but if that's beyond your budget check out our guide to the best air purifiers.

Dyson HushJet Compact air purifier review: price and availability

• List price: $349.99 / £349.99 / AU$549
• Available in the US and UK

Dyson's HushJet is available in the US, UK and Australia direct from Dyson, as well as Best Buy and Walmart in the US, AO and Very in the UK, and JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys in Australia.

At $349.99 / £349.99 / AU$549, this is an expensive purifier by any measure. To put that into context, the Blueair Blue Max 3250i – our pick for best air purifier overall – is less than half the price, at $169 / £169. Even the Dyson Purifier Cool PC1, a larger purifier-fan combo from Dyson's own range, is only $100 / £100 more, and it adds fan functionality on top.

What you're paying for with the HushJet is essentially the miniaturisation of Dyson's purification technology, combined with the new HushJet nozzle and its impressively quiet operation. I believe its performance justifies a large part of this premium but there are very capable, significantly cheaper rivals that tick just as many boxes.

• Value for money score: 3 out of 5

Dyson HushJet Compact air purifier specs

Dyson HushJet Compact air purifier review: design

• Smaller than previous Dyson purifiers, but not truly compact
• Minimal on-device controls
• Industrial aesthetic

Dyson has become famous for its distinctive, often divisive, design choices, and the HushJet is no exception. Like most Dyson products, it's sleek, cylindrical and well-built, but also striking and bold — especially its star-shaped HushJet nozzle top, which is inspired by the aerodynamic principles of jet engines, and doesn't look like anything I've ever tested.

Whether that's a good thing will depend on your taste. In my house, it divided opinion: my partner loved the look of the black and teal colors, but I didn't. I found it too much for an appliance that's supposed to sit quietly in the background.

That tension between form and function runs through the whole design. Dyson calls this purifier 'compact', and relative to the brand's own range – which includes the towering TP09 or the enormous Big+Quiet – it is. But in absolute terms, at 18.5in / 47cm tall with a 9in / 23cm diameter, it's larger than the name implies. I tried it on my desk, on a bedside table and on my kitchen counter, and it felt imposing on all three. It ended up on the floor in most rooms, which undermines the compact pitch somewhat. For context, the Levoit Core 300S is half the height and is more subtle.

I typically like to move my purifier into different rooms, depending on my needs (for example, I put it in the kitchen when I'm cooking steak, or I put it in my son's room at night when the pollen count is high) and while the HushJet is technically portable, its missing carry handle makes moving it a little awkward.

On-device controls are minimal by design. There's a small LCD screen that shows air quality data — using a color-coded line graph — and current settings above a row of three physical buttons. These buttons cover most of the day-to-day changes you'll need:

• The fan button on the left lets you cycle between Night mode, the three on-board fan speeds, and Auto mode.
• The power button in the center turns the purifier on and off.
• The information button on the right cycles through the current PM2.5 levels, current PM10 levels, the state of the on-board filters, and the Wi-Fi details.

If you want to set schedules, change Auto mode's target particulate level, access the seven other fans speed, or access any other more detailed settings, you'll need to download the MyDyson app. You can also control the purifier using your voice and the HushJet works with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri.

This is also where you can learn what each of the air quality colors mean:

• Good (green): very low level of microscopic particles
• Fair (yellow): moderate level of microscopic particles
• Poor (orange): high level of microscopic particles
• Very poor (red): very high level of microscopic particles
• Extremely poor (pink): extremely high level of microscopic particles
• Severe (purple): severe level of microscopic particles

Setup across the board with the HushJet is painless. Both filters come pre-installed, and connecting to the MyDyson app took me less than 30 seconds. It's one of the easier Dyson products I've set up, and it starts purifying the air immediately.

• Design score: 3 out of 5

Dyson HushJet Compact air purifier review: performance

• Auto mode reaction times are unmatched
• Whisper-quiet on lower settings
• Limited app granularity
• Less impressive on smoke than VOCs

Given its price, and the fact it only covers purifying, the HushJet's performance needed to blow me away (excuse the pun) and thankfully it did.

I have a large open-plan kitchen-diner, as well as a substantial loft room, and even when the HushJet was placed on the opposite side of the room to where I was cooking, or spraying deodorant, its fans captured and cleared the particulates with ease.

During my aerosol tests, in which I sprayed deodorant at the purifier for five seconds while it was in different purification modes, the fan consistently took the air quality from as high as Severe to Good in less than a minute and a half. The low fan setting, unsurprisingly, took the longest at 1 minute 23 seconds (on average); the medium fan setting handled the particulates in 1 minute 2 seconds; and the high fan cleared the air in just 50 seconds. These speeds are unheard of in all my years of testing.

I also lit a match and let it burn out directly in front of the unit. Within three seconds, the HushJet had detected the drop in air quality and increased its fan speed. The app showed levels spike to purple before the purifier cleared the air entirely in four minutes. For comparison, the Blueair Blue Max 3250i, our top-rated overall pick, took 20 seconds to register the same drop, although it cleared the air slightly faster at two and a half minutes. Both are fast; the HushJet's sensing is simply quicker.

The one test where the HushJet was less convincing was dust. Emptying a vacuum cleaner's dust canister next to the unit hardly moved the dial at all. Granted, the vacuum in question was the Dyson Cyclone V10, which has its own filtration system, which may have captured most of the harmful particles before they reached the HushJet's sensors. But it was a less emphatic result than the smoke and VOC tests.

In terms of noise, Dyson advertises the HushJet at ranging between 24dB and 42dB. During my own tests using the DecibelX app, the lowest I recorded was 29dB on Night mode, with 55dB at the top end, on high. This is still whisper-quiet at the lower end, while the higher end is roughly the volume of a light conversation. What's more, the sound is soft rather than sharp ,which makes the HushJet sound even quieter in real-world use. So much so, I could have the HushJet on in the bedroom at night, with Night mode enabled or without.

Other good news is that the Auto mode's quick reaction times mean the unit rarely stays at full power for more than a few minutes.

When it comes to air purification, the HushJet uses a two-filter system: a 360-degree Electrostatic filter that captures 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns, and an Activated Carbon filter for gases and odors including cooking smells, pet odors and NO2 from gas appliances.

I suffer from hayfever and during my review period I noticed a difference in my symptoms on days when I had the HushJet running. I can't say it got rid of them entirely, but on days when the pollen count was high and the HushJet had been running in my bedroom overnight, I woke up feeling better than I'd expected.

I didn't run the HushJet constantly during my review period. My typical pattern was to run it overnight in the bedroom on Auto mode, and then move it to the living room during the day when the pollen count was high or when I was doing anything likely to kick up dust. Over the course of testing, the electrostatic filter didn't register any degradation. Even after four weeks, it's still showing 100%.

The activated carbon filter, which promises a one-year lifespan, dropped to 96% so this will need replacing much sooner. A replacement electrostatic filter costs $64.99 / £50 while the carbon filter costs $44.99 / £35. This is worth factoring in but you won't need to spend extra for a while after purchase.

Overall, the HushJet does exactly what it promises. Its Auto mode is smart, its filtration is fast and its the quietest purifier I've ever tested. It's not perfect but in terms of performance, it comes incredibly close.

• Performance score: 5 out of 5

Dyson HushJet Compact air purifier review: voice control

• Easy to set up
• Works with Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri

Once the purifier is connected to your home Wi-Fi, it can connect to any Amazon Echo, Google Home or Apple Siri device on the same network at the press of a button through the MyDyson app. This app doesn't give you voice command prompts to get you started – like the Dreo app does – instead you'll need to go to the dedicated assistant app to learn how to speak to the HushJet.

That said, as soon as I got the hang of it, voice control quickly became my preferred way to control the HushJet day-to-day. I have an Amazon Echo in my bedroom and being able to ask Alexa to turn the purifier on or off, adjust the fan speed or check the air quality without reaching for my phone made a difference to how often I interacted with it.

On mornings when the purifier was downstairs, I could ask Alexa to kick the purifier up a level to remove the smell of my son cooking toast even while I was in the loft. Elsewhere, you can ask Google, Alexa or Siri to turn the purifier on and off, ask for a specific speed, set the purifier to a certain mode and check levels.

Dyson HushJet Compact air purifier review: app

• Offers a range of control options
• Color-coded design is intuitive and simple to use
• Near-live air quality data

The MyDyson app is one of my favorite things about the HushJet, and is one of the better companion apps I've used for home appliances. It's clean, well-labelled and easy to navigate from the first time you open it.

The home screen shows an image of your HushJet above the main menu, which includes Controls, Data and Insights, How To, and Product Settings.

Below the image are the quick-access controls for Auto mode and fan speed, plus an on/off toggle, a Night mode that dims the LCD screen on the device and quietens the fan, and a Timer option.

Your current air quality reading displayed in Dyson's color-coded system sit below this panel, followed by the Schedule option. This scheduling function lets you set the HushJet to run at specific times. I set it to run on Auto every morning before I got up, so the bedroom air was already clean by the time I woke up.

In the Data and Insights section you can see the air quality graphs broken down by PM2.5 and PM10 readings, all presented in the same color-coded scale. The current reading updates every 30 seconds, but the graph only shows average readings in 15-minute intervals. You can swipe back to see historical data but it doesn't reveal very much and lacks the granularity I'd like.

Elsewhere, the app doubles as a support hub, with how-to videos, filter life tracking, and the option to buy replacement filters directly. It's a small touch but a useful one, and you're unlikely to forget to replace the filters when the app is actively telling you when it's due. In Product Settings, you can connect the purifier to Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri, set the time, data and location data and manage the Wi-Fi connection. There's also the option to enable/disable continuous monitoring which is what's needed for the Auto mode to work effectively.

If there's one criticism, it's that the app is essentially non-optional. Anyone who prefers physical controls may find the HushJet frustrating to live with but for those comfortable with app-based control — and I'd argue that's most people buying a £350 / $350 / AU$549 smart purifier — it's an excellent companion.

• App score: 5 out of 5

Should you buy the Dyson HushJet Compact air purifier?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How I tested the Dyson HushJet Compact air purifier

• I used the Dyson HushJet Compact air purifier and its partner app for four weeks
• I stress-tested it using different substances
• I experimented with different speeds, modes, and settings

I tested the Dyson HushJet Compact in my home over four weeks, during peak hayfever season. I used it primarily in my bedroom overnight on Auto mode, and moved it to the living room and kitchen during the day to test its response to different real-world air quality changes.

To test purification, I carried out a range of specific tests: lighting a match to create smoke, spraying deodorant to introduce VOCs, cooking on a gas hob to generate cooking fumes and PM10 particles, and emptying a vacuum cleaner dust canister to test dust response. For each, I monitored the HushJet's reaction time – how quickly it detected the change in air quality – and its clearance time – how long it took to return readings to normal. I tracked all air quality data via the MyDyson app.

Noise levels were measured using the DecibelX app across all fan settings. I also tested the voice controls by connecting the HushJet to an Amazon Echo while using with the MyDyson app daily.

Read more about how we test.

First reviewed May 2026

• Philips' new TV light sync box uses WiZ rather than Hue
• Includes 4K 120Hz passthrough, so you don't lose use of a key TV port
• £129 to £149 including lightstrip; US launch TBC

Signify has launched a new Philips HDMI sync box, but it's not for the Philips Hue range: it's part of the Philips Smart Lighting range, and uses smart technology from WiZ instead.

That's good news, because Hue is positioned as a premium product with prices to match, and Wiz is much cheaper. My Hue Play Sync Box, while excellent, is also very expensive: it had an official price of £299 / $349 at launch, although it's widely discounted now. The new sync box is £129 to £149.

The new product is called the Philips Smart Lighting HDMI Sync Box 2.1 and it comes with a bundled lightstrip in a choice of two sizes, one for TVs from 55 to 65 inches and one for TVs of 75 to 85 inches.

What's the difference between Philips Smart Lighting Sync and Hue Sync?

The Philips Smart Lighting HDMI 2.1 Sync Box isn't designed to work with any Hue system or the Hue app. It's a purely WiZ affair, and uses WiZ's app. The only thing that isn't WiZ is the branding, presumably because Philips has better brand cachet.

In terms of what the box offers, it's much the same as the Hue I love so much (or one of Philips' Ambilight TVs, which basically have a smart lightstrip built in). You connect it to your TV and it changes the lightstrip to match what's going on on screen, making the image feel larger and more immersive.

I particularly like mine when I'm gaming: playing Horizon: Forbidden West was spectacular with in-game sunsets.

Signify is also expanding the Philips Smart Lighting range with other products including gradient floor lights and bars, table lamps and multiple flexible strips, with models up to 20m long for the European market and in the UK, models with 5m lengths. All of these new products are much more affordable than the equivalent Hues, so for example the cheapest lightstrip will be £23.99.

The new products will all launch in the UK and Europe in June 2026. They'll be coming to other countries too, but launch dates and prices haven't been announced just yet.

• The FCC is considering a ban on "cellular modules" manufactured in China
• These modules send and receive communications on mobile networks
• The ban could effect devices of all kinds across IoT, industrial controls, and cars

The Trump administration is considering adding Chinese “cellular modules” to its list of electronics that could be banned over national security concerns.

Previously, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had imposed a ban on Chinese labs testing products bound for the US.

Now, the FCC has included drones and routers in expansions to the ban, with the agency mulling over whether to include “cellular modules” in the ban, the Financial Times reports.

Ban could cause major supply chain disruptions

President Donald Trump is today meeting his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing, in a seismic meeting where the pair are expected to discuss everything from trade and sanctions to the relationship between the two superpowers.

Cellular modules are electronic components that allow a device to send and/or receive cellular signals, such as those transmitted on 4G and 5G networks. These devices are included in a wide range of electronics, from Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as those included in smart home tech, medical systems, cars, and industrial control systems.

The potential ban of Chinese cellular modules is likely strategically timed, aimed at putting pressure on China and Xi to contribute productively during the meeting with President Trump.

The Trump administration has seen devices and software manufactured in China as a potential national security risk, gradually stepping up bans and restrictions on products manufactured in China from being used by government contractors and federal agencies. Now, that ban could extend to the domestic market.

Speaking to FT, Charles Parton, a retired UK diplomat and Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), who is an expert on modules, said that up to 70% of the global market for cellular modules is controlled by a few Chinese groups, including Quectel, Fibocom, China Mobile, Sunsea and MeiG.

Like any other electronic device with an internet connection, these devices must be periodically updated in order for them to function and remain secured against threats. However, the FCC fears that these subsequent updates could result in covert surveillance software or harmful malware being installed on devices.

Should the ban go ahead, the fallout for the cellular module supply chain would be enormous as manufacturers seek alternative sources. These sources would likely be unable to cope with the sudden increase in demand, leading to prices for cellular modules to skyrocket, subsequently increasing the costs of goods themselves for consumers.

• Google Home's new update is mostly about making Gemini more useful
• Google says you should notice much faster responses in key tasks
• More features for grown-ups unlocked too, including cocktail recipes

There's a new Google Home update available for your devices, and while the core app hasn't changed dramatically there are some useful improvements to Gemini.

I do wonder what demographic Google is targeting here, though: one of its suggested improvements is that you can now tell Gemini the name of your nanny so it can answer when you ask "if your nanny arrived".

The good news is that you don't need to have a Mary Poppins to take advantage of the Gemini improvements in early access, the first of which is very welcome: everything should be noticeably faster. The goal of this update was, Google says, "deeper personalization and faster response times."

Here's what's new.

What's new in the Google Home May 11 Update

The most significant changes are in Gemini, which can now use information you've saved in Ask Home such as the name of family members, friends or other visitors. You can also get Gemini to give you a recap of anything that's happened while you were out by asking your speaker or display for a "home brief".

If, like me, you use your smart home to control smart lights, you'll appreciate the under-the-hood improvements that Google says makes your lights respond to commands much more quickly. And it should be faster to set alarms and timers too, with the update delivering faster responses and less need to repeat yourself.

If that gets rid of the post-command pause that leaves you wondering if your device heard you, that'll be a big improvement.

Another important change is the removal of some guardrails that prevented adults from getting answers: Gemini will still stop the kids from learning how to mix a margarita, but now it'll give the grown-ups a little help with mixology.

As for the rest of the Home app, there are improvements for Nest thermostats for easier overriding and, on iOS, controls for non-nest Thermostats – a feature already offered in the Android app. And there's a new, simpler device setup for adding new things to your smart home.

The update is available now and you can read the full release notes here.

• Philips Hue are getting a new Sports Live feature for the World Cup
• It will sync Hue smart lights to the action during games
• You don't need any extra hardware, just the lights and the Hue app

As a long-time Philips Hue user, and a big fan of this brand of smart lights, I'm looking forward to trying out a newly announced Sports Live feature during the World Cup — as long as it doesn't signal goals before they've actually happened.

Philips Hue lights have long been able to change color and brightness based on what's happening on a TV screen, but you need a compatible television or an HDMI Sync Box to get the feature. With Sports Live the lights change in real-time based on "live match data", with no additional hardware required.

That's according to the announcement from Philips Hue parent company Signify. Apparently the lights will shift for "key moments" such as goals, yellow cards, and red cards, during the soccer World Cup 2026.

"Easy to set up and in time for the world's biggest football event of the year, soccer at home has never felt so real," says Signify, though it sounds as though the feature is only going to be available for this one upcoming tournament, which starts on Thursday, June 11. That's a disappointment.

No spoilers please

It's also going to be interesting to see how this works. The live match data comes straight from the web to the Hue app, so presumably you'll need to tell the app when you've actually started watching it – and give your smart lights a heads up if you decide to pause or rewind the action at any point.

I don't want to be in a situation where my smart lights are flashing to tell me England have scored (or conceded, which is perhaps more likely), while the action on my TV screen is still several seconds behind.

"The system allows users to fine-tune timings to account for minor broadcasting delays," according to Signify. "If users choose to pause the action, lighting effects are also paused and — upon resuming — sync to current, live match events for a consistent and accurate real-time experience."

Sports Live will support an unlimited number of smart lights apparently, and there will be a certain level of customization on offer: you'll be able to select your favorite team, and its main strip color will be used as part of the suite of smart lighting effects.

This morning, I checked my phone to find a message from Eva Green — not the actress, but one of my houseplants, a Chinese evergreen. She’s thirsty, dehydrated, sitting in the dark, and generally having a bad time. My spider plant, Peter Parker, on the other hand, is having a great time and “loving life”.

These notifications arrived via Willow — a system of sensors, a hub, and a mobile app that lets you keep tabs on your indoor plants, lets you know their needs, and helps you keep them not just alive, but thriving.

Just push a sensor into the soil, and you’ll receive live updates on its condition so you can feed, water, re-pot, or move your plants accordingly. Think of it as a Fitbit for houseplants.

I’d call myself an aspiring plant parent. Last year I successfully propagated half a dozen cuttings from a dieffenbachia (Robert Plant), and organized a plant swap at work once they were ready to be adopted. I also tend to anthropomorphize them a little, and they make regular appearances in my reviews of coffee makers, smart lights, and other home tech.

There have been a few casualties along the way though, and Robert has a habit of shedding leaves more often than I’d like, so Willow seems like the ideal solution. It doesn’t integrate with the rest of my smart home tech, so I can’t use it to trigger lights or a humidifier, but it’s nonetheless enlightening to find out exactly what’s going on at root-level.

Setting up the Willow hardware is simple — just plug in the small hub, connect it to your Wi-Fi network, and then pair your sensors, but what really impresses me is the companion app. It’s beautifully designed and packed with an incredible array of features. For example, if you know which plant you have, then you can select it from a database, but if you’re not sure, scan one of its leaves with your phone’s camera, and it will tell you what species it’s likely to be, complete with its degree of certainty. Clever stuff.

The app’s database is packed with information on a vast catalog of common houseplants, including preferred growing conditions, propagation tips, and even toxicity (so you know whether it’s important to keep the plant away from children and pets).

When you’ve identified your plant, you’ll be prompted to enter its pot size, the type of soil it’s living in, which room it’s in, and its name. Decide whether you want your plant to grow and thrive, or just not die, and then choose whether you want its notifications to be straightforward or sassy.

It takes a little while for the sensors to collect sufficient details from your plant babies, but once they do, you’ll start to receive info on their well-being, which is how I learned that Eva Green is “not vibing” with her surroundings and is in dire need of some TLC.

The app even gives you a to-do list, with items you can tick off. For example, although Peter is feeling great, Willow informs me that I should give him some liquid fertilizer next time I water him.

Some of my colleagues have expressed dismay at the idea of ‘being bossed around by a plant’, but I’m quite happy to let Eva and Peter take the lead. A smart humidifier would be one way to make her happier, though another way to improve humidity is to simply get more plants. I think I know which one I’d prefer…

• Google Home's spring update is rolling out to all users outside the early access program
• The Nest app has a refreshed interface and new navigation tools
• Google has also expanded its automations capabilities across security control, appliance control, and more

Google Home is supercharging its smart home experience with the rollout of its spring update, which includes upgraded Nest Cam app tools and enhanced automation functionalities — both of which are now available to all users after being locked in the early access program for a few months.

It’s a mighty update for the Nest app interface alone, which now allows you to view the live video player as you scroll through your video history, but its seamless navigation enhancements are the true stand-outs.

Have you ever been frustrated with the Nest app’s delays? That’s about to change. As well as the updated video player, Google has given its timeline a much-needed refresh with smoother camera-scrubbing frame rates and quick seek buttons allowing you to jump 10-seconds forward and backwards in video recordings.

The company has also improved its insight features with new Gemini-powered upgrades to ensure a more efficient experience, starting with zoomed-in animated previews that let you view an action or movement at a quick glance.

Video filtering options have also been improved, meaning you can organize your video event list by specific categories such as Person seen, Package seen, Glass break heard, or Activity Zone, while the new timeline view gives you event descriptions, making it easier to identify specific events in your video history.

As for facial recognition capabilities, the Google Home app will automatically exclude low-quality footage examples to ‘maintain a clean and effective face library’, as it says in Google’s outline. Additionally, the company has rolled out feedback buttons for familiar face previews, allowing you to report back to Google to ensure more accurate facial detection over time.

However, it's not just new Nest Cam devices that are getting the special treatment. Pre-2021 Nest camera models will also be getting Gemini event descriptions and zoomed-in previews.

It’s a big update to say the least, but you should note that you’ll need a Google Home Premium subscription to make the most of some of these tools. But this is just the tip of the iceberg: Google is also upgrading automations for a more convenient smart home experience.

'Turn the coffee machine on at 8am'

Automations in Google Home are designed to make your smart home ecosystem even more efficient, and after listening to user feedback, Google is rolling out even more customizable automations for security control, lighting control, cleaning and appliances, device health alerts, and media and entertainment.

For example, automations can now tell you what state your door is in, whether it’s locked, ajar, jammed, or forced open, giving you a more accurate view of your home even when you’re away, and the same applies to viewing the position percentage of your smart blinds.

If you have a plethora of devices in your setup, such as coffee machines, washers, or robot vacuums, you can now create automations that target specific operational controls to start, stop, pause, and resume activity. Not only that, you can be more precise with controlling your lighting setups by using On/ Off toggles for managing light effects and changing the color temperature of your devices.

Just like its Nest camera upgrades, there’s a lot to unpack with automation functions, and you can view the full list of what’s new on Google’s announcement page, along with sample prompts to help you get started with optimizing your smart home setup.

IKEA Varmblixt LED lamp: two-minute review

IKEA's color-shifting Varmblixt smart lamp, with its donut-shaped frosted glass diffuser, makes a striking focal point. It's easy to operate using the switch included in the box, and it casts a soft glow whether you use it on a table or mounted on a wall.

The Varmblixt was designed by Dutch artist Sabine Marcelis and comes with a preset palette of pastel hues designed to complement its curves. Pressing the button on its remote once will turn it on, and double-pressing will switch to the next shade in the sequence.

This works well straight out of the box (and handing it to visitors so they can change the mood lighting during dinner is fun), but the Varmblixt really comes into its own when used with the IKEA Home Smart mobile app. This lets you choose from a much larger range of colors, adjust the lamp's brightness, and link it to other IKEA smart devices such as motion sensors and scroll wheel switches.

You can even incorporate it into a mix-and-match smart home setup using the Matter protocol. To do this, you'll need IKEA's Dirigera smart hub, so be prepared for that extra expense if you want to use the Varmblixt's smart capabilities.

Connecting the Varmblixt to the Home Smart app wasn't quite as straightforward as it should have been and involved some trial and error. You should be able to link any IKEA smart home device by scanning the QR code on the item or its packaging, but the app failed to connect to the Varmblixt (or the Bilresa switches I later used to control it).

I eventually found that I could get around the problem by waiting for the connection failure notification to appear in the app, then selecting the option to connect without Bluetooth. The lamp and switches were then linked to the app without a hitch.

Once your devices are linked, IKEA's app is extremely simple to use and is a good introduction to smart home tech. Unlike the Philips Hue app, which gives you granular control over every switch and light in your home, linking a device to IKEA Home Smart works immediately, with a limited but useful set of options.

Once you've linked the Varmblixt lamp, you'll find that you can pick from a much broader palette of colors, although the hues selected by Sabine Marcelis are highlighted so you can find them easily. Alternatively, you can use a color wheel to choose the shade you want.

The lamp doesn't offer as many colors as a Philips Hue White & Color Ambiance bulb, but its smooth shape and frosted diffuser mean it's effective at setting a mood with indirect lighting.

You can even set the Varmblixt to change colors on a schedule. The default 'adaptive' option changes the light temperature during the day, so it becomes cooler during working hours and warmer in the evening when you want to unwind, but it's also possible to create your own timed color changes.

When you connect a controller to the Varmblixt, there's no need to spend time configuring what each button should do; again, it works right away. When I linked it to a Bilresa dimmer switch, I found that the wheel was pre-programmed to control the light's brightness.

Overall, the IKEA Varmblixt lamp is a pleasure to use, and a real conversation-starter when you have guests. App setup can be a bit fiddly and requires IKEA's smart home hub, but it works very well with the remote alone.

• Performance score: 4/5

IKEA Varmblixt LED lamp: price and availability

IKEA first showed the Varmblixt smart lamp at the CES tech show in January 2026, and the donut-shaped light went on sale in the US and Europe in March of the same year. It's not available in Australia at the time of writing, but it might be released more widely later in 2026.

It's priced at $99 / £55 (about AU$140), which is about standard for a color-changing smart lamp without additional features like music or media synchronizing. For example, the Govee Table Lamp 2 is $69.99 / £69.99 (about AU$100).

However, if you want to use the smart functions and choose from a wider array of colors, you'll also need IKEA's Dirigera smart hub, which costs an additional $109 / £70 / AU$129, so you'll need to be sure that you want to invest in IKEA's wider smart home system first.

• Value score: 4/5

IKEA Varmblixt LED lamp: design

This is a new take on the original donut-shaped Varmblixt lamp, which was released in 2022. This lamp (also designed by Sabine Marcellis) had a glossy orange surface that cast warm light into the room. The 2026 Varmblixt replaces this with a white frosted glass diffuser and cycles through a palette of pastel colors selected by the designer.

The Varmblixt lamp has a flat base so you can use it on a table, and a hole in the backplate so you can mount it on a wall (though be aware that it's a wired lamp, so you'll need to place it near an electrical outlet).

The lamp is wired and is supplied with one of IKEA's standard Bilresa remote controls, which takes two AAA batteries (not included).

• Design score: 5/5

Should you buy the IKEA Varmblixt LED lamp?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

IKEA Varmblixt LED lamp: also consider

How I tested the IKEA Varmblixt LED lamp

I tested the Varmblixt lamp with the remote control included in the box, switching between all the preset colors, and then connected it to the IKEA Home Smart app using a Dirigera hub. I used all the color and scheduling options in the app, comparing it with a Philips Hue Wall Washer lamp. I also tried controlling the lamp using an IKEA Bilresa dimmer switch with a scroll wheel.

First tested April 2026

• Dreame debuted its Laundry Care L10 Center at Dreame Next
• It combines four washer-dryers with a closet and a robot vacuum
• It doesn't yet have a price or release date

Dreame isn’t unfamiliar with robot vacuum innovation, being one of the first brands to showcase step climbing cleaners — but this latest model might be its weirdest yet: a robot vacuum hub meets closet meets four washer-dryers. All in a single machine.

Debuted at its Dreame Next showcase in San Francisco, the Laundry Care L10 Center is one of the strangest appliances I’ve ever seen — and that includes the robot-arm equipped fridge Dreame also showcased here at the event.

The four washer-dryers are designed to help you finally separate your cleaning loads, because if you’re like me, it all goes in at the same time on the same setting. The largest 10kg drum handles the bulk of your clothes, a 3kg drum tackles shoes, and the pair of 2.5kg ports are designed for underwear and baby wear respectively.

The idea is that each drum can maximize its effectiveness at cleaning your garments, while also helping you better organize your washing.

Beyond your typical water and detergent, this machine also deploys ultrasonic vibrations to dislodge dirt, and ‘AI Lingus’ to ensure your garments are appropriately cleaned and dried (rather than still being damp in spots) — and don’t come out tangled.

Meanwhile, the garment closet section is designed to refresh and smooth your shirts and dresses between wash cycles.

One more thing

Of course the final piece of this all-in-one cleaning machine is the robot vacuum and mop, which hides itself in a compartment at the bottom of the washing machine stack, recharging its battery, emptying its debris, and refreshing its water supply as if it were in a standalone dock.

The complete package sounds like the ultimate cleaning machine — all that's missing is that the robo vac doesn’t appear to be the Z1 Laundry bot that goes around your home and picks dirty clothes up for you, though I expect it’s only a matter of time before that changes.

The other dampener on the announcement is a lack of pricing and a release date for the all-in-one cleaning closet. My impression, however, is that it won’t be cheap if and when it does launch.

I also wonder if this is a less-is-more scenario. While the 6-in-1 package sounds neat, I do fear that its complex nature could make it a nightmare to maintain, or fix if things go wrong.

What’s more, how useful is a dedicated baby clothes cleaning drum? Kids grow up, and not everybody has them to begin with. Maybe one or two drums makes sense, but four does feel like overkill.

As with some smart home tech, this feels like a flashy concept, but likely not something every home should have. Though perhaps that’s intentional — announce a flashy washer dryer to get people interested, and then sell them on the more mundane but solid standard cleaner, and a separate robo vac.

We’ll just have to wait and see if Dreame’s tech can prove me wrong — maybe this 6-in-1 robo vac closet washer dryer is the home-cleaning gadget we didn't know we needed.

Sitting inside San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, in almost the exact same spot I was seated two months ago for Samsung’s Galaxy S26 and Galaxy Buds4 launch, I can’t help but feel bombarded by déjà vu — and the sensation is entirely intentional, according to my hosts, smart-home brand Dreame.

“It's why we picked the venue,” a spokesperson cheerily admitted while giving me a brief tour of the show floor.

I’m back here to experience Dreame Next, a four-day-long tech showcase featuring the company's products — although with day one including the unveiling of a rocket-powered electric car (yes, really), the term 'product showcase' feels rather inadequate.

Dreame isn’t just broadening its scope of its products with reveals such as its car. It’s using the event to showcase upgrades to its existing appliance lines, as well as announcing two smartphones, bone-conduction headphones, two smart rings, a smart watch and a pair of diamond-encrusted regular watches, a TV with robotically adjusted speakers, a robot that can do your laundry, a fridge with a fingerprint scanner and a robotic arm, smart glasses, and a closet that includes four distinct washer-dryers and a robot vacuum home. And I think I might have missed a few things.

The intentional Samsung mimicry makes sense in this context. While it's perhaps best known for its TVs, wearables and smartphones, Samsung makes just about every kind of tech device you can think of, from household appliances to speakers and smart car tech.

Dreame wants to be seen as a titan, on a par with the South Korean tech giant.

At the same time, Dreame’s showcase is very much in a category of its own. I’ve sat through dozens of conferences as a journalist, but never have I seen the typical announcement routine — hype-filled trailer, audience applause, 15-minute-long deep dive into a “world-first” innovation, followed by a wrap-up screen with product details — applied to an air conditioning unit before.

Many of its reveals are the kinds of announcements you might get a quick press release about from another brand. Dreame is instead treating each one like it's a flying car. It’s surreal, yet endearing.

Total domination

The whole events exudes a weird charm — be it teleprompter hiccups, a 20-minute business lecture on changing consumer spending habits, watching NBA Hall of famer Dwyane Wade be told he has to take over a dozen photos at the end of his on-stage segment (one with every Dreame exec individually, and more with various groups), or seeing attendees spray ketchup on the floor so that they can then clean it up with a vacuum to win a prize. It's a charm which disguises the company's true intentions.

Dreame wants to take over your world.

That robotic arm-equipped fridge I mentioned? It’s designed to organize and scan everything in your fridge, and then, in conjunction with data collected from your Dreame scales and Dreame smart wearables, help you decide on the perfect meal for your health needs. Your robot vacuum will use its robotic arm and your washing machine to do even more chores for you. Your ring and your phone can control, and get updates from, all the appliances in your home — that is, if you’re all in on the Dreame ecosystem. Your Dreame TV is your smart-home hub.

The idea of an interconnected ecosystem isn’t new. Samsung has pitched a similar vision of complete integration between all the tech in your home and on your person, but Dreame’s vision wants to go from one to 100 faster than its rocket-boosted EV.

It’s impossible to judge its efforts yet, though. None of its new tech is available to the public at the time of writing, meaning we haven’t been able to test it and verify Dreame’s extravagant promises.

What’s more, despite the hyperbolic tone of its announcements, most of the tech here has been debuted already, at the CES or AWE shows earlier this year. However, we still don’t have firm release dates or pricing for these devices — some don’t even have release windows yet, and might remain concepts indefinitely.

So while I want to get excited for Dreame’s vision, I can’t; at least not right now. If it can make good on its promises, the tech world had better watch out for this upstart smart-home brand. And if it falters… well, at least I'll always remember Dreame Next as the strangest tech show I’ve ever been to.

• Dreame demonstrated a concept fridge at its showcase in San Francisco
• It uses AI to scan and sort your food, with a robotic arm to organize items
• It also scans your smartwatch and fingerprints to recognize you, and give you personalized nutrition advice

Maybe it’s because I’m in the process of buying a home and looking to buy my own appliances for the first time, but Dreame’s high-tech refrigerator with AI-powered nutrition tracking isn't just one of the best things I’ve seen so far at the Dreame Next product showcase — it’s also the most unsettling.

I'm here in San Francisco to get a glimpse at all of the smart home tech the brand is developing, and although Dreame has showed this futuristic fridge before, I'm particularly interested in the way it uses your health data.

The fridge itself sounds pretty impressive, with a robotic arm that will properly sort your food into appropriate chambers, cameras that will track your food’s freshness, and an AI system to help you find recipes to use items before they decay. There's also a water dispenser that can carbonate your water to serve it sparkling.

However, I'm more intrigued by the way it determines who's opening it by scanning your face, fingerprints, or smart wearables. Once it knows who you are, it can use health data from your scales, smart watch, or smart ring — plus the info on what’s in your fridge — to find recipes that’ll help you hit your health targets.

This is all apparently handled privately through a collaboration with Google Cloud, allowing the fridge to identify over 10,000 ingredients with an over 97% accuracy, and not compromising your personal information when offering eating tips.

It's all fascinating, but I’m not sure I want a judgemental fridge sitting in my kitchen. Nor do I love the idea of it having my biometric information, or my health data, even if it could arguably help my eating habits.

Dreame doesn’t have a price or release date for this fridge, but even as just a concept, it does seem like the way smart home tech will evolve as brands like Dreame and Samsung promote AI-fuelled interconnectedness between our various gadgets.

Hopefully the final form of this integration won’t feel invasive — otherwise I might want to stick with as dumb a fridge as I can possibly find.

• VidaBay has launched E Ink fridge magnets that can display color photos
• You can change the image using NFC with an iPhone, or using a Bluetooth dock with an Android phone
• The magnets have no batteries, so they can display images forever

My Aura Carver digital photo frame is one of my favorite tech purchases of the last few years, as it means I actually look at the thousands of photos I’ve taken on my phone. I also have a fondness for fridge magnets, a combination that makes me the ideal audience for VidaBay’s new product.

The company has launched an E Ink Fridge Magnet, which can display photos from your phone on a small color E Ink screen.

It’s shaped like a Polaroid photo, and combined with the VidaBay Snap app, it allows iPhone users to display and change the picture using NFC. Sadly, though, the process of getting photos onto it is a bit more cumbersome on Android, as you need to use a ‘Bluetooth Image Dock’, which is launching in May.

No charging required

In any case, you can also use the VidaBay Snap app to add filters, effects, and overlays to images, and these magnets are battery-free, so they can permanently display the image you load up until you choose to change it.

You can also get accessories for these fridge magnets, like a leather case or a hanging pouch if you don’t want to use the magnets, and the company also suggests using these as reminder boards or to-do lists.

Available with black, white, yellow, green, red, or blue borders, you can get one of these fridge magnets from VidaBay’s site for $30.99 (roughly £23 / AU$43), or a three-pack for $88.99 (around £65 / AU$125).

• Gemini for Home is getting another update
• Continued Conversation is rolling out now for early access users
• It means 'hey Google' isn't always needed

The switch from Google Assistant to Gemini on Google's various smart home devices hasn't exactly been seamless, but there are encouraging signs that something is now being done about the most significant bugs and missing features.

Case in point: Google just announced that the Continued Conversation feature is making its way to users who have early access to Gemini for Home. The feature doesn't need a subscription, and is available in all languages and in all regions — provided you've already been given the Gemini for Home functionality.

As the name suggests, it means you can have longer chats with Gemini, and won't have to say "hey Google" again if you stop speaking for a few seconds. Your smart devices should keep their LEDs lit up so you know they're still listening, and will remember context from earlier in the conversation.

Google says Continued Conversation is smart enough to distinguish between commands and other "side talk" — so it won't get confused if you suddenly tell your dog to get down from the sofa. Or at least, that's the theory.

'Works great'

Continued Conversation arrives on Gemini for Home from r/googlehome

To see if it's available for you, in the Google Home app tap your profile picture (top right), then Home Settings > Gemini for Home voice assistant > Continued Conversation. Note that Gemini for Home itself is still limited in its availability.

Something similar to Continued Conversation was previously available with Google Assistant on smart devices: although the new Gemini is smarter in a few ways, Google Assistant devices were able to recognize extended instructions, without the "hey Google" phrase being used in every gap.

Users have therefore been very pleased to see the feature return: Redditors say it's been "very awkward" and "cumbersome" to use Google Home without it, and that the feature had been "really missed" since Gemini took over. For those who have got the upgrade, it apparently "works great".

However, there are still plenty of comments bemoaning the fact that the Gemini for Home rollout is taking so long, after having got underway in the second half of last year, and that there are still multiple issues that need fixing.

• Samsung has upgraded SmartThings integration with IKEA smart home devices
• You can now connect 25 new IKEA devices directly to your SmartThings hub
• It now works with the SmartThings app on Samsung TVs

Samsung’s smart home platform SmartThings just received a much-needed upgrade with the addition of more integrations for IKEA’s new range of smart-home devices.

The Korean tech giant has added enhanced integrations for 25 of the latest Matter-over-Thread IKEA smart-home devices, including smart plugs and lighting. This also includes IKEA’s scroll-wheel remote, door sensors, water-leak sensors, air-quality sensors, and more.

While IKEA’s flagship range are a step beneath many of the best smart home devices, they’re solid entry-level options, allowing Samsung users to create their own smart home ecosystem at an affordable price.

Until now, connecting IKEA smart-home devices to SmartThings could be a bit of a hassle. Previously, users would need separate IKEA and SmartThings hubs in order to integrate IKEA smart devices, but now users can connect them directly to a SmartThings hub.

There’s also good news for owners of Samsung TVs, as this integration also enables you to easily control IKEA devices via the SmartThings app on your TV on your big screen, and integrate IKEA devices with Samsung smart appliances such as washing machines and air purifiers.

Announcing the upgraded connectivity, Samsung’s Executive Vice President of SmartThings, Jaeyeon Jung, said: “By connecting IKEA devices to SmartThings, even first-time smart home users can enjoy a familiar and easy connectivity experience without financial burden”. He also added that “SmartThings will continue to expand its ecosystem through partnerships, enabling more consumers to enjoy seamless and convenient smart home experience within the SmartThings ecosystem regardless of brand or communication protocol”.

IKEA has doubled down on its commitment to expanding into the smart home market even further this year, and at CES in January it unveiled a slew of new products, including the donut-shaped Varmblixt smart lamp (pictured above) which quickly went viral.

At the show we spoke with David Granath, IKEA’s Range Manager for Lighting and Home Electronics, who teased the company’s smart-home expansion, promising lots more affordable and user-friendly gadgets, and new smart features for existing products.

Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam: two-minute review

Founded in 2009 by a team of engineers in Shenzhen, China, Reolink has grown into a global provider of smart, yet affordable, security cameras. A little while back I tested the Reolink Altas PT Ultra and was really impressed with the 355-degree pan and 90-degree tilt camera, though the design was a little bulky. This recently launched Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam is very different though.

While it doesn’t feature a rotating pan-and-tilt camera (instead it features a fixed lens with 150-degree field of view), it does boast two large LED panels capable of delivering up to 1,000 lumens of brightness. It’s also quite a bit cheaper than the Reolink Altas PT Ultra, currently retailing for around £85. Of course, the cheaper price tag does involve some trade-offs, not least the lower video resolution. Whereas the Reolink Altas PT Ultra offers 4K ultra high definition, the Solar Floodlight Cam is restricted to 2K (1440p) resolution. However, for the vast majority of people, 2K video resolution is more than adequate.

Designed to be placed on the outside of the property with a clear view of the sky at a height of around 2.5 to 3m, the Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam is reasonably easy to install. In the box there’s a mounting bracket with screws and wall plugs, as well as — unusually — a mounting wrench for tightening up the bracket.

Before installation, you will need to charge the unit using the USB-C cable provided and pair the camera with the Reolink app using the QR code on the back of the unit. Helpfully, the camera supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi frequencies and it tells you when it is successfully paired with your home network.

Unlike some apps, which can be confusing to navigate, the Reolink app offers everything you need within a reasonably clear interface. You can select the different types of object you want the camera to detect (human, animal, vehicle or other) and set a schedule for when you want recordings to happen (for example, switch off during the day if you know family members are going to be around). You can also exclude certain parts of the frame, which is handy if — like me — you are setting the camera up in a back garden and don’t want to record activity from your next-door neighbour’s property.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to use the Reolink app, the device can be fully integrated with Amazon Alexa, allowing you to view live video feeds on screen-enabled devices such as an Echo Show (though we didn’t test this facility). You can even control the floodlights using your own voice via the Alexa app.

In addition to two powerful spotlights, a very loud 110dB siren is provided to help deter burglars. Alternatively, it’s possible to set your own custom audio tone if the alarm is triggered such as whispering ‘pssst’ to get intruders to look at the camera for better facial recognition.

Not only can the brightness of the LED spotlights be adjusted depending on your preferences, it’s also possible to adjust color temperature depending on whether you want your intruders to be bathed in a cold ‘blue-ish’ light or a much warmer yellow light.

Two-way audio is provided for communications with sound coming from a large-ish speaker on the bottom of the unit next to the PIR sensor and waterproof connections for the USB-C cable and Micro SD card.

Footage can be recorded either to the MicroSD card (up to a maximum of 512GB) or you can subscribe to Reolink Cloud to store footage in the cloud – see details below. This facility also includes AI Video Search so you can quickly find footage using natural language. For example, type ‘man wearing a red T-shirt’ and in the UK it will bring up the postman coming to the door and anyone else wearing a red T-shirt!

Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam: subscription options

Reolink Cloud, Single Device Plan: Up to 30-day cloud video history, one camera, 16GB cloud storage, AI video search. £2.71 (about $3.50 / AU$5) per month.

Reolink Cloud, Standard Plan. Premier Plan: Up to 30-day cloud video history, up to 5 cameras supported, 30GB cloud storage. £2.87 (about $4 / AU$6) per month.

See https://cloud.reolink.com/cloud-plan for further details

Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam: price and availability

• How much does it cost? Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam £85 UK, $US99, $AUD169
• When is it available? Since March 2026
• Where is it available? UK/US/Australia

First announced at CES 2026 in early January, the Solar Floodlight Cam is one of a number of devices Reolink is planning to release this year. Others include a 24MP triple lens outdoor camera (the OMVI X16 PoE) and an interesting Reolink AI set-top box designed to add AI functionality to non-AI cameras.

What’s more, the Floodlight Cam is also one of the cheapest outdoor cameras you can buy with local storage (although you will have to fork out for your own Micro SD card). Whereas some companies keep hardware prices relatively low by tying you into a subscription even for basic functionality, the Reolink offers a best of both worlds’ solution - cheap hardware combined with local subscription-free storage.

Nor is just about the money. For those worried about the security of cloud-based storage, local storage is a far safer option (providing the burglar doesn’t steal the camera with the MicroSD card inside, of course). However, there is always the option of taking out a monthly subscription if you so choose.

Whereas some manufacturers will charge you over £10 a month for basic functionality, at least Reolink Cloud is relatively cheap. Subscription prices have even come down since I last reviewed a Reolink product around 18 months ago. You can now get 30-days of recordings stored in the cloud for less than £3 a month. The cloud subscription also includes AI video search for finding recordings using short descriptions.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam: design

• Unique triple cube design
• Fixed solar panel
• IP66 waterproofing

Most outdoor security cameras comprise either one or maybe two main elements. There’s usually the camera itself plus a solar panel which is either mounted on the camera or housed in a separate device and connected via a USB-C cable. The Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam is unusual in that it really comprises four elements of similar size and shape.

First there’s the main cube where the fixed camera lens and PIR are located. Then there are the two flexible LED lights that sit either side like big flappy ears. Finally, there’s the solar panel, which sits on top of the main unit.

Usually if the solar panel is integrated it can be moved manually towards the sun (or in the case of the innovative Baseus Security S2 the panel actually rotates with the movement of the sun). But that’s not the case here. Instead, the solar panel is fixed which means you will need to install the camera somewhere that is relatively sunny to ensure additional power.

Initially I had worried that the unusual cube design might make the Solar Floodlight Cam feel a bit more flimsy than some of the more conventional tubular shaped models. However, this white unit feels well-built and comes with IP66 waterproofing.

Underneath the camera are two weatherproof sockets (one for external power from a USB-C cable and one for power on/off and a MicroSD card slot). Also provided are a PIR dome motion sensor and large speaker. Finally at the back of the camera sits a metal ball joint that connects to the mounting bracket to provide ultimate flexibility when it comes to angling the camera.

• Design score: 4/5

Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam: performance

• Powerful 1,000-lumen illumination
• 2K resolution
• Color night vision

When it comes to performance it’s fair to say that the Reolink is solid rather than spectacular. Images from the 2K (1440p) camera lens aren’t the sharpest I’ve seen, certainly nowhere near as good as those from its stablemate, the Reolink Altas PT Ultra. However, where it comes into its own is its ability to capture footage in near total darkness. Virtually every night I tested the camera it captured wildlife in my garden, including several foxes and even a hedgehog! Thankfully no human intruders though.

Whereas some security cameras have apps that are very difficult to navigate, Reolink’s are generally very easy to use. Underneath the main image there’s a timeline where you can scroll through captured footage — useful if you missed the push notifications on your phone. Each of the clips is categorized for easy reference with an image of a running person for an intruder, pawprint for animal or a circle for other sighting. This makes it much easier to find relevant footage.

As with many security cameras, I found the lens on the Reolink Solar Floodlight camera a little too sensitive at its default setting of 80. For example, sheets hanging on a washing line were routinely triggering alerts. As a result, I found it necessary to reduce the sensitivity to around 50 so it didn’t capture every minor movement.

Alternatively, if you want to use the camera for creative, rather than security purposes, there’s an innovative time lapse setting. This can be set up to capture images at set intervals of between 10 seconds and six hours and also includes different pre-sets including one for construction — handy if you are tracking the progress of a building project.

• Performance score: 4/5

Should you buy the Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam?

Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam: also consider

If you're not sure whether the Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam is the right device to protect your home, here are two other options you should consider:

Should you buy the Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam?

Buy it if

How I tested the Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam

• * I used the camera outdoors for 10 days
• * I set it up myself using the fittings provided by the manufacturer
• * The security camera was installed on the outside of my summer house

I installed the Reolink camera on the front of my summer house which also serves as a small gym and an office during the summer. Because the building is made of wood it makes it simple to install cameras using the screws provided, whereas if it was on a brick wall I would have to use a drill and the wall plugs provided for installation.

As the solar panel is fixed and the ideal location for the camera is under the eaves of the summer house I had worried that the solar panel would be ineffective. But, remarkably, after 10 days of testing (admittedly many of them actually sunny for a change), the camera’s battery is still at 100% charge. Part of the reason is that I turned the sensitivity of the camera down to reduce the number of false alerts. I also reduced the brightness of the spotlights so as not to annoy the neighbours with too much light pollution every time an alert is triggered.

Narwal Flow 2: two-minute review

I’ll be the first to tell you that I have had a hate-love relationship with robot vacuums. However, over the years, I’ve watched as the technology has improved, resulting in better mapping, improved object avoidance, and exciting features. This is why I was all too glad to test the Narwal Flow 2 robot vacuum.

Narwal introduced its 2026 flagship robot vacuum in January, which resulted in a lot of buzz. It’s not the first robot vacuum to have dual cameras, but the way they work with the LM OmniVision AI Model feels like a big leap forward.

During testing, I observed the Narwal Flow 2 robot vacuum recognizing the dirtiness of a floor and adjusting the suction and mopping capabilities. Plus, its ability to 'smart clean', or recognize which areas of your house need deeper cleans, and avoid and identify obstacles is next to none. Although I don’t have pets or babies, the Pet Care Mode and Baby Care Mode are quite cool because they let the Flow 2 find your pet (and play with it), switch to quiet mode near cribs, and avoid crawling zones.

Overall, I found the Narwal Flow 2 ’s smart capabilities very impressive, and its customization capabilities within the app particularly convenient. Its mopping capabilities are its best feature, and when paired with vacuuming, it does a great job of cleaning all floor types — though it doesn't fare as well with edge or corner cleaning. The suction capability wasn’t strong enough to pull super-fine materials like flour from a thick rug, but it did better than other robot vacuums I’ve tested. I would have also liked it to be half an inch shorter so it could fit under my kitchen cabinets.

The Narwal Flow 2 stands out in other ways too, such as its ability to climb over high thresholds, app and voice controls, and video feeds. The dock automatically empties the dust cup, and washes and dries the roller mop with hot water and hot air. I still think you’ll need a vacuum and a wet-dry vacuum on hand for deeper cleans or to reach spaces the robot vacuum can’t go, but the Flow 2 will do a stand-up job at keeping your home pristine between deep cleans.

The Narwal Flow 2 launched in the US in April 2026, with a premium price tag to match its high-end cleaning features. There are plenty of other great robot vacuums that are more affordable (even ones with cameras), but most don’t have the AI capabilities of this model, which really set it apart from the competition.

Narwal Flow 2: price and availability

• Price: $1,499 / AU$2,999 (about £1,100)
• Special price at launch: $1,099 (about £810 / AU$1,500)
• Launch date: April 2026
• Availability: US; from June 2026 in Australia

The Narwal Flow 2 launched in the US on April 13, 2026, with a UK release expected at a later date. Australian availability is from late June 2026. Although the list price for the robot vacuum and the base is $1,499, those who buy it during the launch can snag this combo for $1,099. It’s available directly from Narwal and Amazon, but may expand to other third-party retailers later.

The robovac will set you back AU$2,999 in Australia.

The price makes sense considering that the Flow 2 is outfitted with high resolution cameras, a roller mop, and superb AI capabilities that lets it recognize shoes, cords, pets, and toys, and adjust the cleaning settings depending on the type of dirt, debris, or spill. The dock also has hot water and hot air-drying capabilities — something that lesser models lack. We consider the Narwal Flow 2 to be a premium buy since it costs more than $800 / £650 / AU$1,000.

Our review model came with cleaning solution and one extra dust bag. Accessory replacements are available from Narwal.

Now the question remains, is this model worth $1,499 / AU$2,999? Considering all the features and control users have through the app, I would say yes. I just wish the edge and corner cleaning had matched my expectations. Perhaps an update will improve both settings soon.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Narwal Flow 2: design

• Circular robot vacuum and a self-emptying and self-cleaning base
• Anti-tangle mopping roller brush
• Dual high-definition cameras with a wide view

The Narwal Flow 2 is a black, circular robot vacuum that’s about 13.5 / 35cm inches in diameter and has the capability to lift over thresholds. At 3.7 inches / 9cm, the robot vacuum is relatively tall, and even though it can fit under my couch and baker’s rack, it doesn’t fit under my cabinets.

It has a small rotating brush along the bottom edge that sweeps debris toward the zero-tangling floating brush, where the robot vacuum uses 30,000Pa to suck up debris. The Flow 2 uses a crawler mop for edges; think of it like a roller map that has been flattened so that it’s wide, long, and rotates, using 12N downward pressure to clean floors. The crawler mop can extend 1.8 inches / 5cm from the side.

The robot vacuum comes with a black base that’s 20.5 / 36cm inches tall, 14 inches / 36cm wide, and 17 / 43cm inches deep, and a cord that is 4.8 feet / 1.5m long. Separate clean water and dirty water tanks sit on top of a tank that holds the cleaning solution. Both the robot vacuum and the dock have filters.

The dock also features a dust bag that can last up to 120 days, and colored ambient lighting, which can indicate different things like when there is problem with the robot (eg flashing red lights).I

n addition to LED lights on the robot vacuum itself, the Narwal Flow 2 has dual 1080p cameras with a 136-degree field of view. The robot vacuum uses cameras and AI to recognize objects or pets and either avoid them or note them on the map, captures video and photographs, and provides deeper cleanings.

• Design score: 4.5/5

Narwal Flow 2: performance

• Climbs tall thresholds and avoids objects well
• Solid job at vacuuming and mopping
• Truly hands-free experience and easy-to-use app

I had no issue connecting the Narwal Flow 2 to Wi-Fi or the app. The robot mapped my house in 35 minutes. I had to split and merge a few rooms, but that was simple enough.

As part of my testing, I utilized the robot vacuum like anyone else might – letting it clean my entire house multiple times, directing it to specific rooms (like the kitchen after dinner), or to an area where I’d made a mess (like near my sewing machine). In doing this, I found that the vacuuming and mopping capabilities of the Narwal Flow 2 were solid. The water output was perfect, and by that, I mean my floors weren’t too wet and they dried very quickly.

One of my favorite aspects of this robot vacuum is the roller mop. Some brands opt for circular mop pads that spin, however, I always thought such pads just moved wet dirt and other materials around the floor before the robot had a chance to return to the base to wash the pads.

The Narwal Flow 2 has a roller map that’s wide (almost flattened), and as it rotates, the robot sends clean hot water to the mop so that it’s cleaning the mop as it cleans your floors. A 12N downward pressure of the roller mop also aids in removing stubborn or heavy messes. If the robot vacuum recognizes a significant spill, it will also return to the base to clean the roller before returning to clean the floor again.

The robot easily climbed my thresholds – some of which are two inches / 5cm high – and avoided a lot of objects. In fact, I felt like it stayed too far from objects and edges at first, so I adjusted the cleaning to 'meticulous' within the app and was happier with the results.

I also watched it avoid low overhanging areas like my kitchen cabinets. At least the robot vacuum had the ability to extend the roller mop 1.8 inches / 4.6cm under the cabinet. Still, it wasn’t far enough to clean fully under the cabinet, so I had to use a vacuum to reach under there.

The robot vacuum got stuck once on my bath rug, which has fringe, but that was the only object that it ever has any issue with. it avoided cords and shoes, and even noted them on the map.

While I could customize the suction power of the vacuum, I liked to keep it on Smart so that the suction adjusted based on the floor type and whether the robot sensed dirt or a mess. I liked that the robot vacuum used the LED light in low light areas to clean better. The Narwal Flow 2 didn’t do well with suctioning large objects like medium-sized leaves from my poinsettia plants. This isn’t that big of a deal as most robot vacuums (or vacuums) don’t do well with suctioning larger items.

Although I used the app most of the time to direct the robot vacuum, occasionally, I used one of the 34 voice commands. Sometimes I had to use the app because the commands are limited. For instance, I could tell it to clean my living room, but I couldn’t say, “Clean up the living room and the hallway.” Combining commands wasn’t possible.

The robot vacuum took three hours to clean my entire 1,600-square-foot house, dropping to 31 percent in terms of the battery. In fact, the battery was only at 50% at the 2-hour cleaning mark. It took four hours to fully charge the robot vacuum, which is quick in my opinion.

Overall, I was very happy with how well Narwal Flow 2 kept my house clean of dirt, debris, and kitchen scraps. That said, after running some cleaning tests, there are some areas where it could improve.

Cleaning tests

To begin my testing, I placed ground coffee, flour, and dried flower petals on my kitchen laminate floor and on my living room rug and utilized the vacuum-only feature to see how well the robot could suction different materials. I even made sure to sprinkle ground coffee under my kitchen cabinets, along the edges of my kitchen, and in the corners. Here’s what I observed.

In the kitchen, the robot vacuum increased suction automatically when it went over the flour and the dried flowers, but not over the coffee. It suctioned all of the coffee, all but one flower petal, and most of the flour. Unfortunately, the wheels of the robot vacuum moved a thin film of the flour around on the floor. Where it didn’t succeed was suctioning coffee from the corners, edges, and under the kitchen cabinet.

To be fair, the robot couldn’t fit under the kitchen cabinet. When it came to corners, the robot vacuum suctioned coffee completely in one corner, but not the other. It failed quite miserably with suctioning coffee grounds along the edges.

As for the suction test on the rug, the robot vacuum automatically increased the suction to 'super powerful' when it recognized the material. On the first pass, the robot vacuum picked up some coffee grounds and flour but all of the dried flower petals. I also placed slightly damp poinsettia leaves on the carpet, and the robot vacuum did not pick them up but unintentionally moved them off the rug.

I was disappointed at first, until the robot vacuum went over the coffee and flour three more times – without me instructing it to do so. By the end, 98 percent of coffee grounds had been suctioned. A lot of the flour had been picked up, minus a small amount that had been pushed into the rug. In the end, I thought the suctioning capability on rugs was better than most robot vacuums.

For the final test, I used the vacuum and mop features on my laminate floor. I covered the floor with flour, coffee grounds, a spilled glass of water, chocolate sauce, soy sauce, wing sauce, and creamer. The Narwal Flow 2 cleaned up the wing sauce, soy sauce, water spill, coffee grounds, and flour in a single pass. I was surprised by how smoothly it picked up the chocolate sauce since it’s a tough substance that dries quickly. (I test wet-dry vacuums and even many of them have issues with cleaning slightly dried chocolate sauce in two passes or more.)

When it came to the creamer, the robot vacuum recognized it as a 'spill', which meant it cleaned it up in a single pass then returned to the dock to clean the mop. It then repeated this two more times — cleaning that area and returning to the dock to clean the mop — before it moved on. The floor was not sticky by the time the robot vacuum had finished.

I also placed coffee grounds under the cabinet, in the corners, and along the edges to see if the mop and vacuum combo would result in better cleaning capabilities. When the robot vacuum passed near the cabinets, it extended the mop to the side, and while it picked up a bit, unfortunately, the roller mop couldn’t extend far enough to pick up half of the coffee grounds under the cabinet

When it came to corners, the robot vacuum had the same results using the vacuum and mop as it did during the suction only test. It cleaned edges better with the mop than without it, but the results weren’t as good as I’d hoped. One edge was cleaned very well but a lot of coffee grounds were left along another edge.

To sum it all up, I’d advise utilizing the vacuum and mop features on hard flooring to maximize the cleaning process. The Narwal Flow 2 does an average job edge and corner cleaning. When it comes to carpets, it can pick up a lot of debris, though for the finest materials like flour, you’ll probably need a more powerful vacuum.

Maintenance

When it comes to the Narwal Flow 2 , there isn’t much maintenance you’ll need to do daily or weekly. It took 16 uses of the robot vacuum before I was informed to refill the water tank and empty the dirty water tank.

I would suggest going through the app when you first start using the Narwal Flow 2 to set up the maintenance how you see fit. Head to the “Dock” section and choose what kind of mop drying intensity you prefer (silent, strong, or smart), as well as how often you want the dust bin to be emptied (every time of execution or when the robot determines it needs to be emptied). You can even choose the noise level of the dust emptying.

The base cleans the roller with 140-degree hot water and dries it completely with hot air. The dust bag holds up to 120 days’ worth of debris. In the future, Narwal may roll out a reusable dust bag. The debris filter is washable and should be cleaned once a month. You’ll need to remove the bottom tray of the base and clean it out once or twice a month as lots of debris and dirt accumulates there.

Within the app, you can keep an eye on which accessories need to be replaced and/or how much longer they will last. For instance, the zero-tangling floating brush on my testing robot is still good for another 144 hours of use.

• Performance score: 4/ 5

Narwal Flow 2: app

• Easy app with fantastic 2D and 3D mapping and insights
• Cleaning customization options (AI clean, vacuum and mop, vacuum then mop, vacuum, mop, and room customization)
• Video features and control through app

I had an easy time using the Narwal app to set up the Narwal Flow 2 . Although there is a 3D mapping option, I preferred using the 2D option and had an easy time labeling the rooms and seeing things like rugs on the map. I ran into some issues trying to split my living room and study on the map. The rooms have a wide doorway with pocket doors, so I understand the robot thinking they are the same room, but when trying to split them, the map says in doing so the rooms are “too small.” This is odd considering that my bathroom is about a sixth the size of each of those rooms and it was considered its own room on the map.

I tried to set up my corridor as a no-go zone (the floors are not sealed and can’t be mopped), but unfortunately, when I did this, the robot vacuum wouldn’t pass the corridor to clean the bathroom. Thankfully I was able to go around this with the room customization feature which allows me to customize the type of cleaning I want for each room. Therefore, I designed the corridor to be a vacuum-only space so that the robot vacuum would be able to reach the bathroom where I have it designated to be vacuumed and mopped.

Within the app, I can choose to clean the whole house, certain rooms, or even specific zones within those rooms. I can also customize this further by informing the robot vacuum to vacuum and mop, vacuum then mop, vacuum only, or mop only.

One of my favorite features is the Navo assistant that sits below the map offering insight on the cleaning or information that’s relevant, like if the vacuum has gotten stuck. If you click it, the assistant shows you the voice commands that you can use with the robot vacuum and lets you adjust the language and voice tone.

The Dock button informs users of the dust bag status and touch-on-demand features like dock dust emptying, dust bag dry and disinfecting, mop washing, mop drying, and adjusting the ambient lighting effects.

Users can watch a live video from the cameras on the Narwal Flow 2 . You can record or take videos, control the direction of the robot, and direct the robot to clean. There is also a Cruise feature that takes photos on a specific route through your house and stores them in the app.

On top of scheduling cleanings and monitoring the cleaning history, you can also adjust the cleaning settings, from the suction power to the mopping humidity, coverage precision (smart, standard, and meticulous), and set things like intensive corner cleaning, priority cleaning for carpet, intensive carpet cleaning, intelligent room splitting and rewashing of the mop, high altitude mode, child lock, do not disturb feature, obstacle avoidance strategy, and smart object detection. It’s also here where you can set up your Narwal Flow 2 with Alexa, Google Home, or Matter.

The Pet-friendly Mode section is very extensive. Users choose which pets they have (cats, dogs, or both) and designate either easy cleaning in specific pet areas or enhanced cleaning in areas that were missed because pets were present. It also allows you to find your pet and/or “play” with your pet by attracting the pet to the robot with a specific sound.

• App score: 4.5/5

Narwal Flow 2: specs

Narwal Flow 2: should you buy it?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Narwal Flow 2: also consider

If you're not sure whether the Narwal Flow 2 is the right robot vacuum for you, here are two other options to think about.

How I tested the Narwal Flow 2

I tested the Narwal Flow 2 for two weeks on my laminate and historic wood floors and medium-to-large pile rugs. To review all the vacuuming and mopping capabilities, I conducted several tests with various materials (water, chocolate syrup, soy sauce, coffee grounds, and flour) on different types of flooring to see how well the robot suctioned and cleaned the floor. This included testing different features like spot cleaning, video capabilities, mapping, voice commands, and so much more.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed March 2026

I’m bad at interior design. So bad, in fact, that I affectionately refer to my apartment as ‘the clown house’ due to its total lack of a cohesive color scheme. It’s definitely due for a refresh — so I turned to Alexa+ to help me create something more tasteful.

A few weeks ago, Amazon rolled out Alexa+ in the UK. The AI-powered virtual assistant made its debut in the US last year, but the company had taken its time localizing Alexa+ for British users. Not only does it recognize and use British slang (which is sometimes unintentionally funny considering its rather posh accent), it also links to services and sites that people use in the UK —and since it's designed to be an 'ambient assistant' for your home, it seemed like a natural choice for decorating advice.

I was lucky enough to get early access to the British version of Alexa+, so after getting to know her a bit (and teasing her about her accent, which she took with good humor) I asked her to suggest ways to make the clown house look a little bit less goofy.

With certain devices (such as the latest Amazon Echo Show smart displays), Alexa+ can take a picture of the room as a starting point, but if you’re using different hardware or want help with another room, you can just describe what it looks like and the assistant will understand. There was a brief moment when I accidentally gave Alexa the impression that I had a strange bedroom with only three walls, but that was probably a poor explanation on my part (the fourth wall is painted a different color).

I started with my spare bedroom/study, which is where I keep my Echo Show speaker, and is the place most in need to help. Paint always looks brighter and bolder on a wall than in a tin, and I ended up with a small room painted quite an alarming shade of swimming pool blue. With two bikes mounted on the walls, two desks, and a bookshelf, it’s quite an assault on the eyes.

Alexa+ gently suggested toning things down with a sage green to “make those bikes look like intentional art rather than storage solutions” and “create a calmer workspace for your computers without clashing with your existing setup”.

She even generated some swatches when I asked to see some examples of sage green paint, though she was unable to recommend one in particular, explaining that she couldn’t see or recall images that she had created before. Nonetheless, it was very useful, and she even offered to message it to my phone for future reference.

Floor to ceiling

Next I described the hallway, and was impressed that she factored in my smart home devices when making suggestions about flooring:

“A light colored runner would help enormously,” she suggested when I described my narrow hallway with its black laminate flooring and no natural light. “Maybe cream or soft beige to tie in with those bedroom curtains as we discussed, And since your robot vacuum can handle it, you won’t have to worry about maintenance!”

She even suggested using an anti-slip rug mat underneath, or possibly carpet tape, and I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t immediately try to shuffle me off to Amazon to buy some.

If an AI was capable of cringing, I think Alexa+ would have done it when I described my bedroom: "Blimey, that's quite the red theme you've got going!" she remarked, not unfairly. "Sounds like you're living in a proper crimson sanctuary there."

Once I’d clarified that the crimson sanctuary was in fact a normally-shaped room (which she called “a proper four-wall bedroom situation”), she suggested swapping the red for dusty lilac or more sage green, “with soft neutrals or warm gray as your base”.

If I wanted to keep my red accent wall (yes, I know) she suggested fitting some cream curtains to break up the intensity: "The key is creating breathing space so the room feels cozy rather than overwhelming."

She also recommended plants that can survive without natural light for my bedroom, and suggested adding copper accessories in my green living room. It all made sense, and since I’m a fan of green, I wouldn’t have a problem with spreading it throughout the whole apartment.

Picture this...

I was a little skeptical about how well the decorating conversation would work, but it was a rather lovely chat, and I came away with some genuinely good ideas (as well as my sage green swatches).

Sadly when I tried the same experiment more recently, the experience wasn’t quite as colorful. When I asked for some examples of a color, Alexa+ told me she’s unable to generate images, and offered to tell me where I can buy paint instead.

Although our initial conversation was definitely quirky, it was a lot of fun, and this turn of events was a tad disappointing. Hopefully Alexa+ will rediscover her eye for color soon.

Roborock Saros 20: two-minute review

Roborock has raised the bar so high with its robot vacuums that it must be struggling to find new ways to improve, but the Saros 20 manages to do just that. It takes everything that was great about its predecessor — the Roborock Saros 10R; one of the best robot vacuums we've tested — and adds a couple of intriguing features on top.

While a lengthy feature list might be eye-catching, it needs to be in service of great cleaning power, and I'm pleased to report that Saros 20 doesn't disappoint on that front. In my tests, the bot delivered efficient vacuuming (I was especially impressed with its ability to pull pet hair from carpet), and was an equally capable mopper. Reliable and accurate navigation meant the cleaning coverage was always thorough, with the LiDAR puck-free design ensuring the bot was shallow enough to slide under low furniture with ease. Thanks to an extendable side sweeper and mop pad, room edges didn't get neglected, either.

Primary amongst the new additions on this robot vacuum is a 3.0 version of Roborock's 'AdaptiLift' chassis, which can now lift the bot over even taller steps, as well as enabling it to hover at exactly the right height for effective cleaning on chunky rugs and thick carpets. I could see clear evidence of this upgrade in action, with the Saros 20 adjusting itself as it made its way about in my tests. From a robovac's point of view, my home is relatively straightforward, but I suspect upgrade will really come into its own if you have thick rugs or especially tall room thresholds.

As is the standard with premium robovacs these days, the dock will take care of the vast majority of maintenance tasks for you — not only simple things like emptying the dust cup, but also washing (with hot water) and drying (with hot air) the mop pads, topping up water and dispensing detergent. It's so effective that the only thing I've had to do over around a month of use is refill the main water tank and empty out the dirty one.

New to this model is the fact that the jauntily named 'RockDock' will also dry off the internal dust bag, to stop things getting musty over time. I'm not sure this is essential, although if your bot will be tackling damp debris, it could be key to avoiding things getting pongy or unhygienic.

The Roborock Saros 20 is ultra-pricey, but that's no surprise given the amount of cutting-edge tech crammed in here, and the extensive feature list. Nor is the pricing out of whack with other brands' flagship models. If you want the best of the best, the Saros 20 should be in the mix. However, given the rate at which Roborock releases new models, I'd expect discounts to start to appear fairly quickly, so I'd still hang on a few months to avoid paying full whack.

That's the short version; read on for my full Roborock Saros 20 review.

Roborock Saros 20 review: price & availability

• List price: $1,599.99 / £1,309 / AU$2,999
• Available: Widely, including US, UK and AU
• Launched: Announced Jan 2026, on sale from Feb 2026

The Roborock Saros 20 was unveiled at CES in January 2026, and first went on sale in various European countries from February, at a price of €1,499. As of late March, it's now also available in US, UK and Australia, at a list price of $1,599.99 / £1,309 / AU$2,999.

Regardless of where you live, this bot sits at the top of the premium price bracket. The high price is somewhat justified by the amount of cutting-edge tech crammed in here, the high build quality and the extensive feature list. This is one of the most capable robovacs on the market. However, some of the capabilities are nice-to-haves rather than essentials, and many people will be able to get away with paying less for a lower-specced machine, with very little compromise on performance.

It's also worth noting that Roborock releases new models at quite a rapid rate — the Saros is one of three new bots to be unveiled at CES — and as a result we tend to see prices dropping pretty quickly. If you're willing to be patient, you should be able to avoid paying full price on this model. In fact, at time of writing there's already an early bird deal that knocks off $210 in the US, and £180 off in the UK.

• Value for money score: 3.5 out of 5

Roborock Saros 20 specs

Roborock Saros 20 review: design

• Chassis boosts the bot over thresholds and hovers it over thick carpet
• Two spinning mop pads, one of which extends to clean edges
• Dock takes care of most maintenance, including drying the dust bag

Roborock has honed its robot vacuum designs to near perfection over the years, and the Saros 10 is a feast of features picked from previous models, plus a few all-new additions.

The Roborock Saros 20 is an upgraded version of the excellent Roborock Saros 10R and has a sister model, the Saros 20 Sonic (itself an upgrade of the Saros 10). The headline new addition is that the AdaptiLift Chassis — essentially, the little feet that can raise the robovac up — has been upgraded to a 3.0 version, and gained some cool new capabilities in the process. As well as enabling the Saros 20 to vault itself over tall room thresholds, and lift itself out of the situation if it gets stuck, it has a further trick that makes it especially good at handling thick carpet.

The bot can assess the depth of the carpet or rug in front of it, and elevate itself to one of a selection of preset heights, where it will hover as it cleans. This theoretically means an efficient clean without the risk of getting bogged down in the fibers. It's suitable for pile up to 1.18in / 3cm.

One key point of difference between the Saros 20 and its Sonic sibling is the mopping setup. While the 20 Sonic has a single, D-shaped mop pad, the 20 has dual spinning discs. One can kick out to the side to mop close to the edges of rooms.

In fact, there's a whole clever lifting-and-lowering setup that can adjust to exactly what's going on under-bot. If the Saros 20 is tackling a mop-only task, its main roller will be elevated so floors get a thorough scrub without fine particles getting spread around or stuck in the roller. If tasked with just vacuuming, it'll leave its mop pads in its dock. And if it's on a mixed route, it can raise or lower its main roller and mops as required.

On the vacuuming front, you've got a roller that includes rubber fins and bristles, to agitate carpet fibers and sweep up debris from hard floor. It's split in the middle to help combat hair wrap, and the whole thing can be popped out from its casing for cleaning if required. This roller is supplemented by a side sweeper that can extend out to one side when the bot needs to sweep the edges of a room.

Another notable feature is the navigation system. The Saros 20 uses an upgraded version of 'StarSight', Roborock's own navigation technology that does not require a raised LiDAR puck to be positioned on top of the robot. This means it's shallow in profile, and as a result can sneak under relatively low furniture.

The object recognition has been improved, with Roborock promising recognition of over 200 common object types, as small as 0.8in / 2cm in height or width. In contrast, its Sonic sibling model uses more traditional LiDAR, but has a LiDAR puck that can raise or retract as required.

The jauntily named 'RockDock' clean station is the all-singing, all-dancing type that empties the bins, tops up the water tanks and washes and dries the mop pads for you. As is the current trend, Roborock has upped the cleaning temperatures to tackle grease and dirt more effectively: the mop pad cleaning water is 212°F / 100°C (i.e. boiling) and the drying air is 131°F / 55°C. Another added trick is that the dock will also dry its base and internal dust bag, apparently to lessen the risk of mold or odors.

• Design score: 5 out of 5

Roborock Saros 20 review: performance

• Although hesitant at first, AdaptiLift lifting works well on tall thresholds
• Excellent at tackling pet hair on carpet
• Even, full-coverage mopping and very good vacuuming too

To get started with my review, I set the Saros 20 up in my home and used it as my main vacuum for around three weeks. During this time, I scheduled regular cleans of different types, and observed the bot's capabilities. Having tested a number of Roborock robot vacuums now, I was expecting a straightforward setup process, and the Saros 20 didn't let me down.

Getting it hooked up to my WiFi was painless, and the speedy initial mapping run produced a map that was decently accurate, even if it did think my lounge was a 'sunroom' (what even is a sunroom?).

In general, it just trundled out and completed its scheduled cleaning tasks with no fuss. It never got lost or needed rescuing, and based on the data it almost always followed a logical route around each room, too.

However, I did experience a few odd behaviors following more specific cleaning requests. Once, I sent it out to mop, but the mop pads were completely dry. Another time, I tasked it with a simple Zone clean, but rather than just cleaning the designated 1.5 square-meter area, it took a very convoluted, 20-minute sightseeing tour of my living room, stopping only when I instructed it to 'Return to dock'. However, in day-to-day use it proved reliable and behaved how I expected and wanted it to.

Vacuuming

After a couple of weeks of regular vacuuming with the Saros 20, I was impressed. It consistently did a thorough job on both carpets and hard flooring, and I didn't have any issues with clogging during self-empty, either — even though it was dealing with a decent amount of pet hair.

I also ran TechRadar's standard robot vacuum suction tests, using loose tea (to represent fine particles), dry oats (to represent chunky particles) and dog hair (self-explanatory). I tested pickup on both a mid-pile carpet and a tiled floor, and the results were very good.

On carpet, almost all the oats were cleared in a couple of passes — with only a few being flicked out of my chosen cleaning zone — and the robovac made a very good attempt at clearing the tea, too (a purposefully very tricky task). On hard floor the results were equally strong, although it required a higher setting to tackle the finest dusty tea particles.

The Saros 20 handled oats at the edge of a room fairly well, but I did need to go in with a manual vacuum and a crevice tool to clear these completely. As with all robovacs I've tested, the side sweeper brush can only do so much, but this model's sweeper handled the challenge better than most.

I was most impressed with how well the Saros 20 handled dog hair on carpet. I rubbed a fistful of loose hair clippings into our living room floor, being sure to dig it right into the fibers. I then set the Saros 20 on a Zone clean using the maximum vacuum settings. After two passes only a fine layer of hair remained, and two more all-but cleared it all. That's an excellent result — typically, to clear pet hair you really need to get a manual vacuum out.

Mopping

In general use, the Saros 20 put in a seriously good shift when it came to mopping. The rotating mop pads did a stellar job of cleaning my tiled kitchen floor, covering the whole space evenly, removing marks and leaving a streak-free finish. It also reliably avoided mopping the thin, canvas rug, and I could see one of its pads popping out to one side as required to mop the edges of rooms.

To challenge the robovac further, I dribbled soy sauce and smeared honey on the tiled kitchen floor, then sent it out on a two-pass zone clean. It smeared the soy sauce about a bit on the first pass, then cleared it more effectively on the second. The honey put up more of a fight, and while the two passes did remove some of this sticky substance, I still needed to go in with a cloth to clear the remainder.

That's not a surprise — no matter what the marketing materials would have you believe, no robot vacuum can match a damp cloth and a bit of elbow grease when it comes to cleaning hard floors.

Note too that this style of mop pad isn't a particularly choice for sticky or messy spills. The pads are only being cleaned when the bot returns to its dock, so to a certain extent the bot can only really smear the spillage around. (Roller mops, which are fed with clean water and the dirt scraped off as they go, tend to deliver more of a thorough mop. Although that mop style has its own down-sides, which I won't get into here.)

The Saros 20 reliably dropped off its mop pads in the dock when embarking on a vacuum-only run, but I was surprised — given the precise lifting/lowering setup this robovac has — that the rotating side brush didn't lift when mopping, even though the bot was on a mop-only pass. It pained me to see those spindly fibers spinning their way towards a puddle of soy sauce, and knowing they wouldn't be cleaned during the mop pad washing process.

Navigation & object avoidance

The Saros 20 performed well on my object avoidance task, skirting carefully around a shoe and pausing to judge the gap between two objects before slowly making its way between them. The performance here wasn't perfect — some things got pushed around when they should have been avoided, and as with every robot vacuum I've used, the Saros 20 couldn't resist chowing down on a cable or two — but it's good enough that I'd still recommend this bot for use in a fairly cluttered home.

I was especially interested in the advanced 'AdaptiLift' features, designed for use on thick carpet and for crossing tall thresholds. There was clear evidence that something was happening; on several occasions I could see the bot lifting and lowering in response to its surroundings. Although hesitant at first, the Saros 20 also learned how to cross the chunky room threshold between our wood laminate hall and carpeted living room, by backing up, raising its body up at the front, and approaching at speed.

Dock

The dock cleaning features are very impressive. After mopping the honey and soy sauce mess I expected to need to remove the mop pads and wash them manually, but after the self-clean cycle was complete they looked (and smelled) good as new, and with no stickiness to the touch, either.

I also had no issues with the self-empty mechanism jamming, as can happen when a robot vacuum has gobbled up too much pet hair. The automatic cleaning fluid dispensing is useful, and in general the dock just takes care of a good chunk of the maintenance so you just don't have to think about it.

I'm yet to make my mind up on the self-drying feature. The dock emits a humming noise while this is going on, and while it's not loud it is understandably noisier than a dock that doesn't have this mode. I've never had problems with a dock getting musty or clogging due to dampness, but that's not to say this drying feature isn't doing good things for my robot vacuum setup hygiene.

• Performance score: 4.5 out of 5

Roborock Saros 20 review: app

• Oodles of control options
• Fairly easy to navigate, with a few exceptions
• Perhaps a little overwhelming for newcomers

As a seasoned robot vacuum tester, I'm generally a fan of the Roborock app. It offers plenty of control options, is pretty logical in layout, and I've never had any issues with bugs, glitches, or sloppy mistranslations. However, the sheer volume of information that Roborock is wrangling here means things can get a little overwhelming.

There are a few sections I feel could be streamlined, and I can imagine that a newcomer who's not especially tech-savvy could have problems making sense of it all. Thankfully, the presets and 'smart' options mean even if you haven't dug into all the various settings, you can still achieve some very decent cleaning.

• App score: 4 out of 5

Should you buy the Roborock Saros 20?

How I tested the Roborock Saros 20

I used the Saros 20 as my main robot vacuum for around a month, during which time it followed a set cleaning schedule of mopping and vacuuming. During this time I got a feel for its cleaning capabilities as well as any failings. I also ran a series of standardized cleaning tests to get a more objective view of its position in the wider market. These included testing the vacuuming powers on carpet and hard floor, and with fine and chunky particles as well as dog hair. To test mopping, I used honey and soy sauce, and for object avoidance I laid out an obstacle course for it to make its way around.

I compared my findings to the many other robot vacuums I've tested, and weighed everything up against the price to ascertain if it offers strong value for money.

Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners

• First reviewed March 2026

• The Deebot X12 OmniCyclone from Ecovacs tackles particularly tough stains
• It identifies dried-on dirt and pre-treats it using high-pressure water jets
• Once the dirt is softened, the OmniCyclone's extra-long mop scrubs it away

Ecovacs, maker of some of the best robot vacuums we've tested here at TechRadar, has just launched a new flagship model designed to tackle particularly tough dried-on stains that most robovacs would fail to clean.

The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone uses infrared and camera-based detection to identify particularly tough stains like muddy pawprints and spilled juice that you may not have even noticed before they dried. It pre-treats them using high-pressure water jets to soften them, then uses its roller mop to scrub them away.

The extra-long mop is rinsed with fresh water throughout cleaning to avoid spreading dirt or creating streaks. It won't make your carpets wet either; when moving off a hard floor, the OmniCyclone automatically raises and covers its mop head to keep everything dry.

The OmniCyclone cleans particularly close to baseboards, while also staying a safe distance from obstacles like pets and charging cables, and furniture.

After it's finished cleaning, the OmniCyclone's dock will handle messy jobs including washing and drying the mop, emptying debris, and managing cleaning solution automatically. It also has a fast-charging system called PowerBoost, which means it's ready to start cleaning again faster than other wet-dry robovacs.

The OmniCyclone is on sale now for $1,499 (about £1,100 / AU$2,100) direct from Ecovacs and from Amazon. We'll be testing it soon to see how it compares with rivals from the likes of Roborock and Dreame, so stick with TechRadar to find out whether the OmniCyclone can scrub its way to first place.

I’d never have guessed that consumer and industrial drone manufacturer DJI would ever consider bringing a robot vac to the dining table, but I was wrong. And when you think about, why shouldn’t they? After all, the company’s amazing squadron of drones are capable of following users through difficult terrain, even through woodland with tree branches everywhere, with breath-taking accuracy and speed.

Given that navigation and obstacle avoidance are prerequisites of any successful robot vac, it makes perfect sense to use established drone navigation tech in a robot vac, or even a robot lawn mower. And since DJI would presumably never dream of sharing its navigation technology with anyone else, they may as well make their own robot vac. And that it did.

I’ve already given the new transparent DJI Romo P a very favourable review after putting it through its paces and watching it work over the course of a week. I also spent a lot of time analyzing its cleaning power on both hard floor and carpet. However, one facet of this new upstart has truly amazed me and that’s its extremely good obstacle avoidance.

In fact, I think that the DJI Romo P’s obstacle avoidance represents one of the most technologically sophisticated navigation systems yet deployed in a consumer robot vacuum cleaner. Unlike cheap and simple robot vacuums that rely on bumper switches or basic infrared sensors, the Romo P combines dual fisheye vision sensors with three solid-state LiDAR units that, according to DJI, bring ‘millimeter-level obstacle sensing’ into the home.

When combined, this multi-sensor data allows the Romo P to identify not just large, basic obstacles like furniture legs and walls, but also extremely thin obstacles as narrow as 2mm in thickness. And this means it is also a dab hand at dodging thin phone cables of any length, a myriad of toys including Lego bricks and, if approached head on, even flat objects like train tickets and playing cards. This level of discrimination is quite significant because credit-card thin items are among the hardest for robot vacuums to detect.

Navigation and obstacle sensing hardware in itself only gathers data but making intelligent decisions from that data is equally important. Hence, DJI and, it must be said, other big players like Roborock and Dreame, also incorporate onboard machine learning algorithms — including AI-assisted learning — in their premium bots that interpret the combined sensors’ inputs. These algorithms enable the robot to recognize different types of obstacles and choose the most appropriate course of action.

Sometimes it will weave close to narrow legs of furniture to clean nearby, while other times it will give a wide berth to most smaller objects. This contextual awareness apparently helps minimize cleaning interruptions and prevents the bot from getting stuck or inadvertently spreading messes, which is something I observed when the Romo P actively avoided a large dollop of tomato ketchup in my review’s mopping test.

I’ve also noticed the logical routes the Romo P takes every time it performs a task, and I can only assume that this is also down to its spatial awareness and ability to perform almost human-like movement through a maze of obstacles.

For my review test I tried to prove this and set up an assault course using a variety of items both large and small. I was frankly amazed at the speed with which the Romo P navigated its way around the obstacles without stopping for a breath or knocking anything over. In fact, it was like watching an Olympic slalom skier in action.

Anyway, this got me thinking. So for this article I set up another two, even more extreme tests and not only focussed on the Romo P, but enlisted the help of my trusty Roborock Saros 10R, another robot vac with very decent obstacle avoidance.

By the way, the Romo P offers three levels of obstacle avoidance in the DJI Home app: Obstacle Avoidance Priority, Standard and Cleaning Priority. For the following tests I selected the Standard mode because it better balances the gap between cleaning and avoidance.

Roborock Saros 10R vs DJI Romo P obstacle tests

I’ve been using the Roborock Saros 10R since April 2025 and, along with its stablemate the Saros 10, it is one of the best bots I’ve ever had the pleasure of reviewing. So I thought I’d see how well it faired against DJI’s new Romo P when it comes to negotiating a challenging obstacle course.

For this comparison test I carefully positioned a wide range of obstacles including dog toys of various sizes, phone cables of different lengths, three titchy diffuser oil bottles, a small leaflet of stamps, a mock train ticket, a packet of cigarette papers, two thin black lids, a silver spanner, a small screwdriver and a sock.

I created two different tests because I wanted to see if either bot had learned from previous mistakes. However, I can’t categorically say if they learned anything from Test 1 because I’ve never seen any robot do exactly the same thing twice. They’re robots, after all, and they quite literally have minds of their own.

Anyway, back to the two tests which started with the Saros 10R followed by the Romo P. Both models were commanded to go from their dock positions (the Saros in the hall and Romo in the lounge) and head to the kitchen over a patterned rug. They were then commanded to return to the dock.

Although they were both coming from different areas, I made sure that both bots were given equally challenging tasks, or as close as I could get it. Setting both robots to leave from the same area would have entailed remapping the whole home on one of the bots and I simply didn’t have the time or, for that matter, the inclination. However, as the video demonstrates, both bots faced equally complex assault courses.

Test 1

Roborock Saros 10R

The Saros 10R happily jaunted into the room and simply headed straight over the cigarette papers and one phone cable but then made a very good fist of reaching its goal without causing any chaos in about one minute. Its return trip was more haphazard and it rode over a small cable and the stamps and, after having a good think with it’s camera facing the cigarette papers, it decided, what the heck, and continued onwards, carrying the packet into the hall before depositing it as it approached its base station. Its return trip took 35 seconds.

DJI Romo P

Now it was the Romo P’s turn, and for this I selected its ‘Standard’ obstacle avoidance mode which is the best option for better cleaning performance. Straight away it turned towards the spanner and, rather disappointingly, rode right over it. Typical! It also rode over the book of stamps before continuing with a weird detour around a small phone cable. However, it still completed the task in just 48 seconds.

Its return trip was also a bit wayward and took exactly one minute though it did glance the small screwdriver (understandable) and rode over the stamps. But this time it stopped at the spanner before detouring around a hair scrunch before returning to dock.

I have to say that both of them performed extremely well in this test and I was especially surprised by how adeptly the Saros 10R handled the course. However, the Romo P was clearly a lot quicker to complete the task.

Test 2

Roborock Saros 10R

The Saros 10R approached the cigarette paper packet and pushed it aside before heading over the black phone cable. It then carefully worked its way between the two diffuser bottles before noticing it had run over the short cable and reversing. It then continued, glancing a small black plastic cap before running over the second one, completing the task in 45 seconds.

Its return trip was less successful. It immediately rode over the black cap and, after some time thinking at the small bottles, ran headlong over the black cable, which it dragged most of the way home. Time: 38 seconds

DJI Romo P

A perfect gold-medal run. This time the Romo avoided everything, including the spanner, the cigarette paper packet, the stamps and both black caps. An amazing achievement in 48 seconds flat.

However, Rom(e)o got very cocky on its 50-second trip home and rode over the screwdriver, stamps and cigarette packet (twice) as if it had had enough testing for one day and just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. You’ve got to laugh.

Test 3

DJI Romo P

For this final test I used just the Romo P and selected it’s ‘Obstacle Avoidance Priority’ mode which further enhances its navigation capabilities for ultra-cluttered homes. I even added some smaller obstacles like a thin piece of cardboard, along with the black caps and stamp booklet from the previous tests. While the Romo P did a bit more thinking and a couple of detours, it nailed the run with no major issues to report other than its side brush tampering with the thin slice of cardboard. Another gold-medal result.

While these tests in no way represent the real world (at least I’d like to hope so), they just go to show how refined the navigation is on both of these models. Yet while the Saros 10R’s obstacle avoidance can be considered perfectly acceptable for everyday scenarios, I have to give the winning rosette to the Romo P for a more accurate and speedy approach when it comes to overall navigation and the perfected art of obstacle dodging.

DJI Romo P: two-minute review

On the face of it, it’s a perfectly logical step for a highly established drone manufacturer like DJI to venture into the smart-home world of automated floor cleaning. After all, the Chinese company’s drones have been boasting autonomous navigation since 2016 and successful robot vacuuming is much more about accurate navigation and successful obstacle avoidance than it is about raw suction power.

The Romo P marks an ambitious first step for DJI into the world of smart-home floor cleaning and I think the company’s tech bods have mostly hit the nail on the head. The Romo P’s key feature is its sophisticated navigation system combining dual fisheye cameras with solid-state LiDAR to enable precise obstacle detection — even for items as thin as 0.08 inches / 2mm. Believe me, this model truly impresses when it comes to avoiding obstacles of most sizes.

With a whopping 25,000Pa suction and extendable cleaning brushes and mops for edge coverage, the Romo P delivers flagship-level performance on hard floors and it’s not bad on carpet either; at least no worse than the majority. The ROMO P's self-cleaning dock is equally impressive, offering dust collection, automated mop washing and decently long maintenance intervals of ‘up to 200 days’ according to DJI.

Smart features like remote monitoring through the robot’s front camera, app control and voice assistant integration enhance convenience, although these have also introduced some privacy considerations which are typical of connected home devices.

Overall, I’d say that the Romo P is one of the most technologically advanced models I’ve seen to date. It vacuums hard floors exceedingly well, isn't bad on carpet and its navigation and obstacle avoidance is second to none. However, its dock’s dust bag is on the small side which isn’t great for pet owners and the air intake when emptying the robot’s bin could easily clog with pet hair if you don’t run enough cleaning schedules. Otherwise this is a brilliant opening salvo from DJI in an arena that it is already chock full of very competent autonomous robot cleaners.

DJI Romo P: price & availability

• List price £1,299 / €1,899 / AU$2,299
• Launch date April 2026
• Availability UK, Germany, Netherlands, Australia

The DJI Romo P has finally been launched to market in the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Australia. As of writing, the ROMO P model we are reviewing here is available to pre-order in the UK from DJI Retail at a price of £1,299, with dispatch from 15 April. However, it is also available to buy right now in Germany and the Netherlands for €1,899.

In Australia, its retail price will set you back AU$2,299 when full but, at the time of writing, it's already discounted by AU$300 on Amazon and other stores.

These figures put the Romo P firmly in the upper bracket of robot vacs, along with premium models from Roborock and Dreame. For instance, Roborock’s new, to-be-reviewed Saros 20 retails at £1,129 / AU$2,999, which is roughly in the same ball park as the Romo P. However, the Saros 20 is slim enough to venture under low furniture and mount thresholds up to 8.8cm, which the Romo P can’t compete with. But on the other hand, the Romo P’s navigation and obstacle avoidance is more impressive than the Saros 20 and much more suited to very cluttered households. Swings and roundabouts spring to mind.

According to research, the entire Romo series is currently rolling out region by region rather than globally all at once. Aside from China, we believe it’s set for a rollout in several European markets, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

As of April 2026, availability in the United States and Japan has not been officially confirmed or announced by DJI, so launch dates for those regions remain pending.

• Value score: 4/5

DJI Romo 3: specs

DJI Romo P: design

• Unique transparent dock and bot
• A full banquet of navigational aids
• Not squat enough for low furnishings

I’m coming to this review as a big fan of DJI and have reviewed many of its drones and stabilised cameras over the past decade or so. Granted, the company’s first slew of Phantom drones never had any autonomous navigation systems on board aside from GPS receivers and downward-facing sensors but that all changed with the launch of the Phantom 4 in 2016, which was the first DJI drone to feature an advanced obstacle avoidance system and high-level autonomous navigation capabilities.

Well what a difference a decade makes because today’s fleet of DJI drones are so insanely adept at self navigation they can follow — and keep up with — a user through pretty dense woodland while avoiding all manner of obstacles in their path.

While I like to think I have my ear to the ground regarding all things DJI, I have to admit that I did not see this hybrid robot coming. And what a bot it has turned out to be. Yes, I’ve read the news about 7,000 or so DJI Romos around the world being accidentally accessed by an early adopter who just wanted to steer his Romo using his PlayStation controller. DJI is said to have fixed this glitch and we can only hope this never happens again.

But truth is, when you opt to have your home filled with smart gear, that’s a risk you take. For all I know my security cameras could be filming my every move and my smart virtual assistants could be listening in to every conversation. After all, we’ve all experienced those weird moments when we spot an advertisement in our social media feeds for a product we were privately discussing within earshot of our phones. Coincidence? Who knows. Welcome to the 21st century.

My editor sent me the flagship Romo P variant with a unique transparent frontage on the dock and the same on the robot’s top shell. However, there are another two Romo variants available: the Romo A with transparent robot top and white base station, and the Romo S which is all white and the cheapest of the bunch.

Looking at the paucity of specs on the range, all three variants have the same suction power (25,000Pa) and mechanical features, plus cleaning solution and dust box drying ability, but only the P model comes with a floor deodoriser and dust bag UV disinfection. In fact, the only difference between the Romo A and Romo S is that the A has a transparent robot appearance and the S is all white. Finalised pricing hasn't been announced yet but it looks like the Romo A’s transparent top could cost up to £200 (about $270 / AU$380) more, which seems a bit steep.

But I digress. I wasn’t sure what my final thoughts would be on unboxing the ROMO P but I certainly loved the notion of a transparent household product. However, I’ll admit that I was dreading my wife’s reaction on unveiling this machine and its dock in the lounge because she has such impeccable taste in design. Well my jaw hit the floor when she said she loved the look of the entire package. I do too, though, just to prove how subjective style is, my tech-obsessed brother thought it was pug ugly and said it reminded him of Apple’s coloured 1998 range of transparent iMac G3s.

I personally think the Romo P’s futuristic base station looks more like Roborock’s QRevo Curv series, which isn’t my favourite, it has to be said. However, I’m prepared to forgive the bulbous shape of this dock because I love seeing all the gorgeous transparency and, more crucially, the inner parts and workings of both the dock and the robot. To be more accurate, you can’t actually see any moving parts on the dock but you can see its smaller-than-average 2.4-liter dust bag exploding outwards against its clear Perspex-style cover when it’s emptying the contents of the robot’s much smaller dust receptacle. However, you can see some moving parts in the robot unit, most notably the spinning nubs that are attached to the robot’s two spinning mops.

I’ve tested many robot vacs over the years and have seen some pretty poorly built and designed bots moving around my home, but I have to say that the Romo P is easily one of the best built models I’ve ever come across. The plastics look unbreakable, and the fit and finish throughout is exemplary. But then I knew this would be the case because everything DJI turns its hands to is built to well above average standards.

Let’s take a look at both the Romo P robot and its base station in more detail.

Robot design

Unlike the majority of flagship models coming out of the Roborock and Dreame stables that boast a low operating height of just 3.1 inches / 7.98cm, the Romo P clocks in at 3.8 inches / 9.7cm so it won’t scuttle under very low furnishings. Its width, however, is the standard 13.8 inches / 35cm.

Like many hybrid bots these days, the Romo P both vacuums and mops using a split Roborock-style tangle-free roller for the vacuuming function and two spinning mops on the rear that appear to be a little more plush and a tad more absorbent than others I’ve seen. Also like most of it competitors, the right-hand mop articulates outwards by a few inches for cleaning around furniture legs, along skirting boards and, to some degree, in corners. However, unlike some high-end hybrids that either raise their mops on carpet or leave them behind in the dock when vacuuming, this bot’s mopping pads remain fixed in position though they at least raise up when on carpet.

This model also comes with two front-mounted side-spinning brushes instead of just one, and that’s a massive bonus in my mind because, well, two brushes are obviously better than one. What’s more, one of the brushes extends by an inch or two to sweep debris in tight corners and along walls into the path of the robot’s suction.

And speaking of suction, the Romo P sports a whopping 25,000 Pascals of dust-grabbing oomph which is on par with the Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro but still shy of the Dreame Matrix10’s 30,000Pa and Roborock’s soon-to-be launched Saros 20, which boasts a whopping 36,000Pa. Where will it end?

Where most of today’s flagship models are able to mount thresholds of between 0.6 inches / 2cm and 1.6 inches / 4cm in height, this one can only manage about 1.5cm at a pinch so perhaps avoid it if you have any protruding thresholds between your rooms.

I also noticed that it can’t scale the edge of a thin, loose rug. I have one such vintage rug on the hard floor in the lounge and the Romo P simply cannot get over the front lip where practically every other bot I’ve tested manages to eventually make it. I’m not sure if it has something do with the twin spinning brushes that are always flush with the floor or if the undercarriage is set low for better suction, but it means I have had to stick the rug’s leading edge down using some sticky rug tape.

When it comes to all-important navigation, this model is on another level. According to the spec sheet, all Romo models are equipped with ‘High-Performance Binocular Fisheye Vision Sensors and Dual-Transmitter Solid-State LiDARs’. DJI emphasises that its drone guidance tech has been adapted for use in this first fleet of robot vacs and I’m inclined to believe every word because, on my evidence, the Romo’s obstacle avoidance is insanely good.

Believe me, I’ve tested dozens upon dozens of robot vacs over the past six years or so and I can’t remember seeing any other model steering through a minefield of obstacles with such elegant precision, with hardly any pausing or spinning around, and with impressive pace, too. But more on this in our Performance chapter.

By the way, for those who like the idea of being able to watch the world through their robot’s camera, you can do just that with this model and, like others on the market, drive it around the house like an RC car. You can also operate it using various voice commands.

Score ref: 4/5

Dock design

As mentioned above, the transparent Romo P’s dock is reminiscent of Roborock’s Qrevo Curv range. I must say I’m rather smitten by it and, despite its sci-fi looks, it seems to magically meld into its surroundings — and that’s more that one can say for many other robot base stations.

As is the norm, this dock comes with the obligatory dust-emptying function from robot to the dock’s smaller-than-average 2.4-liter dust bag via a large 16mm waste port. It also boasts full autonomous mop cleaning using hot water at 140˚F / 60˚C (Roborock’s is nearer 212˚F / 100˚C) and hot air mop-drying. However, unlike Roborock and Dreame’s cleaning basins, which self-clean and come with removable trays for deeper cleaning, the Romo P’s has a fixed base which is much harder to clean by hand.

Unlike every other robot vac I’ve reviewed, the Romo doesn’t empty the contents of its own bin into the dock’s larger bin bag on completing a task. Instead, it starts to dry the robot’s undercarriage and dustbin area for a period of time, along with a blast of UV rays for disinfection purposes. This dust box drying sequence is to prevent moisture from any mopping sessions from mixing with the dry debris and causing caked-on muck on the robot’s undercarriage. Instead, the bin from subsequent clean-ups empties just before its next task. I think it’s a great method and possibly the way forward for all robot vacs. However, I really do think this model’s dust bag should have been bigger because mine is nearly a third full with pet hair after a week or use.

On the mopping front, the Romo P’s dock is also equipped with a sealed bottle of hard floor detergent and, unique to the P model, another sealed bottle of deodoriser which does make the floor smell rather fragrant. Since the bottles are sealed, you can’t fill them with third party solutions, which isn’t great it must be said.

Despite the unit’s transparency, I have seen no evidence of any dust forming on the inside of the Romo P’s dock casing or the robot, and that’s a very good thing because it shows how well sealed everything is. Hope it stays that way.

Score ref: 4/5

• Design score: 4.5/5

DJI Romo P: performance

• Impeccable obstacle avoidance
• Excellent hard floor cleaning
• The dock’s dust bag is on the small side

Navigation performance

DJI has made great claims about this hybrid floor-cleaning robot’s drone-sourced navigation credentials and so far I’ve been extremely impressed by its sure-footed and speedy navigation. Aside from getting stuck trying to climb over my thin vintage rug (now solved), the Romo P’s initial mapping run was extremely successful, even though the final map treated my whole open plan area as one giant room which I had to correct in the DJI Home app — no great shakes.

By comparison, the Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro I tested recently divided the rooms pretty accurately while the Dreame Matrix10 Ultra miraculously mapped and named almost every room correctly, including the kitchen and living room. In DJI’s favour, I’m sure the ROMO’s mapping feature – and the app’s clean but overly-simple map presentation – could be improved with a few software tweaks.

Score ref: 4.5/5

Obstacle avoidance

Clearly quite a large chunk of DJI’s amazing drone navigation tech has been implemented here because I’ve never seen a robot vac negotiate obstacles as quickly and as accurately as the ROMA P. In fact, it’s almost human like in the way it dodges obstacles.

For my main test I programmed a kitchen vac session that entailed a short trip across the dinning area floor. I scattered more dog toys than ever before and complimented them with two really small aromatic oil bottles, two phone cables — one long, the other short — and two dreaded half-inch-high nylon dog chews that have caught out almost all previous robot vacs I’ve tested.

On test number one it shot out of its base and, with no faffing about, quickly started its way to the kitchen through 90% of the obstacles before stopping to think at the last hurdle. It then went the long way round under a dining room chair before arriving in the kitchen — and that was good enough for me. On its return, it had a few thinks at some of the obstacles but continued quickly on its way and proceeded to dock.

Test two — mind blown. This time it took a similar route but, instead of going the long way round under the chair, it made a bee-line straight for the kitchen, twisting and turning like a slalom skier on steroids. It literally dodged all obstacles as if it had learned the best route from its previous run. Its return run was equally successful.

What surprised me was the speed with which the ROMA P navigated a pretty complex assault course, and without knocking anything over. In fact, it was so fast I nearly missed catching it on video.

In a nutshell, I consider this model’s obstacle avoidance to be the best I’ve ever tested – for both accuracy and speed. A high-five to DJI’s clever little sausages for giving us such amazing results.

Score ref: 5/5

Vacuuming

From a day-to-day cleaning point of view, I’ve been exceedingly impressed with this model’s vacuuming performance, especially on hard floor. Also, the twin spinning brushes really make a difference in my opinion. Since their speed is varied during the cleaning process, they don’t scatter debris as much as models with just one side brush. I’ve also noticed that the extendable brush on the right is employed more frequently than other bots.

I should add that my tests have involved setting its suction to Max (there are three levels) and Turbo on carpet, selecting two passes from a choice of three, and opting for the Fine route setting which performs a checkerboard clean (you can also choose Fast and Standard). I always like to go above board on suction and route settings with robot vacs because they’re working in the background and this model’s amazing battery can certainly handle it.

For my hard floor zone test I used 0.21oz / 6g of flour plus some oats, muesli, rice, and loosely crushed cornflakes, amounting to 1.27oz / 36g in total. I then set up a zone clean in the kitchen and selected Max suction mode, plus two passes and the Fine route setting. The Romo P collected an impressive 1.2oz / 34g, leaving just 0.07oz / 2g (a pinch) of flour in the floor cracks. During this test I could also hear the suction motor increase in speed when its sensors encountered increased levels of detritus.

I then produced the same vacuum test on a carpeted rug but this time set the suction to Turbo since that is what I would always use on carpet. However, I forgot to set two passes in the app. I used the same set of ingredients, though this time it was 50g worth.

Despite setting only a single pass in Fine route mode, the Romo P collected a pretty decent 1.62oz / 46g. Decent because at least 0.11oz / 3g of missing dirt was the flour still remaining in the carpet. Flour is a notoriously obstreperous substance for robot vacs and I’ve always had some flour remaining on the carpet after a robot test which I then sweep up with a cordless vacuum cleaner. After all, no robot vac on earth can beat a human pushing a vacuum cleaner.

DJI makes great pains to explain that the ROMA is equipped with a ‘three-stage sound suppression system that filters up to 80% of noise during dust collection’ and I’m inclined to agree because this model is much quieter in operation than the vast majority other models I’ve tested over the years. I measured it at 59.2dB from five feet away and that’s a very decent figure.

Score ref: 4.5/5

Mopping performance

I’ve watched the Romo P do a number of general mopping runs in the kitchen and it has been no better or worse than the vast majority of high-end mopping bots. If you set a series of regular mopping schedules, it will keep on top of daily grime and light stains and leave the floor looking relatively shiny and clean. But don’t expect miracles from any of these robot mopping bots because you would be better served by using a little elbow grease with a simple mop and bucket or grabbing a dedicated cordless mopping machine and letting it do the hard work for you. This is because most mopping bots with spinning pads simply drag their mops over a dirty area and then smear the often unseen residue over the rest of the floor. And you only notice this hours later when you walk on a sticky floor.

I’m personally not a fan of robotic floor cleaners that also mop, and wish manufacturers would produce at least one high-end robot that vacuums only, with a dock that forgoes all the mop-cleaning malarky and smelly dirty water containers in favor of a whopping dust bag that I don’t have to change every two weeks. Please, someone do it!

Rant over, for my main kitchen mopping test I created a small zone and selected two passes, medium water flow, the Fine route for criss-cross cleaning, Degreasing mode, and re-mopping with clean water. This is way more than I would normally use on my engineered wood flooring because too much water is never a good thing for wooden floors.

I then squirted some tomato ketchup, soy sauce and milk on the floor, and set the Romo P on its way. I should add that I would never perform a test like this in the real world, mostly because robot vacs are designed for general day-to-day mopping of footfall marks and light stains and not for cleaning up liquid spills, despite what you might read or see on the internet.

Anyway, the Romo P duly went off to tackle the mess I created and, sure enough, it appeared to wipe up most of the mess. However it positively refused to tackle one dense section of tomato ketchup because it thought it was an obstacle. You might consider this a failure, but I consider it a success because, as mentioned directly above, I don’t want my robot getting overly filthy with smelly foodstuffs clinging to its undercarriage. Yes, this model will dry itself after its robust self-cleaning regime but you can bet there will still be residue remaining around the brush head area that will eventually go rancid and require reaching for a toothbrush to clean it. Some Roborocks get around this by lifting the whole brush section when mopping.

Before I leave this chapter — having successfully put you off using your robot to clean up liquid spills — I should add that regular mopping of wooden floors is not a great idea, especially if you have thin laminate flooring. Also, every cleaning session removes a little more of its floor protection coating and this may result in the floor losing its sheen. Well I’m here to the rescue with a shout-out to Bona and its tried-and-tested Wood Floor Polish, which genuinely helps restore tired wooden floors after too many mopping sessions.

Score ref: 4/5

Dock performance

I was considering giving the charging base / cleaning dock a very respectable 4.5 stars for functionality but I’ve dropped it to 4 because of one slightly annoying anomaly that has also affected some Roborocks I’ve reviewed.

Let me explain. When you have pets in the home — I have two labradors and a cat — you have to expect to live with a lot of loose hair floating about. It gets everywhere, even in areas you never thought possible. It’s a fact of nature — most dog breeds molt, especially in spring and autumn when old coats are discarded and new ones grow. This creates an awful lot of hair on a daily basis so to keep on top of it you need to set at least a bi-weekly schedule on your robot vac or the robot’s bin will get so packed with hair that the dock’s strong suction may fail to remove it properly.

In its favor, DJI has equipped this model’s dock with an extra large dust intake from the robot’s bin to the dock’s 2.4-liter dust bag. But even this was no match for the amount of Labrador and cat hair the robot had collected in my lounge.

I knew something was wrong when I didn’t hear a whoomp sound during emptying and, sure enough, it had failed to budge any of the matted hair from the robot’s bin. Instead, as my images illustrate, it got halfway out of the robot bin’s outlet before jamming. This has happened a few times with my Roborock Saros 10R and a couple of other models in the past, and I think it’s down to a lack of raw suction power in the base station.

I now schedule my Saros 10R to perform much more regular runs around the home. And, of course, being a robot that never grumbles, it now goes out on a triweekly basis and I’ve had no problems since. To prove this, I set the Romo P to do another lounge clean a couple of days later and I have no more bin-emptying issues to report. With this model, regular scheduling is clearly key to keep on top of pet hair clogging.

Perhaps more concerning is the smaller size of the Romo P’s dust bag. I’ve only used the Romo for a week and the bag is already a third full. That means a bag change about every two weeks, so bear this in mind if you live with shedding pets.

Score ref: 4/5

Battery performance

It’s no surprise that the Romo’s battery holds such an exceptional charge. After all, I believe DJI incorporated its drone-battery knowledge into this model and any drone pilot will know how impressive DJI batteries are at keeping a surprisingly heavy craft aloft for up to 35 minutes at a time.

I set the Romo P off to clean the entire downstairs area and set the suction to Max and selected one pass and the Fine route for a checkerboard pattern, and it amounted to a cleaning area of 38 square metres which the bot completed in 1 hour 14 mins with 18% of battery remaining. That’ll do.

Score ref: 4.5/5

• Performance score: 4.5/5

DJI Romo P: app functionality

• Excellent layout
• Extremely comprehensive
• No detailed room furnishings

It took a few moments for me to get a handle on the DJI Home app but after using it for a while, I’m pleased to report that it’s almost everything a robot app should be, and not a million miles from the way the Roborock app is presented.

The Home app’s clean, polished and intuitive interface makes controlling the ROMO very straightforward and mostly enjoyable, whether it’s creating custom cleaning zones right on the home page, adding virtual walls and no-go zones or scheduling routines.

It’s incredibly comprehensive, too, allowing the user to customise cleaning routines, suction power, level of moisture on the mops and whether you want to vac and mop, vacuum only or mop only. I personally keep vacuuming and mopping separate from each other to prevent any cross contamination of moisture mixing with dry dust on the undercarriage of the robot. One of this app’s strengths is how clearly it presents its cleaning data – you can track its progress, view coverage history and receive timely maintenance reminders for filters, brushes and water tanks.

However, there is one area I’m not too enamoured of – its map presentation. I guess I’m used to Roborock’s maps which not only illustrate the shape of each room in sharp detail with designated colours for each room, but also the furnishings within it, including sofas, tables, cupboards, etc. DJI’s method is to keep things Scandinavian clean with rooms divided into blocks with just very faint outlines of the rooms’ shapes and no furnishings other than carpeted areas. I have found this tricky to read when selecting a specific zone I want cleaning, especially if it’s directly in front of a specific piece of furniture. With the Roborock app I can place a zone exactly where I need it but with this app there’s a lot more guess work. DJI will hopefully improve this area because everything else about the Home app is extremely intuitive, comprehensive and logically laid out for both beginners and tech nerds like me.

• App functionality score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the DJI Romo P?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

How I tested the DJI Romo P

As per usual, I’ve had the ROMA P perform a regular set of schedules over the past week and watched how well it swept a room. I’ve been very impressed. I then set about performing a series of decisive suction tests, weighing the amount of detritus I laid down and then weighing the contents in the robot’s bin. This model has performed exceedingly well in on hard floor and well enough on carpet.

I also ran a few general mopping sequences at which it performed acceptably well, plus an over-the-top liquid spill test which was no worse than the competition but still not a patch on a mop and bucket.

However, the test that really blew me away was the ROMO P’s exquisite obstacle avoidance for which I give it full marks. With just a few small design and software tweaks, I think DJI’s next model could be up for a full five stars.

First reviewed April 2026.

• Google Home is rolling out Gemini to 16 more regions
• Despite this, users are still experiencing performance issues with commands
• A handful of users have aired their thoughts on Reddit, but Google has been fine-tuning the experience

After a six-month wait, Google Home is finally expanding its Gemini early access program to countries outside of the US, Canada, and Mexico, but users aren’t quite getting along with the updated voice assistant.

The company shared a post on the Google Nest Community site detailing that it will be rolling out Gemini for Home in 7 new languages to the following 16 countries:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Ireland
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom
• Australia
• Japan
• New Zealand

As mentioned, the rollout is still in early access, so you'll only get access to Gemini for Home on your Google smart speaker or display if you opt in through the Google Home app, as 9to5Google puts it.

The move is part of the company’s massive overhaul of Google Assistant, its long-time virtual assistant across Google’s slew of smart home devices, including the Google Nest Audio and the Google Nest Hub smart display. Google announced the replacement back in October 2025, but the rollout hasn’t been the smoothest, and users have been faced with major issues that have yet to be resolved.

"I switched back to Google Assistant"

Users had hoped that the Gemini for Home upgrade would be the answer to a smoother smart home experience, but it turns out this is far from the case. If anything, Google Home device owners have called it a ‘downgrade’ as one Reddit thread puts it, but why are users hating it so much?

A common issue among Google Home users relates to the slow and sometimes absent responses to home commands. As one user shared, they experienced a 7-10 second delay before Gemini took action after asking it to turn on a light; “It is so slow to trigger my home commands, it's almost worthless”, they claimed. And the same goes for routines, as another frustrated user pointed out, ‘In the worst cases, it's like a five-minute delay, but lately it's around like ten seconds’.

The rise in these common bugs hasn’t convinced users that Gemini for Home is a suitable enough model to replace Google Assistant, which, according to a handful of users, is arguably the better one. As a result, users are seeking ways to revert to using the voice assistant predecessor, but Google has promised a series of much-needed upgrades in Gemini for Home’s global rollout.

With the next phase of the global expansion of Gemini for Home, the tech giant revealed it’s been fine-tuning the Gemini experience based on user feedback. In addition to updating support for the family experience and reducing verbosity to ensure more natural interactions, Google says it’s reduced smart home latency by 40% for speedier responses to voice commands, as well as improving Gemini’s context-aware intelligence to distinguish between the different devices in your smart home ecosystem.

Aqara Camera Hub G350: two-minute review

Owned by Shenzhen’s Lumi United Technology, and backed by Chinese mobile phone/EV giant Xiaomi, Aqara offers a wide range of AI-driven automation products including sensors, cameras and controllers. I’ve previously reviewed the Aqara G100, a versatile indoor/outdoor security camera which I was very impressed with. However, I was less impressed with the company’s battery-powered video doorbell, the Aqara G410 Doorbell Camera Hub, which not only looks big and clunky but isn’t waterproof — surely a failing for any doorbell camera?

The Aqara Camera Hub G350 under review here is very different. Finished in white, it is — unlike the company’s doorbell camera — very well designed. Though the removable bunny ears may not be everyone’s idea of great design, it is at least good fun and does feel like a piece of tech you wouldn’t be ashamed to put on a bookshelf or fireplace. However, it’s much more than a pretty face. It’s also a heck of a powerful and versatile home security camera.

Unlike most indoor cameras, the G350 features a motorized base which provides a 360-degree field of view with zero blind spots. This is paired with a dual lens setup that allows you to track a subject (human or animal) using the wide-angle lens or zoom in to an area of detail using the telephoto lens. A 9x hybrid zoom is provided which really does allow you to get close up to your subject with reasonable picture quality.

Like all security cameras these days, setup requires downloading an app (the Aqara Home app) and scanning a QR code from the back of the device. However, rather confusingly, this camera features three QR codes — two on the back for setting up the camera with the app and with third party Matter devices (it supports Matter 1.5) and one on the base for Apple HomeKit Secure Video. While you can use the Matter QR code for connecting to Apple devices, it will currently only connect as a bridge rather than a camera.

Importantly, if you are using Apple HomeKit Secure Video to control the Aqara camera via your iCloud subscription you will only be able to view footage with a maximum resolution of 1080p. You will also not be able to access many of the camera’s features including its pan and tilt options. Instead, if you want full functionality you will need to use the much more advanced Aqara app instead.

Like many security devices these days, the Aqara G350 is packed full of AI features. This includes sophisticated on-device detection that can identify different types of motion, from humans and pets to specific hand gestures for home automation. Particularly impressive is the AI sound detection, which can recognize and alert you to specific audio events such as a baby crying or a dog barking. This makes it an ideal choice for parents and pet owners who want more nuanced alerts rather than generic ‘noise detected’ pings.

While Aqara provides a monthly subscription option for storing video clips for up to 90 days and some advanced AI functionality (including AI video search — see below), the good news is you don’t have to pay a fee to use most of the device’s features, as you do with some manufacturers. Instead, you can store video clips on a MicroSD card of up to 512GB (not provided) and still use most of the product’s extensive feature list. For those worried about storing videos of loved ones in the cloud for cybersecurity reasons, investing in a MicroSD card is not only a cheaper option but a potentially more secure one too.

Aqara Camera Hub G350: subscription options

HomeGuardian One: £3.99 (about $5.40 / AU$7.60) per month, or £39.99 (about $54 / AU$76) per year for a single device. Includes: 90 days of video event history, person, animal, vehicle, package, and fire detection.

HomeGuardian Unlimited: £7.99 (about $11 / AU$15) per month, or £79.99 (about $110 / AU$150) per year. Same as above but also includes Premium AI Event Detection including AI Video Summary (one sentence summary of videos) and AI Video Search (enter keywords to search video). Support for unlimited cameras in one home.

Aqara Camera Hub G350: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $139.99 / £139.99 / AU$249
• When is it available? Since March 2026

Generally, security cameras are not expensive to buy. For example, EZVIZ now offers a 4K indoor camera with pan and tilt for under £50 (about $67 / AU$95) on Amazon in the UK, so £139 (about $190 / AU$270) does seem slightly pricey at first glance.

However, one key difference is that the Aqara offers a dual lens system, complete with 133° wide-angle lens and 43-degree telephoto lens for zooming in to areas of detail. Another is that it’s more than just a camera. It’s really a central hub for your smart home, supporting Matter 1.5, Zigbee 3.0 and Thread formats. It also works with all the major smart home ecosystems including Apple Home, Alexa, Google Home and Samsung SmartThings. This makes it a truly versatile piece of kit.

While this level of integration might not be essential for everyone, for those building a smart home system comprising different components such as window locks, lighting, switching and smart locks it is extremely useful.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Aqara Camera Hub G350: design

• Solidly built
• Playful design with removable bunny ears
• Can be mounted on the ceiling (with additional hardware)

When thinking about this camera’s design, it’s difficult to overlook the distinctive bunny costume (the ears of which are bigger than those of its predecessor, the Aqara Camera Hub G3). Yet focusing extensively on its removable plastic cover is to do the Aqara Camera Hub G350 a major disservice as it’s actually a very well-designed camera indeed.

Not only does it look good (with or without bunny ears) for placing in your home, it’s also solidly built. One feature I like is the privacy mode which physically moves the dual lenses, which look like open eyes, to the back of the device’s ‘head'. These are replaced with two sleeping eyes with the MicroSD card slot forming a mouth underneath. Again, it’s a bit of fun but it clearly shows the camera is asleep (privacy mode can be scheduled for certain hours of the day — for example when you know lots of family members are going to be in the room).

A small button on the front is usually illuminated blue during operation, but turns red to indicate it is recording while next to the two lenses is a microphone for two-way communication (a speaker can be found on the camera’s rear). A USB-C port can be found on the base, and a USB-C to USB-C cable is provided, but you will need a USB-C plug unless you use a different cable.

Finally, for those looking to mount the camera on a wall or ceiling, the camera features a standard ‘tripod-style’ threaded screw hole on the base. However, the actual bracket and mounting hardware (wall plugs etc) are sold separately for non-bookshelf installation.

• Design score: 5/5

Aqara Camera Hub G350: performance

• 4K image quality
• Overly complex menus
• Very useful

It’s really when it comes to performance that the Aqara justifies its higher-than-average price tag. During testing I used the camera in my home office, where I wrote most of this review, and in the kitchen/dining room where my dog Poppy was recovering from a serious operation.

The ability to track her every move automatically using the pan-and-tilt motor was invaluable. I could easily check that she wasn’t getting her stitches caught in the furniture, even when she wandered out the initial field of view. What’s more, using my phone to draw a box on the screen, I was able to zoom in on areas of the frame I wanted to focus more clearly on.

Thankfully, the 360-degree rotation is nearly silent, which isn’t so much of an issue when monitoring my dog, but could be if you are using the camera as a baby monitor and you don’t want to wake a sleeping child.

Whereas many manufacturers now put their most advanced features behind a subscription paywall, the vast majority of those on the Aqara G350 are free — at least for now. For example, you can set up the device to get alerts if it hears a baby crying or dog barking, or if you want it to distinguish between different types of motion such as a person or a pet. It’s even possible to add faces to the device’s face management system so that it recognizes certain people.

However, you will have to pay a subscription fee if you want more advanced AI functionality such as AI Video Summary that provides a one sentence summary of videos and AI Video Search that enables the device to find certain clips — for example someone wearing a red T-shirt or with blond hair.

Finally, while I mostly used the Aqara app to view images in stunning 4K quality and navigate hundreds of different menu options (including the ability to change the look and feel of onscreen menus) I also connected the camera up to Apple HomeKit Secure Video. Here image quality was limited to the much lower 1080p and I wasn’t able to use the pan-and-tilt or zoom features which are really useful.

However, it was possible to save and record footage using my iCloud+ subscription rather than using a MicroSD or subscribing to Aqara’s Home Guardian service.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Aqara Camera Hub G350?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Aqara Camera Hub G350: also consider

If you're not sure whether the Aqara Camera Hub G350 is right for you, here are two other options to think about.

How I tested the Aqara Camera Hub G350

• I used the camera indoors in two locations
• I installed it myself
• The camera was connected to the Aqara app and Apple Home

Initially, I set the Aqara up in my office to get a feel for how it worked and how to use the pan and tilt functionality to focus on certain parts of the room. However, it soon became apparent that this camera really thrives in a busy environment where you can really put the motion tracking to the test.

So, I put it in the kitchen where it could track other family members as well as my dog who was recovering from an operation. This perhaps wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped as it required reinstalling to operate on a different Wi-Fi network, but that didn’t take too long.

After a while, other family members began to find the camera a little ‘big brother-y’ in the way it tracks you with its eyes as you move across the room (though it is exceptionally quiet). However, it was highly effective at monitoring the dog while everyone else was out during the day and I placed it in privacy mode during the evening when everyone was home.

For more info, check out how we test, review, and rate products at TechRadar.

Philips Hue Omniglow: one-minute review

The Philips Hue Omniglow is the best Hue lightstrip yet. It's a classier kind of LED strip: where other models have visible LEDs, the Omniglow delivers seamless color gradients and smoothly moving light effects. The results are very impressive and the Hue app makes it easy to select, edit or create scenes either solo or as part of a wider Hue setup. If you've already got a Hue system you can add it in seconds and then include it in your scenes and automations. As with other Hue lights you'll need a Philips Hue Bridge or Bridge Pro to access advanced features such as custom scenes and smart home integration.

The Omniglow is easy to install and set up, although if you're mounting it up high you might curse the short power cable. The only real downside is the length: you can shorten the Omniglow but not extend it, and longer versions are not widely available in the UK or US. While European customers can choose between 3m, 5m and 10m models, the US and UK are currently limited to the 3m model only.

Philips Hue Omniglow: price and availability

• On sale from November 2025
• $139.99 / £119.99 / AU$279.99 (3m)

The Philips Hue Omniglow was announced in September 2025 and went on sale in November 2025. There are three sizes, but only the 3m model is available everywhere. That has a recommended price tag of $139.99 / £119.99 / €139.99 / AU$279.99.

Europe and Australia also get a longer 5m version, which costs €199.99 / AU$399. And in Europe there's a 10m version with a price tag of $349.99. The same 10m version was listed with a UK price of £349.99 but at the time of writing it's showing as as "not currently available" on the Philips website.

Philips Hue Omniglow: design

• RGB, warm white and cool white
• Seamless color and gradients
• Cuttable but not extendable

The Omniglow is a RGBWWIC design, which means it combines RGB, warm white, cool white and independent control in a single light source. Unlike other Hue lightstrips you can't see the individual LEDs; it's designed to deliver seamless whites, colors and gradients, which it does very well. That makes it look much more classy than lesser lightstrips.

The strip is 17mm wide and 8.5mm high and consists of multiple 12.5cm sections, each of which has 6 LEDs that can be individually controlled – so you can get twinkly lights and motion effects as well as solid color and gradients.

This lightstrip can be cut shorter at pre-defined 12.5cm spaces but any bit you remove can't be re-used or replaced later. Unlike previous Hue lightstrips the Omniglow can't be (officially) extended with additional sections, although inevitably some Hue fans have come up with warranty-voiding DIY solutions.

There are double-sided adhesive strips along the full length of the Omniglow, but you may want to use something more permanent if you're putting the strip in a place where it'll have to battle gravity; in my experience the adhesive that comes with Hue strips tends to be rather weak, and this lightstrip is quite heavy. The power supply is also very short, with just over 1m between the plug socket and the beginning of your lightstrip, and you're going to want to support the weight of the power brick.

Design score: 4/5

Hue Omniglow review: features

• Three-stage gradients
• Moving and flickering lights
• Great integration with other Hue lights

The Omniglow delivers the promised seamless gradients, and it also brings a feature across from the Festivia string lights in the form of moving lights. That enables you to pick a moving scene such as a fireplace, candle glow or looped color change, and you can tweak those scenes in the Hue app to adjust their speed or intensity. It's very smooth and very impressive.

The app offers very basic control via Bluetooth but for access to advanced features such as syncing and smart home integration you'll need a Hue Bridge or Hue Bridge Pro. That gives you the full range of customization, per-light settings and the ability to create your own custom moving gradients and flickering effects.

Features score: 5/5

Philips Hue Omniglow: performance

• Up to 2,700 lumens
• Seamless color
• Beautifully smooth transitions

If you're familiar with Hue lightstrips the first thing you'll notice about the Omniglow is how bright it is. It's much brighter than standard Hue lightstrips, delivering up to 2,700 lumens of brightness compared to the 1,700 lumens of a Hue Solo of the same length.

If you can get the 5m or 10m models they are more powerful still, putting out up to 4,500 lumens. That means the Omniglow isn't just a decorative lightstrip. You can also use it to illuminate spaces such as stairs or feature walls.

Performance score: 5/5

Philips Hue Omniglow: should you buy it?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Philips Hue Omniglow: also consider

There are multiple lightstrips for Hue, some of them much more affordable – so for example the Hue Gradient Lightstrip is much cheaper. Govee is the main rival in this space with very affordable products including the bendable, cuttable COB Strip Light Pro, the very cheap RGBIC LED Strip and several rope light models.

How I tested the Philips Hue Omniglow

I've been all-in on Hue lights for more than a decade, and my home currently features a mix of smart lights including two Hue gradient lightstrips, various Hue bulbs, a Hue motion sensor and Hue Festavia string lights, all controlled via the Hue app, Apple Home and Siri. I added the Omniglow to my living room setup and Hue Bridge and used it as both decorative lighting and functional lighting, controlling it alongside my existing lights and scenes.

First reviewed March 2026

Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000: two-minute review

If you’re in the market for a sterling autonomous plug-and-play robot lawn mower with a wider cutting tract than most, the new Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000 comes wholeheartedly recommended. Available in three different battery capacities, this particular model is designed for large, complex lawns with shaded areas, lumpy terrain and very steep gradients, though it is equally at home on even the most standardised of suburban and rural lawns. However, it would most definitely be considered overkill if used on a small-to-medium urban lawn.

Like its highly-regarded stablemate, the LUBA 2, the new LUBA 3 AWD 3000 requires no boundary wires and no degree in IT to set it up – simply install its charging base, log on to the Mammotion app and it will map the boundaries of your lawn automatically or, if you prefer, manually by steering the robot around your lawn’s permitter like an RC car.

A big upgrade from its stablemate, this new model is now equipped with an impressive Tri-Fusion navigation system combining LiDAR, netRTK positioning over WiFi or 4G, plus AI camera vision to map, mow and avoid obstacles with impressive accuracy — day or night.

Performance is where the LUBA 3 AWD 3000 really impresses. Using its all-wheel drive system and full suspension, this beast can handle slopes with inclines of up to 80% and traverse uneven terrain, roots and edges with impressive confidence. Dual 165W cutting motors and AI-adjusted power, meanwhile, allow it to deal effectively with thick or damp grass, while intelligent route planning minimizes missed patches.

The result is an impressively neat and perfectly striped finish to the lawn that may leave your jaw on the floor. What’s more, because it is equipped with a much wider cutting deck (40cm) than the vast majority of the competition, the beautiful lawn stripes it creates are much more akin to that of a conventional mower.

Granted, the LUBA 3 is very much in the premium-price band, but then you are getting marine-grade build quality, reliable navigation, excellent obstacle avoidance and consistent cutting performance for your hard earned.

I gave this model’s forebear, the LUBA 2, a full five stars on TechRadar in 2024, mostly because it was head and shoulders above anything else around at the time while being extremely efficient and super reliable. But that was then. Today we have a lot more competition with a veritable slew of extremely efficient wire-free robot mowers from the likes of Segway, Anthbot, Roborock, Ego, Eufy, Terramow and Worx, and that makes it even more difficult to justify a full five-star rating.

Nevertheless, if the earlier LUBA 2 — which I have been using for the past 18 months – is anything to go by, you can safely expect this new model to continue providing a fuss-free autonomous grass cutting service with almost zero babysitting for many years hence.

Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000: price & availability

• How much does it cost? £2,399 / $2,399
• When is it available? Available in most regions now
• Where can you get it? Pre-order in UK; available USA and rest of the world, bar Australia

The Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD series sits firmly in the premium segment of the robot mower market, with UK pricing typically between £2,099 to £2,899 ($2,399 to $3,299) depending on lawn capacity. While this positions it well above entry-level robotic mowers, the price reflects its incredible build quality, advanced navigation system, all-wheel-drive traction and ability to scale steep hills, making it particularly appealing for large, complex garden layouts and even large fields.

Compared with more affordable models, the LUBA 3’s value depends largely on lawn size and complexity. Budget alternatives for smaller lawns like the perimeter wire-free Segway Navimow i2 and Worx Landroid Vision Cloud cost under £700 while Mammotion’s equally-competent LUBA Mini 2 AWD 1000 (which boasts many of its larger sibling’s features, including the ability to climb slopes of up to 80%) also retails at a much more affordable £1,399.

Ultimately, I think that the LUBA 3 AWD 3000 I’m reviewing here is decent value for owners of large, uneven or multi-zone lawns who can fully exploit its advanced autonomy. For smaller gardens, however, many cheaper robot mowers deliver perfectly adequate performance, meaning buyers should carefully consider whether the LUBA 3’s premium technology is truly necessary.

Value score: 4 / 5

Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000: specs

Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000: design

• Three-way navigation
• Wider-than-average cutting deck
• Impeccable fit and finish

Most of the mowbots I review are clad in flimsy shells that bend dramatically as you pick them up. By stark contrast, the F1-inspired LUBA 3 AWD 3000’s beautifully polished white plastic cowling feels inches thick and akin to the hull of a premium speed boat. But it doesn’t stop there because the exposed metal work, too, screams Formula One levels of build quality with high-spec machining and expert fit and finish with zero tolerance between the various components.

In short, every inch of this lawn beast is built to the very highest standards. Hence, this level of build quality doesn’t come cheap and nor does it lack in weight – at a hefty 19kgs, it’s a good job you will only likely need to lift it once to remove it from the box and pop it on its charging plinth.

The LUBA 3 (as I shall call it from now on) is available in three battery-capacity variants for lawn sizes of 1,500㎡, 3,000㎡ for the variant we’re reviewing here, and 5,000㎡. It arrives almost fully assembled in a huge, expertly packed box. In fact, the only thing the user needs to do is remove some protective pieces on the robot — including the cutting deck protector underneath – and screw on the sensor-equipped bumper. Then it’s a case of mounting the charging base on a flat edge of the lawn that’s within range of an outdoor electricity supply. This model comes with a 5m charging cable, which is sadly about half the length of the one that came with the LUBA 2. Nevertheless, you should be able to purchase an extension cable from Mammotion sometime in the near future.

Now that the LUBA 3 is on its base, it’s time to open the Mammotion app, create an account and add the LUBA 3 by following the set of on-screen instructions. Since this model uses Wi-Fi and 4G-based NetRTK for part of its three-way navigation, there is no need to install an RTK antenna. In fact, it doesn’t even come with one though I’m led to believe that an RTK aerial will soon become available for those with poor Wi-Fi and/or 4G reception.

Once you’ve connected the bot to the app, it’s time to map your lawn and this can be performed in two ways — automatically or manually. With auto mapping the LUBA 3 follows the perimeter of any grassy areas until it arrives at its starting point. Voila, map created. In manual mode — my preferred option — you carefully drive the LUBA 3 around the perimeter of the lawn using the app’s virtual joysticks until you arrive where you started.

Once mapped, the only thing you may need to do is add a few no-go zones around any trees, garden furniture or ornaments by steering the robot around them. This task isn’t essential because the LUBA 3’s stupendous navigation system will ensure any obstacles are avoided. However, it’s still good practice to add no-go zones around obstacles so the robot can cut as closely as possible when approaching rather than giving it too wide a berth.

If you have multiple lawns connected by pathways with no obstructions like stairs and gates in the way, you can also program a series of pathways for the robot to follow. Simply select ‘Channel’ in the app’s mapping menu and steer the LUBA 3 from one lawn to the other. You can create up to 30 mowing zones with the LUBA 3 3000 model on review here, 15 with the 1500 version and 50 with the 5000. In essence, when the LUBA 3 has completed its cut on lawn one, it will trundle off down your pre-set path to lawn two, and so on and so forth. If its battery needs a recharge midway through a multi task, the robot will simply head back to its charging station for a top up.

Let’s take a closer look at this amazing mowbot’s main credentials, starting with the cutting deck. Unlike the vast majority of robot mowers that come with a small single 20cm cutting disc, this one ships with two 20cm discs, amounting to a wide 40cm of cutting girth, which is roughly the same as most conventional medium-sized push mowers.

The LUBA 3’s cutting system is comprised of two spinning discs equipped with six razor-like blades on each that cut and mulch grass more cleanly than any conventional rotary mower. Also, unlike standard mowers that only provide their cutting heights in 1cm increments, this model’s motorized cutting deck can be set to cut in 5mm increments (it has a cutting height range of 25-70mm). Oh, and another thing… Since the LUBA 3’s blades are so small and razor sharp, it doesn’t take much power to move them and that in turn means less battery consumption and almost zero noise while they’re working. In fact you could be lying on the sun lounger while the robot’s working a few metres away and you won’t hear a thing — and nor will your neighbors.

Since the LUBA 3 always cuts in a zigzag, up-and-down pattern (at whichever angle you prefer, including a chequerboard effect), the combination of its extra cutting width and extra-wide tyres ensures a swathe of professional-looking lawn stripes. Granted, they’re not the authentic stripes you see at a cricket ground or football pitch – these are made using a large cylinder mower with a roller on the rear – but who’s complaining when they look this ravishingly good? Incidentally, like all good robot mowers, this one is also fitted with a rain sensor, so if it heads out in the rain it will immediately return to its garage (with optional rain hood) and wait a few hours before trying again.

No robot of any kind is of much use if it doesn’t know where it is at any given time. Well the new LUBA 3 has three types of onboard navigation (one more than the LUBA 2) for insane levels of navigation accuracy in even the most shaded areas of a garden.

Firstly, its equipped with GPS RTK navigation that uses satellites to determine the robot’s position to a few centimetres of accuracy (the standard GPS navigation we use for driving is three to 10 metres). However, unlike the first incarnation of the LUBA 2 which shipped with a separate RTK antennae that required a good line of sight to a large number of satellites, this model uses Mammotion’s own NetRTK system which is Wi-Fi or 4G based and therefore immune to satellite access being affected by overhanging trees and buildings. All you need is decent Wi-Fi reception on your lawn for pin-point navigation accuracy.

If you don’t have Wi-Fi on the lawn, you can also use the robot’s built-in 4G capabilities to perform the same function — Mammotion provides a full three years of free 4G service! Oh, and fear not if your lawn area has neither Wi-Fi nor 4G because you can still use this model with a spiked RTK antenna.

The LUBA 3 is also equipped with dual-camera AI vision and an LED headlight, and it uses these as an extra layer of cover when navigating darker areas of a lawn or when the robot encounters obstacles like children, pets, garden toys, furniture and ornaments. You have two levels of obstacle avoidance to choose from: Standard for better cutting efficiency and Sensitive, which may cause the robot to avoid non-grassy areas and even refuse to cross them on the way back to base. If you’re a dog owner, I wouldn’t rely on this model – or most others for that matter – to avoid dog poop because setting that level of sensitivity would likely cause the robot to also avoid every loose leaf on the lawn.

Last but certainly not least, this model also encompasses LiDAR and I can’t tell you what a difference this makes when it comes to mapping, navigation and obstacle avoidance. LiDAR fires lasers off in all directions to map and navigate a 3D work space with uncanny accuracy, even in pitch darkness. Having this level of navigation redundancy on board is a major coup for Mammotion since most other manufacturers tend to focus on just two navigation systems.

This Tri-Fusion Positioning System, as Mammotion calls it, has also allowed the Chinese company to introduce a unique ‘beta’ feature called Drop Mow so you can take it over to someone else’s lawn and have it cut their lawn as efficiently as yours. In terms of security, the LUBA 3 is firmly linked to the user’s account and that alone renders it useless to any thieves. Moreover, it is also equipped with GPS and 4G tracking for extra peace of mind.

Let’s take a good look at the Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD’s traction system. Where most smaller mowbots have two sturdy drive wheels to the rear or front and a smaller castor wheel for steering, the LUBA 3 is all-wheel drive and fitted with suspension. Ostensibly, its wheel system is comprised of a pair of large, robust paddled tyres on the rear and a pair of narrower front wheels equipped with smaller omnidirectional spinners that allow the robot to turn on a sixpence. This setup means the LUBA 3 can ride over very rough terrain, scale roots and small sills without getting into pickle. But more importantly its powerful 4x4 drive system also allows it to scale inclines of up to 80% (38.6°) which is steeper than any conventional lawn mower can safely handle.

Granted, the LUBA 3’s specialised front wheels have been known to occasionally tear up grass in soft-soiled shady areas when using the Zero Turn option but this can be cured to some degree by opting for its slower three-point-turn function instead. I’ve personally had no bald-patch issues but I do know that others have.

However, I should add that the omnidirectional front wheels tend to collect a lot of mud which is unsightly, but thankfully the whole unit is IPX6 rated for protection against high-pressure water spray so you can easily blast off the mud with a hose. Perhaps Mammotion will change the LUBA 3’s front drive mechanism at some point and adopt a system like the forthcoming Segway Navimow X Series, which uses a zero-turn method comprised of two front wheels that swivel 90 degrees when turning.

I’ve been consistently blown away by the high level of build quality and huge amount of design flourishes Mammotion injects into its LUBA series and this model is the best yet. However, I will stress that this robot lawn mower has been intentionally designed for large lawns — and even paddocks and fields — and can therefore be considered overkill if used on an average urban lawn. Thankfully Mammotion also produces a smaller LUBA Mini 2 for diminutive lawns, and you should check it out.

Design score: 4.5 / 5

Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000: performance

• Top cutting performance
• Creates beautiful lawn stripes
• Reassuring reliability

As with its forebear, the LUBA 2, I have no issues to report regarding installation, initial lawn mapping, navigation or cutting performance. I simply set up a series of schedules in the Mammotion app and the LUBA 3 has headed off to mow the lawn while I’ve sat indoors doing other things. And when it has finished leaving its swathe of majestic lawn stripes, it’s followed the perimeter all the way back to its charging base.

Yes, I did use my conventional lawn mower with grass cutting container for the first cut of the season because the LUBA 3, like the vast majority of lawn robots, uses the mulching technique and I didn’t want clumps of cuttings littering the lawn. This is why it’s always best to hang on to your conventional mower.

However, if you program the LUBA 3 to head out every two or three days during spring and summer, it will simply slice off about 2mm of growth at a time and feed the nitrogen-rich cuttings back into the turf, thereby fertilising it as the same time. And without a grass cutting in sight. What’s not to like?

I have always opted for the parallel ‘zigzag’ cutting option in the app, followed by two perimeter laps (you can select up to four perimeter laps and each pass is a little closer to the edge). No, the LUBA 3 — and almost all other bots — won’t cut to the very edge of a wall, fence or solid flower border, but then neither will a conventional lawnmower. Hence you will still need a grass trimmer to hand.

I also tested the LUBA 3’s multi-zone function though this did entail me carrying the unit up some stairs because I’m unable to create a direct pathway to zones two and three. Nevertheless, I was mightily impressed by how well it navigated between the two new zones while sticking rigidly to the borders, and without venturing into the adjacent road. In fact, so successful is this multi-zone system that, were I able to create a series of unobstructed pathways, I could feasibly program the LUBA 3 to leave my garden and head off to maintain our village cemetery and the lawn areas around the church. Proof positive that, were it not for the prospect of theft, most of the new generation of mowbots could feasibly replace a professional gardener with a conventional lawn mower. Sad but true.

In terms of obstacle avoidance, the LUBA 3 is perfectly adept at bypassing any obstacle larger than, say, a ping pong ball. I tested it using the unit’s Standard obstacle avoidance setting and it stopped about three feet away from a stuffed seagull toy before rerouting itself for another pass. I then set it to Sensitive and it deftly avoided a toy dog bone just one inch in height. That’s a resounding pass in my book since, were it any more sensitive, the robot would likely avoid garden leaves and you don’t want that. Swings and roundabouts spring to mind.

My final test was the LUBA 3’s toughest. There’s a children’s playground behind my house and it has a bank so steep and slippery that I can’t get up it without scrabbling on all fours. For this test I opted to manually steer the LUBA 3 up the slope using the app’s virtual controls, half expecting it to fail miserably. But, joy of joys, it scuttled up the slope like one of those V8-powered Formula Off-Road cars you see negotiating near-vertical terrain in a disused quarry. Very impressive indeed.

Granted, some may baulk at the thought of a robot performing a task that they consider enjoyable, and I thought that too the first time I was offered a wireless robot to test. But when I look back at the time and effort I’ve saved to perform other important tasks like lounging in the garden with a G&T, pruning the flowers or simply watching it work — not to say the convenience of having the lawn cut while away from home — I’ve become a complete convert and would now find it hard to live without one.

Performance score: 5 / 5

Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000: Mammotion app

• Exceedingly comprehensive
• Simple to navigate
• Some glitches need ironing out

The accompanying feature-rich Mammotion app is central to getting the best performance from all models in the company’s current line up, and one of its key strengths is the amazing level of customization if offers, whether you’re fettling with it at home or away.

Users can create multiple mowing areas, adjust cutting patterns, height and blade speed, direction and style of travel (zigzag, chessboard effect and angle of cut), even create shapes and words on the lawn. It also offers the wherewithal to set the amount of perimeter laps and whether you want the bot to return to its charging base in a direct route or along the perimeter to avoid spoiling the lawn stripes it has already produced.

Nevertheless, the experience is not flawless. I’ve experienced occasional connectivity issues when away from home or when using Bluetooth on my iPhone 15 Pro, plus a few interface quirks that can make fine-tuning lawn zones more time-consuming than expected. There’s scope for improvement, in other words.

Should you buy the Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

How I tested the Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000

As per usual, I lived with the Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD 3000 for a couple of weeks, watching it work on a scheduled basis and examining the results of its cutting performance. I then put it to a series of manual tests, including obstacle avoidance, multi-zone mowing and a steep hill climb. It has impressed me in all disciplines and continues to do so. Like the LUBA 2 I reviewed in 2024, I see no major issues with this newer model which has been a breeze to use from initial set up to the reliable way it goes about its bi-weekly chores.

• The IKEA Skaftsärv is an LED gradient light costing $6.99 / £4 (about AU$8)
• It looks similar to the Philips Hue Play Gradient Light Bar, but can't mirror colors from a TV screen
• The WiZ Gradient Light Bar is an affordable alternative that can sync to a TV

IKEA has just launched a new lamp that looks strikingly similar to a popular Philips Hue light, but at a tiny fraction of the price. The IKEA Skaftsärv is available in the UK for just $6.99 / £4 (about AU$8), and each one has three lighting zones that can cast a colorful glow onto your walls or shine into the room.

As our colleagues at T3 note, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Philips Hue Play Light Bar, and if you like the idea of making your home cinema system more immersive but have been put off by the price tag, you might be tempted to snag a pair of Skaftsärvs instead — but there's something you should know first.

Although the Skaftsärv can shift colors in response to music, and is dimmable, there's no way to connect it to your TV or PC monitor to extend the colors from the screen. It's impressive considering how little it costs, but it's only a decorative lamp, not a smart light.

By contrast, the Philips Hue Play Light Bar can be used to add ambience to a room, or to create an Amblight-style effect around and behind your TV when connected to a Philips Hue HDMI Sync Box. Up to three Light Bars can be connected to the same power supply.

You can control your Light Bars via the Philips Hue app, and like all Philips Hue devices, they are compatible with all the major smart home ecosystems so you can operate them with voice commands, connect them to your other smart devices, and use them in automations. Take a look at our Philips Hue Play Light Bar review to find out more.

Lighting for less

If the Philips Hue light is outside your budget, but you want something that will provide a similar experience, take a look at the WiZ Gradient Light Bars, which cost just $59.99 / £54.99, and work in a very similar way when linked to a WiZ HDMI Sync Box.

Although they use different technologies, both Philips Hue and WiZ smart lights are made by the same company (Signify), so you can be confident that you're getting good quality. In fact, our reviewer Abigail Shannon gave the WiZ Gradient Light Bars a near-perfect four and a half stars out of five thanks to their ease of use, versatility, and smooth color gradient. Check out our full WiZ Gradient Light Bars review for more details.

• Ring has released a wireless version of its premium 4K video doorbell
• It has also launched three 2K doorbells (two battery-powered and one wired)
• All the battery doorbells are compatible with a new Ring Solar Charger

Amazon has just unveiled a battery-powered 4K video doorbell for ultra-sharp images, with no wires. Like the wired version that launched last year, the Ring Battery Video Doorbell Pro (2nd Gen) features Retinal 4K video, 10x zoom, improved night vision, and according to Ring, "installs virtually anywhere without rewiring".

It has an extra-fast charging quick-release battery pack, and with a Ring AI Pro subscription, you'll get access to features like AI video descriptions that tell you exactly what's happening before you check the footage, and let you search for specific events rather than scrubbing through recordings. The Wired Video Doorbell Pro has a list price of $249.99 / £219.99 (about AU$360).

There are also three new 2K video doorbells in the mix. If you're looking for something wireless, you can take your pick from the Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (2nd Gen) and the Ring Battery Video Doorbell (2nd Gen), which cost $179.99 / £149.99 (about AU$260) and $99.99 / £79.99 (about AU$149) respectively.

If you already have doorbell wiring, there's also a new version of the Ring Wired Video Doorbell, which is the most affordable option at $79.99 / £59.99 (about AU$120).

Want a wireless doorbell, but worried about battery life? Ring has also launched a new solar charger, which is compatible with all of its new battery doorbells. The sensibly-named Ring Solar Charger can be mounted anywhere, with the doorbell installed on top, and is priced at $49.99 (about £38 / AU£70).

The new doorbells and charger are available to pre-order now in the US and the UK. I'm hoping to put the new models through their paces very soon to find out whether they deserve a place in TechRadar's roundup of the best video doorbells. Stay tuned for more details.

Alexa+ has landed on UK soil, and while customers wait with anticipation to try the AI-powered virtual assistant, it's a great opportunity to look back.

Since the service launched in the US last spring, it's already seen some big changes as customers navigate a new world of assistive smarts and agentic AI. Now, with the service coming to the UK, there's also been a lot of naturalization work to help Alexa+ navigate our regional accents, idioms, and culture — right the way down to understanding some of our favorite snacks.

Having watched some live demos at the launch event this week, I'm most excited to see how natural interacting with Alexa+ will feel — and according to Daniel Rausch, Amazon's VP of Alexa and Echo, the best summary is "it's just more delightful." We sat down to find out more from Rausch about the rollout, learnings, and ambitions for the future of Alexa+.

You can watch the full interview below on our YouTube channel, and make sure to check out the rest of our Amazon Echo and Alexa+ coverage, too!

Rausch says the early results have been quite something behind the scenes. "Engagement with Alexa+ is up two to three times over the original Alexa," he explains, calmly confident as he discusses the road till now. "Even things I didn't think could grow, like music, which goes up 25% in terms of streaming time when a customer turns on Alexa+.

"It's just more delightful... It's not like customers have 25% more time!" he adds, though he was keen to highlight that the overall increase of engagement owes a lot to some of the exciting new features facilitated by a smarter, faster Alexa. "In the US, I'll use it to book rideshare, or we'll book a table for lunch together. The whole thing is what is elevating that engagement level."

Of course, it's never all roses, and certainly not with an Early Access programme. Still, Rausch takes a positive view of these learnings. "I've never shipped a product this easy to report a bug," he jokes, reflecting on what I can only imagine was a hectic first year of service. "You can just say to Alexa what feedback you have, and that helps us to learn there's an edge to sand somewhere."

One example of note was the new Alexa+ voice and cadence. "Some customers — it's a minority of them — they don't like the new voices," says Rausch. So now, Amazon offers a wider range of voices, and when Alexa+ introduces herself, she offers you the chance to change her settings.

Naturally, concerns may remain around always-on devices when it comes to privacy and security, but with 10 years of service in the UK under their belt in addition to their years of US coverage, Rausch seems confident in Amazon's approach. "Customers have the same degree of transparency and control [with Alexa+]... it turns out, if you build products with transparency and control, you also generally speaking meet every regulation and legal requirement."

Customers who already know their way around Alexa's Privacy Hub will be glad to know that the service, with all its features, remains the same for Alexa+. "You can see everything Alexa heard, you can delete things... you can control all of your data settings around training. Everything's in the same place, and it applies to the Alexa service as a whole."

While all US Prime customers with compatible devices can now register for Alexa+ (or pay a standalone subscription of $19.99), for now, the free beta programme in the UK is limited to the Amazon Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11, Echo Dot Max, and Echo Studio. If you've already got one at home, you can sign up for an Early Access invite now.

It'll probably take about the same amount of time for Alexa+ to fully launch in the UK as it did in the US — so about a year. In that time, we'll see the service come to a wide range of Alexa-enabled devices, including your Fire TV, and it will soon be available in a web browser at alexa.co.uk.

Aura Ink: review

Aura makes stunning digital photo frames. The Aura Walden, for example, currently sits atop a sideboard in my home with its sleek frame, slick mount and punchy 15-inch display — and it also sits atop our list of the best digital photo frames.

So when Aura unveils an entirely new frame with a display that's unlike any other I’ve tested, naturally it has my attention. Said frame is the Aura Ink.

The Ink features an energy-efficient 13.3-inch color E Ink display, for a print-like rendering of your images. Unlike other LCD digital frames, the Ink is Calm Tech Certified — consider it a digital detox thanks to its natural, muted display.

Its E Ink Spectra™ 6 display can render millions of colors, but look closely and detail is dotty, despite its 1600 x 1200 resolution and 150ppi density. The Ink lacks the vibrancy and clarity of Aura’s other LCD digital frames, such as the Walden and Aura Aspen, or Lexar’s Pexar and Starlight, but it does work well in bright interiors, especially for artworks and minimalist photography rather than detail-rich photos. Ultimately, it's much closer to the look of printed photos.

What’s disappointing, however, is that Aura has kitted the Ink out with a somewhat glossy-finish panel, which can suffer from glare. I suspect it's no worse than the Walden and Aspen frames, but those LCD displays are illuminated, and as such they're significantly punchier.

Given that the Ink reflects light rather than emits it (like LCD does), it is, in reality, a niche frame. It needs the right conditions — well-lit rooms, but not too sunny — to shine, where it's probably my new favorite digital frame. If I had to choose between the Ink and Walden frames, though — and I've observed both side by side — it’s the latter that gets my vote for display versatility, even if it's yet another digital display to look at.

That said, the Aura Ink has super-low power consumption and a run time of around three months without a continuous power supply. No cables are needed, just a quarterly charge (assuming you only change the displayed image once per day).

Eliminating the reliance on ugly trailing cables is a design win. With regular LCD digital frames, cables are a necessary evil, and tricky to hide when mounting the frame on a wall, though they are less of an issue if you’re resting the frame on a surface.

I’ve come across one or two frames which are supplied with a white cable instead of a black one, including the Walden, which goes some way in disguising the cable (assuming your walls are licked with a light shade of paint). But there’s no doubt that a no-cable-at-all setup is the dream option.

Like the Walden, the Ink's display is housed in an attractive frame with a sleek bezel and a 1.5-inch mount (the off-white border between the bezel and the image). It also features a variety of mounting options, being positionable to display images in landscape and portrait format whether the frame sits on a table, bookshelf or other surfaces, or is fixed to a wall.

Aura has made the Ink impressively slimline — it measures just 0.6 inches deep, compared to the around one-inch depth of most other frames I've tested.

It charges via USB-C, and the port is easily accessible, which is not something I can say for the Walden's fiddly power input. The USB-C port is for charging only, however — you can't connect devices to add images.

Nor does the Ink have a memory card slot — all image uploads are via the companion app. And it displays photos only; there's no sound. All told, the Ink is as stripped-back as digital frames come.

The Ink shares the same companion app as all Aura frames, which delivers one of the best user experiences in the market and works seamlessly for wireless uploads and display updates, from anywhere with an internet connection.

Updating the displayed image on the Ink is an odd experience if you happen to be looking at the frame at the time. The frame flashes rapidly for the best part of a minute while the pixels of the existing image clear and are refreshed with the new one.

The Ink is limited to a maximum of 12 image changes per day. This is not Google Photos in a frame, where you might gather around with family, enjoying a rolling image gallery of holiday snaps, but one where you choose your image and live with it for the day or longer.

The real sting in the tail is how much the Aura Ink costs: $499 (pricing and availability for other regions is yet to be confirmed). You really are paying a premium for the E Ink display; even Aura's larger 15-inch LCD digital photo frames cost much less.

I've had the Ink frame in my home for several months, and I'm still somewhat undecided. I think it's the better frame to place on a wall than an LCD type, especially in a bright interior, where it's unbeatable. It's undeniably a premium product, and probably worth paying extra for, especially if you're weary of excessive screen time. However, LCD frames are more versatile.

Aura Ink: price & release date

Aura unveiled the Ink frame in October 2025, and it's available in one display size — 13.3-inch — for $499 in the US. At the time of writing it's not directly available outside the US; previous Aura frames have typically gone on sale globally approximately six months after their US launch, and hopefully the same will be true for the Ink.

I've mentioned the Walden frame a few times, which is a larger 15-inch LCD frame but with a much lower price tag, costing around 40% less. Put simply, you're paying a big premium for the Ink's E Ink display.

Aura Ink: specs

Should I buy the Aura Ink?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Aura Ink: also consider

How I tested the Aura Ink

• I tested the Aura Ink over several months
• I uploaded a selection of photos from my Android phone
• I placed the frame on various surfaces around my home, in vertical and horizontal formats

Aura sent me its Ink frame and I set it up in my home months before writing this review. Unlike other reviews published soon after the Ink's release, I've actually tested its long battery life – and yes, the three-month battery life based on no more than a single image change per day is accurate.

I've placed the Ink on a sideboard close to a window, in a dim corner of my front room, and various other spaces around the house.

I've uploaded a variety of photos to the frame through Aura's companion app for Android — both minimalist and detail-rich images, in vertical and horizontal formats.

I already have the Aura Walden in my home, so I've been able to make direct comparisons between the two frames.

• First reviewed: March 2026
• Read more about how we test