The Amazfit GTS 2 and GTR 2 are premium smartwatches with Amazon Alexa integration

After launching the affordable Amazfit Bip S and Bip S Lite earlier this year, Chinese wearables manufacturer Huami has now unveiled the new Amazfit GTS 2 and Amazfit GTR 2. The new smartwatches are upgraded versions of last year’s Amazfit GTS (review) and Amazfit GTR (review), with a slightly modified design and a couple of useful new features. Here’s everything you need to know about Amazfit’s latest premium smartwatches:

Amazfit GTR 2 & Amazfit GTS 2: Specifications

Specification	Amazfit GTR 2	Amazfit GTS 2
Build	Sport Edition: Aluminum alloy case, silicone straps Classic Edition: Steel case, leather strap	Aluminum alloy case, silicone strap
Dimensions & Weight	46.4 x 46.4 x 10.7mm Sport Edition: 31.5g (without strap) Classic Edition: 39g (without strap)	42.8 x 35.6 x 9.7mm 24.7g (without strap)
Display	1.39-inch AMOLED 454 x 454 pixels 326ppi 450 nits Tempered glass, anti-fingerprint coating, ODLC coating	1.65-inch AMOLED 348 x 442 pixels 341ppi 450 nits ODLC coating
Sensors	Huami BioTracker 2 PPG sensor Air pressure sensor Accelerometer 3-axis gyroscope Geomagnetic sensor Ambient light sensor	Huami BioTracker 2 PPG sensor Air pressure sensor Accelerometer 3-axis gyroscope Geomagnetic sensor Ambient light sensor
Storage	3GB	3GB
Battery	471mAh	246mAh
NFC support	No	Yes
Connectivity & Location	Bluetooth 5.0 WLAN 2.4GHz GPS GLONASS	Bluetooth 5.0 WLAN 2.4GHz GPS GLONASS
Water resistance	5ATM	5ATM
Compatibility	Android 5.0 or iOS 10.0 and above	Android 5.0 or iOS 10.0 and above

The Amazfit GTR 2 has a circular dial that packs in a 1.39-inch AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 450 nits. The classic variant of the watch features a stainless steel body and a leather strap, while the sports model has an aluminum alloy body with a silicone strap. For fitness tracking, the smartwatch currently supports 12 sports modes, and Huami plans to add support for up to 90 modes in the future.

The smartwatch features Huami’s proprietary BioTracker 2 PPG heart-rate sensor for continuous heart rate monitoring, built-in GPS, and GLONASS for positioning, NFC, and support for SpO2 monitoring. The smartwatch also includes Huami’s OxygenBeats blood oxygen engine and SomnusCare sleep engine. The smartwatch is water-resistant up to 5ATM, it offers 3GB of onboard storage for up to 600 music files, you can use it to answer phone calls, and it even includes Amazon Alexa support.

The Amazfit GTS 2 features a rectangular dial like its predecessor, but it’s thinner and lighter than the first-gen model. While it looks pretty much the same at first glance, Amazfit has made some minor design changes that give the watch a more premium look. It packs in a 1.65-inch AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 450 nits and an anti-fingerprint coating.

The smartwatch offers 5 ATM water resistance, blood oxygen monitoring, 24-hour heart rate monitoring, support for receiving calls, 3GB of onboard storage with music playback support, and built-in GPS and GLONASS. In terms of fitness features, the Amazfit GTS 2 features 12 professional sports modes, and Huami plans to add up to 90 more modes in the future. Much like the Amazfit GTR 2, the GTS 2 also comes with Amazon Alexa support.

Both the new smartwatches are built around the Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) health assessment system, which delivers a personalized PAI score to help users easily monitor their health and activity goals. Furthermore, the smartwatches now also support third-party apps like Strava to let users migrate their fitness data to their favorite fitness apps. In terms of customization, both the Amazfit GTR 2 and Amazfit GTS 2 come with over 50 digital watch faces.

Huami claims that both the new Amazfit smartwatches also offer better battery life than their predecessors. The Amazfit GTR 2 is rated for 14 days of typical use and 38 days of basic use. The Amazfit GTS 2, on the other hand, is rated for 7 days of typical use and 20 days of basic use.

Pricing & Availability

The Amazfit GTR 2 comes in two variants — a Sport Edition with aluminum case and silicone strap and a Classic Edition with a steel case and leather strap. The watch goes on sale on October 30th at a starting price of $179/£159. The Amazfit GTS 2 comes in a single variant priced at $179/£159, and it goes on sale in the US on November 1. The watch will be available in the UK starting on November 15th.

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OnePlus 8 series gets OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 3 with Canvas AOD

OnePlus today began rolling out the third open beta of OxygenOS 11 for the OnePlus 8 series, introducing a handful of fixes and enhancements. Among the new features, OnePlus has introduced Always-On Display support to its Canvas feature, which we detailed at the end of last month.

OnePlus Android 11 Tracker: Here are all the official OxygenOS 11 beta and stable builds to download and install

If you’re unfamiliar with Canvas, the feature essentially draws a wireframe picture based on a lock screen photo on your phone. It looks tailor-made to support the Always-On feature in OxygenOS 11. OnePlus said it also optimized the animation effect with Canvas, making the unlock experience smoother.

The latest open beta for OxygenOS 11 also optimized the UI smoothness of calls, fixed the issue that saw text blocked in some games, and updated the Android Security Patch level to October 2020. OnePlus also fixed an issue in Zen Mode where some UI elements stopped running when the mode was activated.

OnePlus has already rolled out the stable version of OxygenOS 11 for the OnePlus 8 series, which brings the aforementioned Always-On Display, improved one-handed use, and standard Android 11 features like bubble notifications support, Device Controls in the power menu, and a Conversations section in notifications.

OnePlus 8 Forums ||| OnePlus 8 Pro Forums

OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 3 for the OnePlus 8 Series – Changelog, Downloads

You can download OxygenOS 11 beta 3 for the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro below. Here’s the full changelog:

Changelog

• System
  
  • Optimized the UI smoothness of Call
    
  • Optimized background process management mechanism to improve standby performance
    
  • Fixed the issue that text was blocked in some games
    
  • Optimized the issue that input text was blocked in some games
    
  • Improved system stability and fixed general issues
    
  • Updated Android Security Patch to 2020.10
    
• Ambient display
  
  • Optimized the animation effect with Canvas, making the unlock experience smoother
    
  • Canvas now supports Always-on ambient display(Settings-Ambient Display-Always-on ambient display-Choose “All day” )
    
• Zen Mode
  
  • Fixed the low probability issue that system settings interface stopped running when Zen Mode turned on

Downloads

• OnePlus 8
  • Global
    • Full OTA
    • Incremental OTA from OB2
  • India
    • Full OTA
    • Incremental OTA from OB2
• OnePlus 8 Pro
  • Global
    • Full OTA
    • Incremental OTA from OB2
  • India
    • Full OTA
    • Incremental OTA from OB2

Thanks to XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username for the download links!

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Amazon Fire tablets get a Smart Home Device Dashboard to control Alexa devices

Amazon is rolling out an update to select Fire tablets that will turn them into Alexa-compatible smart home devices (via ZDNet).

The feature, called Device Dashboard, introduces a Smart Home button found in the navigation bar. It’s there where touch might be more convenient than voice, according to Amazon. When launched, Fire tablet owners will get an overview of all their smart home devices, with options to quickly turn off all lights, plugs, and switches.

The Device Dashboard also features tiles for pinned and recent devices, so you can view cameras, turn off lights, and adjust thermostats. The Amazon Fire tablets that are compatible with the new Device Dashboard are:

• Amazon Fire 7 (2019)
• Amazon Fire HD 8 (2018)
• Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020)
• Amazon Fire HD 10 (2019)

Amazon said you don’t have to close your current app to access the Device Dashboard. You can even access the controls from the lock screen, so you don’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to control your devices.

Amazon’s Device Dashboard is all about touch and is reminiscent of Google’s recent changes to its Smart Display UI, which puts more emphasis on touch rather than voice. The difference is Amazon’s Fire tablets are portable, making today’s update a pretty big deal, especially if you have a lot of Alexa-enabled smart home devices on your network.

The update is rolling out to supported devices starting today. If you don’t own a Fire tablet, you can get a Fire 7 for as low as $49.

Amazon Fire 7

The Amazon Fire 7 tablet is an affordable device that's great for playing games and watching movies. And now it's great for controlling your smart home devices.

See at Amazon

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Google announces new emulator, data analysis, and performance insight tools for Firebase

Google’s Firebase is a pretty comprehensive set of development tools. Its goal is to make app development and maintenance easier, with features like detailed crash reporting, user analytics, authentication, and storage. And Google is constantly working to make Firebase better.

With the COVID-19 pandemic shifting millions of workers to work-from-home status, demand for remote collaboration and testing tools has grown dramatically. Google says that over 2.5 million monthly active apps now use Firebase every month — up from 2 million apps this time last year. To help developers get started with Firebase, Google adapted developer meetups and community events to be virtual; they also hosted a 5-part series of talks and tutorials earlier this year to answer frequently asked questions, share knowledge, and improve productivity.

Today, Firebase is introducing a host of new features to further accelerate app development, get actionable insights, and tailor the tools to fit your needs. Here are the highlights from Firebase Summit 2020.

Emulator Tools

A while back, Firebase introduced the Emulator Suite. This feature allows developers to locally emulate various online Firebase features, such as storage or hosting. This can be useful if you need to test an online feature, but want to avoid doing it in a production environment. However, up until today, it didn’t fully support the entire online set of features in Firebase. While most functions worked, Authentication was missing.

Now, the Emulator Suite will fully support all of Firebase’s online functions, including Hosting, Realtime Database, Firestore, Cloud Functions, Cloud Pub/Sub, and Firebase Authentication.

Hosting Preview Channels

Firebase Hosting is exactly what it sounds like. Developers can use it to host web pages and web applications that are then deployed over Google’s CDN. Testing changes to your site using Hosting could be tricky, however. Firebase previously had no easy way to preview or view changes before going live. That’s a big problem if an entire development team is working remotely, making it much more difficult to coordinate testing. Thankfully, Firebase is now adding a new feature to let developers publish changes to preview channels.

When publishing to a preview channel, developers can generate a unique URL to share with teammates or testers, and view a fully-functional version of their changes, without having to push to production or test off-site.

Imported Segments

An important part of analytics is to divide users into segments, based on common characteristics. This allows developers to target messages, new updates, notifications, etc., to specific groups of people. For a while now, Firebase has allowed developers to export analytics data from Firebase to other analytics services like BigQuery, but the reverse wasn’t possible. If you had a data source that wasn’t Firebase, you would have to manually create segments based on that data.

Now, however, Firebase has added the ability to import custom user segments. If you have multiple data sources for analytics, you can now import it all into Firebase to manage your users in one place.

---

That’s a high-level overview of the major new features, but this isn’t all that Google is rolling out. There’s also a new Extension called Detect Online Presence that shows you which users or devices are currently online, a redesigned Performance Monitoring dashboard that makes it clearer if a critical metric needs attention, semantic versioning support for Remote Config, and three new Google Analytics APIs.

For more details on these features, and to learn more about what else is coming, be sure to check out Google’s blog post or watch the live stream for yourself on YouTube.

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Save over 90% on these top Microsoft Excel courses today

From financial forecasts to keeping stock, Microsoft Excel is used in countless ways. As data becomes ever more important, recruiters are looking for people who really know how to crunch the numbers. If you would like to update your skills or learn Excel from scratch, take a look at these training bundles — now with over 90% off at the XDA Depot.

The Complete Excel Excellence Bundle

This collection of eight courses starts with the fundamentals, but it helps you gain the skills of an expert business analyst. You get 47 hours of training in total, covering features like logic, Power Pivot, and Power Query, VBA, and more. Normally valued at $648, these highly-rated courses are now only $39.99.

The 2020 Master Microsoft Excel & Power BI Certification Bundle

Excel is often used together with Microsoft BI to reveal key insights. In this bundle, you learn how to get the best out of both apps, with 28 hours of training on data plotting, auto calculation, macros, visualization, and much more. Worth $1,592, these courses have thousands of positive ratings — and they’re now just $34.99.

The Complete 2020 Microsoft Excel Expert Bundle

If you want to focus on Excel, this bundle can help you improve your data analysis skills. Through four courses, you learn VBA from scratch, dive into charts and graphs, and discover the potential of Power Pivot. The line-up is worth $275, but you can get all 20 hours of training today for $29.99.

eLearnExcel: The 2020 Excel Certification School Bundle

To prove your newly acquired skills to employers, you might want to grab an eLearnExcel diploma — as trusted by Microsoft, Facebook, and KPMG. This collection of eight courses works towards certification, with 300 videos and 60 hours of content. Normally $999, lifetime access is now just $49.99.

The Premium A to Z Microsoft Excel Bundle Ft. Alan Jarvis & Chris Dutton

Covering all the major features, this bundle of 10 courses helps you get a complete education in Excel. The training comes from Chris Dutton, who is better known as Excel Maven, and the highly-rated instructor, Alan Jarvis. The courses sell for $1,732 in total, but you get them for just $39.99 with this deal.

Prices subject to change 

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Yeah, XDA made a phone…

There have been many rumors and running jokes over the years that XDA would, and probably should, make a phone. Our history with alternative platforms such as LineageOS (and CyanogenMod that came before it) has meant that XDA has been at the forefront of helping develop viable alternatives to the primary platforms available on smartphones.

Today, we’re super excited to announce that we’ve finally done it – we’ve made a phone. Earlier this year, we partnered with F(x)tec to discuss how we can bring an alternative platform to a wider audience. The F(x)tec Pro1-X does just this: it’s the world’s first phone to run LineageOS out of the box, and you can also get a version running Ubuntu Touch OS.

Here are all the details:

A choice over software

CyanogenMod – the spiritual ancestor to LineageOS – began in the XDA community, and since then, we’ve helped to maintain, develop, and expand the devices that LineageOS supports. It’s safe to say that the history of LineageOS and XDA are inexorably linked and we’re excited to launch the first phone running LineageOS out of the box.

The main reason we created the Pro1-X was to offer our users a choice. Every phone launched either runs Android or iOS, and even the best Android phones require rooting to be able to truly customize the experience.

Now, there’s more than just two options: the Pro1-X doesn’t only run LineageOS; there are also variants available running Ubuntu Touch OS and Android, and we’re actively exploring other platforms.

Key Specifications

The Pro1-X might look familiar to you; we took the popular F(x)tec Pro1 that was launched last year and made a few key tweaks. The RAM and storage have both been increased – from 6GB and 128GB to 8GB and 256GB respectively – and the Pro1-X comes in this new Discovery Blue color that looks fantastic!

Beyond that, many of the Pro1 specs have remained the same. There’s a 66-key full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from beneath the display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, Dual SIM support, a fingerprint scanner, a dedicated camera button, USB-C, and HDMI out, and far more. There’s also an 8MP front camera, a 12MP primary camera, and a 5MP secondary camera.

Why we created the Pro1-X

For years, we’ve teased that we’re planning to create a phone. So why did we finally do it? This year especially, privacy has become more important than ever before, and LineageOS is known for letting you go beyond the controls you’d find on a traditional Android smartphone. In particular, the Privacy Guard – in LineageOS 16, which was replaced by AOSP’s Permissions Hub in LineageOS 17 – allows you to only share the data you want to share, and not share the data you don’t want to share.

We’ve also seen that the popularity of LineageOS and other platforms across our community has grown over the past few years and there’s more interest in these alternative Android distributions.

Beyond just LineageOS, there’s a large community of Ubuntu users who’ve always dreamed of having a smartphone running Ubuntu Touch, and the Pro1-X is the first Qualcomm-powered smartphone to run Ubuntu Touch. Not only that, we’ve also managed to get the HDMI-out feature working, so you can plug an HDMI cable in and connect it to a big screen, and use the display as a trackpad.

A special launch price for the XDA community

Building a smartphone isn’t cheap, even when we’re adapting an existing device with some key upgrades. That said, we’ve managed to keep our costs down and there’s a special price for the XDA community.

The full retail price of the Pro1-X is $899. But for the XDA community, there are a limited number of devices available at $639, which is 29% off! If you’re fast enough, we also have a pre-early bird offer for $599, which is a saving of 33%!! To find out more details, head over to our Indiegogo crowdfunding page. You can only access the special XDA price using the link on this page!

We’re super excited to finally launch the XDA phone, and we’re proud to be helping elevate LineageOS and Ubuntu Touch OS to the next level.

  Get the special XDA price!

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The fantastic Logitech G533 gaming headset is just $66, one of its lowest prices yet

If you are following my deal round-up posts, then you know I love the Logitech G533 gaming headset. Going on sale for half off at a time that my old gaming headset was dying, the G533 was a godsend, being a wireless headset that worked properly and didn’t randomly change the volume on me. I’ve been using them for about a month now and have had next to no issues with them. They’re comfortable, don’t lose the Bluetooth connection when I head to the kitchen to grab a drink, and they last a long time without needing a recharge.

I’m pretty picky about my headsets, too. I wear glasses and have sensitive ears, so a lot of headsets I’ve picked up either pinch my glasses in an uncomfortable way or made my ears ache after a couple of hours. It’s not the best experience when gaming or watching movies. My last headset did the job for a few years, but eventually, they fell apart and the volume knob became too easy to jostle around.

I knew I couldn’t pick up a cheap headset again, but one perk of being a Deals Guru is that I can usually find what I’m looking for at a discount… with the added bonus that I can then tell you about the same deal and we all benefit. So when I initially saw the Logitech G533 headset, I knew I found a winner and needed everyone to know about it.

When I picked the Logitech G533s up last month, they were $75, half off the MSRP. Now, they’re even lower, and you can grab this quality headset for just $66. I thought it was well worth the price at $75, but you really can’t argue with saving even more! I’m not the only one that likes this headset, either, as it sports a four-star rating on Amazon.

Logitech G533 Gaming Headset

Stop messing with headset wires. Logitech's wireless G533 headset is only $66, and this is a quality buy. With comfortable ear cups, great sound, and a long battery life, these will not disappoint.

Buy from Amazon

Amazon is currently saying the Logitech G533s won’t be in stock again until the 29th, but put your order in now, relax, and they’ll be at your doorstep pretty soon.

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