Philips Hue loses its Nest integration next week, and Google Home still isn’t ready

Philips Hue is undoubtedly the market leader when it comes to smart lighting, but it’s about to lose its compatibility with the outgoing Works With Nest protocol, as soon as next week. It’s been over a year since Google first announced it would be sunsetting the Nest app and closing Works with Nest, in favour of the Google Home ecosystem. From the outset, it has been handled badly, with users forced to choose between their existing integrations, or migrate their account to Google Home, which wasn’t, and indeed isn’t, ready to replace it. If you’re not familiar, a good example is the fact that Nest Protect devices still don’t work with Google Home properly, though Google has said that this is imminent (better late than never, eh), and some users are finally seeing devices showing up in their dashboard.

Meanwhile, Phillips has had integrations with both Nest and Google Home since day one and has preserved the latter for those that aren’t ready to migrate to an incomplete alternative. The company has posted an announcement on its blog, explaining:

Google is transitioning its ‘Works with Nest’ programme to the ‘Works with Hey Google’ programme. Related to this, Philips Hue integration with Nest Thermostat, Nest Cam and Nest Protect will be discontinued from November 17, 2020.

This will only be temporary, as Google is building existing Works with Nest features into the Google Home app. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

The use of the phrase “only temporary” doesn’t bring much optimism, given that, as discussed, these things have been “only temporary” since May 2019. Although Google is finally moving forward with the type of functionality that Nest had, such as Home/Away routines, at present, many of the interactions between Hue and Nest, such as being able to flash the lights if smoke is detected, will be lost, and there’s no way of knowing if the Google Home API will ever be updated enough for full feature parity – there’s currently no logic engine (ie  IF/THEN/AND/OR/ELSE routines). In the short-to-medium term, therefore, the only option is to migrate your Phillips Hue bulbs over to Google Home and keep your fingers crossed. In the meantime, you can recreate some of those lost routines with an ancillary service like IFTTT, Home Assistant or an open-source Smart Home hub such as Homey. The sad fact is that we shouldn’t be surprised. Google’s track record of launching services that aren’t ready at the expense of ones that were is stellar – Google Play Music, Google Reader, Google Hangouts are just three examples, and with so much to do in order to bring Google Home into line with its competitors, it’s all another case of history repeating. Nest Pas?

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Montblanc brings its luxury Summit 2+ smartwatch with LTE to Verizon

Earlier this year in March, German luxury goods manufacturer Montblanc unveiled the Summit 2+ smartwatch. The WearOS-powered watch followed Montblanc’s Summit 2 from 2018, and it featured the same design as its predecessor. However, the new smartwatch featured a slightly larger 43.5mm case, a bigger 440mAh battery, and LTE support. At the time, Montblanc had announced that the watch would be available through Verizon in the US and Orange/Vodafone in Europe. But since its launch, the watch has only been available on Orange in Europe. Months after the official announcement, US residents can now finally purchase the Summit 2+ through Verizon.

The Montblanc Summit 2+ features a 1.28-inch AMOLED display, and it’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 3100 SoC with eSIM support for 4G LTE connectivity. Although the luxury smartwatch is running on an older chip, it offers most of the features that you’d find on a modern WearOS smartwatch, including calling/messaging support, music streaming, and more. On top of that, it offers a variety of fitness features like heart rate monitoring, stress level tracking, a dedicated Workout Coach app with VO2 max monitoring, etc.

The Montblanc Summit 2+ also features NFC for payments via GPay, and it includes an outdoor toolbox with a compass, speedometer, altimeter, and barometer for adventurous users. While the smartwatch works with both Android and iOS devices, it requires a Verizon smartphone to offer LTE connectivity.

Pricing & Availability

The Montblanc Summit 2+ will be available on Verizon’s website starting today. You can get the smartwatch for its full retail price of $1170 or you can opt-in for a $48.75 per month installment plan (24 monthly payments). Verizon is also offering a discount of $200 if you purchase an Android smartphone along with the watch. The Summit 2+ is available in a single 1GB RAM/8GB storage variant with 4 case color and strap options — Golden Steel case with Leather strap, Bronze Steel case with Leather strap, Steel case with Leather strap, and Black Steel case with Rubber strap.

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ProtonAOSP is the first custom ROM for the Pixel 5 with improved performance and battery life

Everybody is talking about the Google Pixel 5, for better or for worse. It’s Google’s latest flagship, and as such comes with the “stock” Android experience, the bootloader is easily unlockable (at least on the carrier unlocked variant), and flashing anything via Fastboot is no hassle. Thanks to the quick availability of the kernel source, it was fairly easy to predict that the aftermarket development madness would start afterwards—and surprise, surprise, we were all right. The first custom ROM for Pixel 5 has now been released, and XDA Senior Member kdrag0n is the developer who delivers the goodness to the community.

Google Pixel 5 XDA Forums

Dubbed as “ProtonAOSP”, the custom ROM seems to be pretty much stable for the most part. The underlying layer still based on AOSP 11, but it also manages to provide serious privacy-minded capabilities you won’t find on the Google’s stock software. The additional goodies are geared towards stability and performance, so it’s perfect for those who want to take advantage of all the features that the Pixel 5 offers, but with a bit more customizability.

Here are all the features offered by ProtonAOSP:

• Better performance and battery life than stock
• Refined UI: typography, colors, tweaks, frosted glass blur, custom dark theme
• Modern default settings: navigation, sounds, safe volume off, etc.
• Better screenshots: instant key combination, preview dismisses when taking new screenshot
• Privacy: microG support, quick settings security, internet & sensor permissions, camera & microphone indicators, minor hardening from GrapheneOS
• Usable default apps: clock, calculator, contacts, messaging, phone apps from LineageOS with custom UI tweaks
• Power user convenience: memory usage in Settings, advanced settings expanded by default
• Performance: Vulkan UI rendering, reduced APEX overhead, optimized memory pinning, responsive animations
• Reduced system notification clutter and annoying prompts

In terms of bugs, the developer notes that Wi-Fi calling is broken on some carriers and a handful of Pixel-exclusive features are missing. Interestingly, you should be able to pass SafetyNet without Magisk.

If you are lucky enough to already have a Google Pixel 5, you can start playing around with it. Just make sure to read every instruction carefully to avoid bricking your brand new device. You’ll also need to completely wipe your internal storage before flashing the ROM, so be sure to take a full backup of your important data beforehand.

Download ProtonAOSP for the Google Pixel 5

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YouTube Music may soon borrow two useful features from Spotify

Google is steadily pushing new features to YouTube Music to get it at par with Google Play Music. Over the last few weeks, the company has rolled out several features for free users that let them cast music to other devices, play uploaded songs, and even download playlists with uploaded music. On top of that, Google has introduced a host of new features to the service, like the recently added activity bar, which gives users quick access to four personalized playlists. But while YouTube Music still lacks a lot of features that were available in Play Music, Google is now focusing on borrowing features from rival Spotify.

“Year in Review” Playlist

According to a recent report from 9to5Google, YouTube Music will soon offer a new “Year in Review” playlist, which will let users “relive the top songs you listened to.” Both Spotify and Apple Music offer a similar playlist towards the end of the year, accompanied by some cool infographics and data about each user’s listening habits.

One YouTube Music user has already received this new playlist, which appears at the top of the app’s home page as “My 2020 Year in Review.” Underneath the cover art, YouTube Music also shows which artists are included in the playlist. However, unlike Spotify, the playlist doesn’t come with any infographics or data and the app doesn’t appear to have an option to share the custom playlist. Along with the personalized playlist, Google has also added general Top Songs 2020, Top Pop 2020, and Top Latin 2020 playlists to the service.

Sharing songs on Instagram and Snapchat stories

YouTube Music is also preparing to borrow another popular feature from Spotify, which will let users share songs as Instagram and Snapchat stories. According to a separate report from 9to5Google, Google has started testing the feature and YouTube Music’s custom share sheet already shows the new “Instagram stories” and “Snapchat stories” options for some users. But the functionality isn’t live yet, and tapping on either of these options crashes the app.

Once the feature rolls, selecting the options will share the selected song as a story on Instagram and Snapchat. While we’re yet to see what the resulting stories will look like, it’s safe to assume that it will include the album artwork and artist name. If Google is working with Instagram on the integration, the stories will likely include a direct link to open the song in YouTube Music.

As of now, we have no official information from Google regarding either of these features. We expect the company to release a statement as soon as the features are ready for primetime.

YouTube Music - Stream Songs & Music Videos (Free, Google Play) →

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Samsung announces Exynos 1080 SoC with ARM Cortex-A78 CPU cores and Mali-G78 GPU

Samsung’s Exynos lineup of chipsets has been lagging behind their counterparts for the last few generations. While this applies to SoCs across different price brackets, news around Samsung’s flagship processors trailing behind their competitors from the Qualcomm camp has gained most traction. The Exynos 990 from earlier this year was also overpowered by the Snapdragon 865, but Samsung has been working its way out to change this dynamic. At an event today in China, Samsung’s semiconductors division announced the Exynos 1080 to power Samsung’s next generation of high-end smartphones.

Exynos 1080: Samsung’s latest high-end processor

The Samsung Exynos 1080 SoC features an octa-core CPU design in a 1+3+4 configuration. It is fabricated with a 5nm EUV-based FinFET process, which is expected to make the chips 25% smaller and 20% more power efficient as compared to the 7nm EUV process that is used to make the Exynos 990.

For the last five years, Samsung had been using its custom Exynos M cores, which could not match up to ARM’s Cortex-A cores. This led the Korean giant to eventually shut down its dedicated research program and drop their plans to develop the Exynos M6 core. Instead, they decided to rely fully on ARM’s Cortex cores for the Exynos 1080.

For the CPU, the Exynos 1080 utilizes one ARM Cortex-A78 core clocked at 2.8GHz along with three Core-A78 cores clocked at 2.6GHz for performance and four Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2.0GHz for power-efficiency. The said performance cores are expectedly more powerful than the Cortex-A77 cores that are employed on Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, Snapdragon 865 Plus, and Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 9000 chipsets.

The new CPU configuration is likely to bring the Exynos 1080 neck-and-neck with the counterparts from Qualcomm and Huawei. Samsung claims that the new chipset shows a 50% increase in single-core performance and a 100% improvement in terms of multi-core performance as compared to the Exynos 990.

In addition to the modern CPU design, the Exynos 1080 also features a Mali-G78 MP10 GPU. As per Samsung, the new GPU outputs a 2.3 times (130% higher) performance as compared to the Mali-G77 MP11 GPU on the Exynos 990. Furthermore, the Exynos 1080 is also equipped with a neural processing unit (NPU) for predictive tasks, pre-loading apps, and other AI applications along with an AI-backed ISP for improved photography and videography.

Exynos 1080: 200MP cameras, 10-bit recording, 5G, and Wi-Fi 6

The Exynos 1080 is capable of supporting up to six cameras with a maximum resolution of 200MP. The processor also facilitates 10-bit 4K video recording for higher vibrancy as well as the ability to edit HDR 10+ videos on the smartphone itself.

In terms of connectivity, the Exynos 1080 supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. When it comes to 5G, the chipset supports both — sub-6GHz and mmWave — frequencies with maximum download speeds of up to 5.1Gbps and 3.7Gbps, respectively.

Lastly, the Exynos 1080 overcomes the Exynos 990’s limitations with refresh rate at higher resolutions. It supports WQHD+ displays at 90Hz refresh rate as compared to 60Hz on the latter, and up to 144Hz refresh rate at Full HD+ resolution. This leaves some room for speculation that Samsung may be working on the rumored Exynos 2100 that is likely to feature support WQHD+ displays at 120Hz for truly smooth scrolling on their 2021 flagships. The speculation hasn’t been confirmed yet, so please take it with a pinch of salt.

Vivo partners with Samsung for Exynos 1080

As reported earlier, Vivo has teamed up with Samsung to procure the Exynos 1080 chips for its smartphones. Earlier this year, Samsung has supplied Vivo with Exynos 980 and 880 to close in on rival mobile semiconductor manufacturers such as Huawei. The previous report also suggested that Xiaomi and OPPO could also become potential consumers of Exynos 1080 but that hasn’t been announced yet.

Previous timelines suggest smartphones with Exynos 1080 will hit the market in early 2021. We will have to wait an see if Vivo furnishes any SKUs before Samsung’s Unpacked 2021 event in mid-January where it is expected to announce the Galaxy S21 series.

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PUBG Corporation announces plans for PUBG Mobile India

Following the complete ban of PUBG Mobile, PUBG Corporation had announced that it is taking over complete rights of the game in India. It was rumored that the company is planning to launch a new version of the game specifically for Indian gamers. Today, the company has turned the rumor into reality. PUBG MOBILE INDIA will be a completely new game created specifically for the Indian audience.

This should come as a relief for a number of PUBG Mobile fans and professional gamers. PUBG Corp. has said that it wants to provide a secure and healthy gameplay environment alongside investments to cultivate local video game, esports, entertainment, and IT industries. It has announced plans to conduct regular audits and verifications on storage systems that will contain Indian users’ personally identifiable information to reinforce security and ensure that their data is safely managed.

There are also plans to introduce new in-game content tailored to suit the local requirements. While the company hasn’t shared a lot of details, one can expect the game to be now set in a virtual simulation training ground, new characters automatically starting clothed, and green hit effects. There will also be a new feature that will place restrictions on gameplay time so as to keep a check on younger players. A local office with over 100 employees will also be launched to improve communication and services with players. The company also plans to actively collaborate and leverage local businesses to strengthen its gaming service.

Lastly, PUBG Corp’s parent company KRAFTON Inc. is also planning to make investments worth $100 million in India. They claim that this makes it the largest investment by a Korean company to specifically promote local video game, esports, entertainment, and IT industries. The company will also make investments by hosting India-exclusive esports events featuring large-scale tournaments with massive prize pools. Recently, KRAFTON Inc struck a global deal with cloud computing major Microsoft Azure to host PUBG and PUBG Mobile.

PUBG Mobile was banned by the Indian government along with over 100 Chinese apps back in September on the grounds of national security and integrity. While the game was accessible until last month, a strict order forced the game developers to put a complete halt on October 30. As of now, there is no confirmation as to when exactly the game will return in India. But the announcement is a huge step and a reaffirmation that PUBG Mobile is here to stay. It remains to be seen how the Indian government reacts to this announcement. Meanwhile, ensure that you do brush up your skills.

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The Vivo X60 series will run OriginOS, Vivo’s successor to FuntouchOS

Earlier this year in September, Vivo rolled out a Funtouch OS 11 beta based on Android 11 to the Nex 3S 5G and the iQOO 3. A month later, the company launched the Vivo V20 and beat Google to become the first OEM to ship a new device running Android 11 out of the box. The Vivo V20 ran a stable build of Funtouch OS 11, which included a couple of additional features on top of the ones introduced in Android 11. But even though Vivo has already shipped Functouch OS 11 beta and stable builds to a handful of devices, a recent Vivo X60 series leak suggests that the company may replace it with a new Android skin in the coming months.

Live images of the upcoming Vivo X60 series devices recently surfaced on Weibo (via GSMArena). One of the images showcases the Vivo X60 and X60 Pro side-by-side, with the former featuring a flat display and the latter rocking a curved panel. Both devices feature a centered hole-punch cutout for the selfie camera, but only the non-pro variant looks to have an orange accented power button.

The second image showcases the Vivo X60 Pro running the company’s new Android skin, called OriginOS. While the image reveals no further details about the software, it’s safe to assume that it will be based on Android 11. GSMArena speculates that Vivo’s upcoming software release will feature a completely new design with simplified aesthetics to cater to users outside the company’s home market.

Since it wouldn’t make sense for Vivo to maintain two different Android 11-based skins, the company might end Funtouch OS 11 development and push OriginOS to devices that have already received the Android 11 update following the official reveal. The company is scheduled to showcase the new X60 series and OriginOS at an event in Shenzhen, China on November 18.

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