Black Friday and Cyber Monday brought some of the best deals of the year on robot vacuums. One of the handful of great discounts remaining is on the Roborock Saros 10, which we recently crowned the runner-up in our buying guide to the best robovac you can buy. This robovac and mop hybrid is still costly at $1,099.99 ($500 off) at Amazon and directly from Roborock, but it’s the biggest discount yet, and it might be worth the cost for you.
The Saros 10 is powerful, boasting a whopping 22,000Pa of suction. In our tests, its Duo Divide brush did an excellent job sucking up dried oatmeal, Cheerios, and other pesky debris. It was particularly impressive at removing pet hair from high-pile rugs. Even after a couple of months of testing, we still didn’t see any hair tangled in the brush.
It’s versatile, too. It can lift itself 10mm to give it a better shot at crossing tall room thresholds, and thanks to a retractable lidar tower, it can even slide under furniture as low as 8cm. And it manages all of that without getting tripped up by obstacles. I wish I could say the same for myself.
The Saros 10 also offers an impressive vibrating mop, which comes with a flat pad that scrubs effectively without getting stuck in things like rug tassels. What’s nice is that robot can lift its mop pads out of the way to keep carpets dry while it vacuums. Rounding things out, the robovac also supports the Matter smart home standard for interoperability with different platforms. Also, it features a responsive built-in voice assistant, so all you need to say is “Rocky, clean here,” and it’ll get to work.
Source Link Roborock’s powerful Saros 10 robovac is still at its lowest price ever
More Android phones will soon support AI-powered notification summaries. The feature, which is bundled in the latest version of Android 16, is only available to Pixel devices for now, but its inclusion in the update suggests that it will arrive on third-party phones next.
Google first launched notification summaries for Pixel phones last month. Unlike Apple’s version of the feature for iOS, Google is limiting it to chat apps, meaning you won’t see any wonky AI-generated news summaries just yet. Google says it will condense longer messages and group conversations into shorter snippets that you can view at a glance.
Additionally, Google is launching a new notification organizer that will automatically group and silence “lower-priority” notifications related to promotions, news, and alerts from social platforms. Some other updates coming to Android 16 include the ability to personalize your home screen with custom icon shapes and themes. You can also use a new expanded dark mode feature, which automatically darkens apps even if they don’t natively support the theme.
Google is consolidating its parental controls within the Android Settings menu as well, allowing parents to set screen time, control app usage, and create downtime schedules from one place. Other features rolling out across Android include a way to spot scams using Circle to Search, as well as an update to the Phone by Google app that lets you alert a family member or friend that a call is urgent, but you and the caller need to be using Android devices with Phone by Google set as your default calling app for it to work.
There are quite a few accessibility updates launching across devices, too. Google announced that it’s making its Expressive Captions feature — which attempts to capture the intensity of real-time speech — available to everyone on YouTube. This option will be available on videos in English that were uploaded after October.
Expressive Captions on Android devices will also detect and display someone’s emotions during a livestream, tagging them with emotions like “[joyful]” or “[sad].” Other tweaks include the ability to activate voice dictation with Android’s TalkBack screen reader by using a two-finger double-tap gesture in Gboard. You can also start using Voice Access, which lets you control your phone with your voice, by saying, “Hey Google, start Voice Access,” instead of having to tap your screen.
Google is launching Fast Pair for hearing aids as well, which will let you connect Bluetooth LE hearing aids to your Android device with one tap. This feature is launching on Demant hearing aids first before rolling out to Starkey devices in early 2026.
You can find a full list of updates coming to Android 16 and Android devices on Google’s website.
Source Link Google is getting ready to launch AI-powered notification summaries on more Android devices
The latest update for Android 16 has arrived, marking the official end to Google’s annual release schedule. Compared to the major Android 16 launch in June, the new 16 QPR2 release is a minor update that expands features for notifications, icons, calling screens, and more, and signals the start of Google’s long-awaited plans to release more frequent OS updates.
The accelerated release timeline addresses frustrations with Google’s previous yearly update schedule, which left even relatively new third-party Android phones waiting months or longer to get updates that were already available on the latest Pixel devices. Google announced the change in October 2024, saying that releasing more frequent platform updates “will help to drive faster innovation in apps and devices.”
These small biannual SDK releases will be the model going forward, alongside bringing major releases forward — with Android 16 having launched in Q2 instead of Q3, for example — and the usual quarterly Android feature updates. By moving to an earlier, more frequent release schedule for developer previews and general release rollouts, third-party phone makers will have more time to prepare their latest devices to launch with the latest version of Android. Google’s Pixel lineup will still be first in line to receive updates, but it could mean that other Android devices won’t be far behind, increasing the number of devices that support new features and giving developers more reasons to use them in their apps.
Source Link Android 16’s latest update ushers in a more frequent release schedule
Android users will soon have an option to add an “urgent” indicator to their calls, which shows up on the receiver’s incoming call screen and in their call history if they don’t pick up. It’s a new feature in beta testing in the Phone by Google app, Call Reason, that will only work for people who are saved in your Contacts list already, and if you both use Google’s default calling app on Android phones.
If you often send calls to voicemail (or your friends don’t pick up your calls), this feature allows you to tell each other when you’re calling about something important, or need to talk right away, without sending a separate text.
Right now, Call Reason is just for marking calls as “urgent,” but it would also be nice to see more options down the line, like a custom message or emoji to show why you’re calling. Since the Call Reason message also shows up in your call history, it could also be a helpful reminder to call someone back about something specific if you can’t pick up in the moment.
Call Reason is rolling out as a beta feature, and availability will vary by phone manufacturer. You can check for the update on your phone by tapping your profile icon on the Google Play Store, “Manage apps & devices,” and “Check for updates.” You can also double-check that you’re using Phone by Google for your calls by going into your Settings app, then “Apps” and “Default apps.”
Source Link Android’s new ‘Call Reason’ flags important calls before you even pick up
Anker has released a new docking station that eliminates the problem of having to choose between portability and a plethora of ports. The 13-in-1 Anker Nano Docking Station includes various USB and video ports so you can quickly connect a laptop to multiple monitors, but its most useful feature is a small, portable USB-C hub that ejects from the front of the dock to expand your laptop’s connectivity while you’re away from your desk.
The Anker Nano Docking Station is available through the company’s website for $149.99 or at Amazon, where it’s currently discounted to $119.99 for Prime members. It’s a much cheaper alternative to the $399.99 14-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 dock Anker released earlier this year, but it does come with some performance limitations.
The new dock connects to your laptop over USB-C, but that port needs to support both DP Alt Mode and Power Delivery to access all of its functionality and use it as a power source. The dock supports a resolution of 4K / 60Hz when connecting a laptop to a single monitor, but the resolution drops to just 1920×1080 / 60Hz when connecting to three displays using the dock’s two HDMI ports and single DisplayPort connector. And while Windows users can display something different on all four screens (including the laptop’s), for Mac users the dock can only mirror what’s on their laptop.
The docking station also features a 10Gbps USB-C port, a 5Gbps USB-C and USB-A port, two slower 480Mbps USB-A ports, a 1Gbps ethernet port, a headphone jack, and SD and microSD memory card slots. The removable hub, which is a bit smaller than a credit card, can be ejected with a button press even when the dock is connected to a laptop. It takes the dock’s 5Gbps USB-C and USB-A ports with it, along with the memory card slots, and includes its own dedicated HDMI port, a USB-C port for connecting a power source, and a USB-C jack for attaching the hub directly to a laptop without a cable.
Source Link Anker’s new desktop docking station has a removable USB-C hub you can take with you
Apple Music is getting ahead of Spotify Wrapped with the launch of its yearly recaps. This year’s Apple Music Replay is available natively within the app and comes packed with even more listening stats, allowing you to review all the new artists you listened to, which ones you kept returning to, and who made a comeback in your playlist.
It also highlights your most-listened-to songs, how many artists you listened to, your favorite genres, and how much time you spent listening to music on the app. There’s a shareable highlight reel as well, which you can post to apps like Instagram and TikTok. Apple already offers monthly music recaps and the ability to review all your listening stats, but it’s always fun to see how your taste has evolved throughout the year.
The season for yearly music recaps is in full swing, with YouTube Music launching its 2025 listening stats last month, followed by a new year-in-review feature specifically for all the videos you watched on its platform. Amazon Music has also rolled out its “Delivered” recap, which attempts to differentiate itself from similar features by making a festival poster based on your listening habits. We’re still waiting on Spotify Wrapped, which is expected to launch very soon.
There’s an Apple Music Replay for artists, too, showing listener growth, year-over-year performance, total listeners, top-streamed songs, and more. You can access your Replay by heading to the homepage of your Apple Music app or by going to replay.music.apple.com.
Source Link Apple Music Replay 2025 is back with new listening stats
