CMC_9765

Samsung’s latest Galaxy Fold adds stylus support, waterproofing and an under-display camera

by GadgetsHardwareMobileSamsungTC

Behold, Samsung’s latest flagship. With the Galaxy Note out of the way — for this year, at least — the company used today’s Unpacked event to breathe added legitimacy into its foldable line. The original Galaxy Fold, introduced in 2019, represent a sort of experiment for the company (along with all the hiccups that entailed), as the first foldable from a major hardware manufacture, whereas last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 2 found the company correcting some of the glaring issues with its predecessor.

Today’s event finds the company making the case for Galaxy Z Fold 3 as something beyond an experiment or a curiosity. The task will almost certainly be an uphill battle for the next few generations. Unlike the latest version of the Flip, which starts at a price reduced considerably from its predecessor, the new Fold drops the entry price $200, down to $1,800. Any price reduction is a step in the right direction — and something that should be increasingly feasible as the technology continues to scale. But even in the world of premium flagships, that will continue to be a tough pill to swallow.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

What the upgraded Fold truly brings to the table, however, is a continued refinement to build materials that make the foldable screen a feasible option for day to day usage. This, of course, is precisely what hamstrung the original. Sure, the company did a lot of testing in controlled rooms, but once the product got out into the world (and into the hands of non-Samsung employees), problems of durability began cropping up, resulting in displays that were unintentionally damaged in a variety of imaginative ways.

Samsung’s new Galaxy Fold arrives September 18 for $2,000

The Galaxy Z Fold features a stronger frame made of “Armor Aluminum,” new protective film for the foldable display, Gorilla Glass Victus on the front-facing screen and an IPX8 rating — representing the first waterproof rating for the company’s foldable. Waterproofing has, of course, become something of an industry standard, but obviously things complicate quickly when you add folding mechanisms into the equation.

In fact, that’s why the rating has an “X” stuck in the middle of it. It’s effectively protected from accidental dunks in water, but not dust and debris. This is due to the hinge mechanism created for earlier models that allows some particulate matter through, but sweeps it away with a built in brush that moves as the device opens. That effectively protects it from getting behind the screen, where it could damage the phone with a finger press on the other side.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Of course, the stronger protective film is the thing. It’s what’s (hopefully) standing between you and damaging your phone’s biggest selling point with an overzealous finger press — or, for that matter, a stylus. The Fold, after all, is following in the footsteps of Samsung’s S series by blurring the line with the Note (which handily opted to sit this round out).

In fact, Samsung actually went out of its way to create a special Fold Edition of the S-Pen specially designed to not damage the Fold display. It’s optional, of course, and as with the S21, there’s slot for the stylus in the handset — that’s to be expected, given the relatively fragility of the product. There will, of course, be a case with a built-in S-Pen holster.

The Fold Edition S-Pen is smaller and features a spring-loaded tip designed to retract so you don’t damage the screen by writing/drawing too hard. Certainly the Fold is a clear candidate for stylus functionality, given its 7.6-inch canvas that puts even the Note Ultra’s 6.9-inch screen to shame. Of course, the feasibility of this combination has been severely hampered by structural integrity issues with the screen. It will be interesting to see how the company has managed to navigate that.

At 7.6 inches (2208 x 1768, 374 ppi), the primary screen is largely unchanged. The cover screen, too, is about the same, at 6.2 inches — though it now joins the main screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate. 

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Notably, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is the first Samsung device to add an under-display camera. That, along with foldable displays, has been one of the biggest holy grails in the smartphone category for the past several years. Samsung’s not the first to introduce the technology. A handful of Chinese manufacturers, including Xiaomi and Oppo, have either released or plan to release devices sporting the technology.

It’s telling that the company opted to test the water with the Fold. Aside from the obvious aspect of creating a contiguous display, it gives the company the opportunity to test out another mainstream technology. The dirty little secret about the first generation of under-screen cameras is that the picture quality tends to suck. Samsung surely knows this and has opted to stick it on a device that already has a selfie camera above its front display.

The company describes new tech as follows, “the minimum pixels applied on top of the camera hole, Z Fold 3 features an increased viewable area so users get an unbroken canvas for their favorite apps.” The thinking here is that the internal camera simply doesn’t get as much use, save for things like teleconferencing (which is, granted, something we’ve been doing a lot more of in the past year). As currently configured, it’s a bit of a compromise on both ends. Picture quality takes a hit and the camera hole is still semi-visible. So, either the best or worst of both worlds, depending on what you’re looking for.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

The under-display camera is four megapixels (when was the last time you saw one of those?), verses the 10-megapixel front/cover camera. The rear camera setup is virtually identical to its predecessor:

  • 12MP Ultra Wide. F2.2, Pixel size: 1.12μm, FOV: 123-degree
  • 12MP Wide-angle. Dual Pixel AF, OIS, F1.8, Pixel size: 1.8μm, FOV: 83-degree
  • 12MP Telephoto. PDAF, F2.4, OIS, Pixel size: 1.0μm, FOV: 45-degree

The battery has taken a bit of a hit, down from 4,500 to 4,400mAh (spread out over two modules, as is the foldable way). The Fold also supports fast charge/fast wireless and Wireless Powershare to use that 4,400mAh battery to power other gadgets. Samsung generally doesn’t offer battery estimates for phones prior to release, so wait on the review for that. The whole thing is powered by a Snapdragon 888 chip (market depending), coupled with 12GB of RAM and either 256 or 512GB of storage.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Like the rest of the devices announced today, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is up for preorder now and starts shipping on the 26th. The $1,800 price tag continues to be a roadblock toward more mainstream adoption, though the company has moved a number of these devices to early adopters already. Preorders get a $200 Samsung Credit.

Life with the Samsung Galaxy Fold

R1_Samsung_Fold_FB_Insta_Static_Post_1080x1080_SS

What to expect from Samsung’s next Unpacked

by EventsGadgetsHardwareMobileSamsungWearables

Foldables! Two, probably! Those are your headliners. Samsung tipped its hand with the event invite, which features a pair of geometrical objects that pretty clearly represent the new Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip.

The other headliner is what we won’t be seeing at the event (Deadliner? Endliner?). The company already confirmed via corporate blog that we won’t be seeing the next version of the Galaxy Note next week. That’s a big break from the device’s long-standing annual refresh cycle.

We still don’t know if this is the end-end of the line for the phablet. Samsung told TechCrunch, “We will not be launching new Galaxy Note devices in 2021. Instead, Samsung plans to continue to expand the Note experience and bring many of its popular productivity and creativity features, including the S Pen, across our Galaxy ecosystem. We will share more details on our future portfolio once we are ready to announce.”

Image Credits: Samsung

Rumors surfaced prior to this revelation that the company may have been forced to put the device on hold, as global supply chain issues continue to hamstring manufacturers. There’s also an argument to be made, however, that Samsung has gradually made the Note redundant over the past several Galaxy S updates.

It seems telling that the company referred to a forthcoming “flagship” in its official Unpacked copy. With the Note out of the picture and the Galaxy S about six months out from a refresh, this appears to refer to the Galaxy Fold gaining the (admittedly ceremonial) title. Whether that means two or three flagships in the company’s Armada remains to be seen.

What we do know, however, is that — like the Galaxy S before it — at least one of the forthcoming foldables will be blurring that Note line.

“I hope you’ll join us as we debut our next Galaxy Z family and share some foldable surprises — including the first-ever S Pen designed specifically for foldable phones,” the company’s president and head of Mobile Communications Business, TM Roh wrote. The executive also promised “even more refined style, armed with more durable, stronger material” on the new Galaxy Z Flip.

Previous — and subsequent — leaks have given us good looks at both the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Galaxy Z Fold 3. Hell, it wouldn’t be a Samsung event if pretty much everything didn’t leak out prior to the event.

A series of tweets from EVLeaks has given us nearly every angle of the upcoming foldable smartphones, along with (European) prices that put the Fold and Flip starting at €1,899 and €1,099, respectively. Both mark a sizable decrease from the previous generation. That’s nice — if not entirely surprising. Samsung’s plan all along has clearly been a prolonged drop in pricing as foldable technology scaled. We’re still a long ways away from cheap here, but perhaps nudging our way toward the realm of possibility for more users.

Other leaked details for the Fold/Flip include a 7.6/6.7-inch internal display, a Snapdragon 888 processor (both) and 12MP triple/dual cameras, respectively. Interestingly, water resistance is also reportedly on board here.

With a year of virtual events under its belt, the company seems to have a better idea of pacing. Samsung — along with many other companies in the space — took liberties when events went more from in-person to online, meting out announcements event by event. Thankfully, next week’s Unpacked is a much bigger, self-contained event.

The other expected highlights are both wearables. First is the long-awaited fruits of the partnership between Samsung and Google that was announced at I/O. We didn’t get a lot of info at the time, beyond the fact that it will potentially be a boon for users and developers, with the ability to jointly create apps for both the beleaguered Wear OS and Samsung’s custom brand of Tizen.

Image Credits: Samsung

“Samsung and Google have a long history of collaboration, and whenever we’ve worked together, the experience for our consumers has been dramatically better for everyone,” Google SVP Sameer Samat said at a June follow-up to the I/O news. “That certainly holds true for this new, unified platform, which will be rolling out for the first time on Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch. In collaboration with Samsung, we’re thrilled to bring longer battery life, faster performance and a wide range of apps, including many from Google to a whole new wearable experience.”

The company held an (admittedly disappointing) event at MWC focused on the forthcoming watch. There was, however, one key thing missing: the watch. Based on pure speculation, I’d suggest that the wearable just didn’t come together on the timeline Samsung was expecting, but the company went ahead and did a virtual presser at the (mostly virtual) trade show.

The company did, however, announced One UI Watch — a wearable version of its streamlined OS interface. Samsung notes in a press release:

One UI Watch together with the new unified platform will create an entirely new Galaxy Watch experience. As part of the new experience, once you install watch-compatible apps on your smartphone, they will be swiftly downloaded onto your smartwatch. If you’ve customized your clock app on your phone to show the time in different cities around the globe, this will be automatically reflected on your watch as well. And if you block calls and messages from your watch, they will now be blocked on your smartphone, too.

Leaks have also revealed the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic models along with (again) European pricing. They’re reportedly set to start at €279 and €379, respectively, with each featuring multiple sizing options. That last bit was always a sticking point for me with Samsung watches, which have traditionally been fairly massive, knocking out a good number of potential buyers in the process.

The last big piece of the puzzle are the Galaxy Buds 2. The latest upgrade to the company’s entry-level buds are said to be gaining active noise canceling.

Will there be surprises once things kick off at 7AM PT/10AM ET on August 11? Little, ones, probably. These leaks have a tendency to capture things in broad strokes but miss some of the key nuances in the process. And while the company is more than a little familiar with pre-show leaks, it’s still managed to surprise us in the past.

Samsung will announce new foldables on August 11

sspp-tile

$100M donation powers decade-long moonshot to create solar satellites that beam power to Earth

by aerospaceGadgetsGreenTechHardwareScienceSolar PowerSpaceTC

It sounds like a plan concocted by a supervillain, if that villain’s dastardly end was to provide cheap, clean power all over the world: launch a set of three-kilometer-wide solar arrays that beam the sun’s energy to the surface of the Earth. Even the price tag seems gleaned from pop fiction: one hundred million dollars. But this is a real project at Caltech, funded for a nearly a decade largely by a single donor.

The Space-based Solar Power Project has been underway since at least 2013, when the first donation from Donald and Brigitte Bren came through. Donald Bren is the chairman of Irvine Company and on the Caltech board of trustees, and after hearing about the idea of space-based solar in Popular Science, he proposed to fund a research project at the university — and since then has given more than 0 million for the purpose. The source of the funds has been kept anonymous until this week, when Caltech made it public.

The idea emerges naturally from the current limitations of renewable energy. Solar power is ubiquitous on the surface, but of course highly dependent on the weather, season and time of day. No solar panel, even in ideal circumstances, can work at full capacity all the time, and so the problem becomes one of transferring and storing energy in a smart grid. No solar panel on Earth, that is.

A solar panel in orbit, however, may be exposed to the full light of the sun nearly all the time, and with none of the reduction in its power that comes from that light passing through the planet’s protective atmosphere and magnetosphere.

The latest prototype created by the SSPP, which collects sunlight and transmits it over microwave frequency. Image Credits: Caltech

“This ambitious project is a transformative approach to large-scale solar energy harvesting for the Earth that overcomes this intermittency and the need for energy storage,” said SSPP researcher Harry Atwater in the Caltech release.

Of course, you would need to collect enough energy that it’s worth doing in the first place, and you need a way to beam that energy down to the surface in a way that doesn’t lose most of it to the aforementioned protective layers but also doesn’t fry anything passing through its path.

These fundamental questions have been looked at systematically for the last decade, and the team is clear that without Bren’s support, this project wouldn’t have been possible. Attempting to do the work while scrounging for grants and rotating through grad students might have prevented its being done at all, but the steady funding meant they could hire long-term researchers and overcome early obstacles that might have stymied them otherwise.

The group has produced dozens of published studies and prototypes (which you can peruse here), including the lightest solar collector-transmitter made by an order of magnitude, and is now on the verge of launching its first space-based test satellite.

“[Launch] is currently expected to be Q1 2023,” co-director of the project Ali Hajimiri told TechCrunch. “It involves several demonstrators for space verification of key technologies involved in the effort, namely, wireless power transfer at distance, lightweight flexible photovoltaics and flexible deployable space structures.”

Diagram showing how tiles like the one above could be joined together to form strips, then spacecraft, then arrays of spacecraft. Image Credits: Caltech

These will be small-scale tests (about six feet across), but the vision is for something rather larger. Bigger than anything currently in space, in fact.

“The final system is envisioned to consist of multiple deployable modules in close formation flight and operating in synchronization with one another,” Hajimiri said. “Each module is several tens of meters on the side and the system can be built up by adding more modules over time.”

Image Credits: Caltech

Eventually the concept calls for a structure perhaps as large as 5-6 kilometers across. Don’t worry — it would be far enough out from Earth that you wouldn’t see a giant hexagon blocking out the stars. Power would be sent to receivers on the surface using directed, steerable microwave transmission. A few of these in orbit could beam power to any location on the planet full time.

Of course that is the vision, which is many, many years out if it is to take place at all. But don’t make the mistake of thinking of this as having that single ambitious, one might even say grandiose, goal. The pursuit of this idea has produced advances insolar cells, flexible space-based structures and wireless power transfer, each of which can be applied in other areas. The vision may be the stuff of science fiction, but the science is progressing in a very grounded way.

For his part, Bren seems to be happy just to advance the ball on what he considers an important task that might not otherwise have been attempted at all.

“I have been a student researching the possible applications of space-based solar energy for many years,” he told Caltech. “My interest in supporting the world-class scientists at Caltech is driven by my belief in harnessing the natural power of the sun for the benefit of everyone.”

We’ll check back with the SSPP ahead of launch.

2021.8.0: Feel the energy ⚡️

by smart home

Happy August! ☀️

Home Assistant Core 2021.8 is here, and this is the release I have been looking
forward to for months! There is so much exciting new stuff in here: I don’t
know where to start.

The most exciting part is the new main focus that is added to Home Assistant:

Home Energy management.

A massive deal for a lot of people, no matter if you are doing it for
environmental reasons or simply to save a buck or two (or both 😬). Knowing
that moving forward, it will be an additional focus, I think, is amazing.

But besides the Energy management stuff, I’m also excited about the side effects
of it. A lot of things created for Energy, are also re-usable for other things!
That is how we roll, right?

We get long-term statistics, new super nice and fast graphs, and a new
layout option for Lovelace. All the building blocks are available for
customization and re-use. I am looking forward to seeing how they are going
to be put to use.

Anyways, enjoy the release! And don’t forget the drop by
the release party on YouTube
later today (9:00 PM CET).

../Frenck

Matthias de Baat joins Nabu Casa

Let start by announcing that Matthias de Baat
is joining the team at Nabu Casa to work on
Home Assistant as a UX-designer.

UX stands for “User Experience”, which is Matthias’ area of expertise and what
he will be working on improving. His goal is to make Home Assistant easier to
use and accessible for everyone. He will be setting up design processes and
tooling, doing user research and making designs.

If you are interested in joining the Home Assistant user research group, you
can show your interest by filling in this Google Form
that Matthias has prepared.

Welcome Matthias! Excited to have you on board!

But wait! There is more!

Otto Winter, the founder of ESPHome, will
be joining Nabu Casa during his summer break as well! Welcome Otto! This summer
is going to be fantastic!

Home Energy Management!

This feature is a big thing; A start of something new. Home Assistant is going
to provide you insight into your energy usage.

But this needs more than just a paragraph in the release notes, this needs
its own blog! So, at this point, stop reading the release notes (momentarily)
and read the blog Paulus has written about this:

Read the blog about the new Home Energy Management features of Home Assistant

Long term statistics

Storing sensor data for a more extended period using the recorder, can make your
database grow pretty fast (especially if you have sensors that update a lot!).

In the previous releases, we’ve worked towards improving this situation and
laid down the groundwork for tracking statistics in the database;
We are making it widely available this release!

Integrations can now hint Home Assistant about the type of value the sensor
represents, allowing us to process and store that data in a more efficient way.
Every hour, we calculate things like mean, min/max values, or the difference
created that hour and store just that result in our long-term statistics.

These statistics is what partly powers the new Energy dashboard, however,
they can be used for anything else: Introducing the Lovelace statistics graph card.

Screenshot of the new Lovelace statistics graph card
Screenshot of the new Lovelace statistics graph card.

This card can make beautiful graphs, allowing you to make graphs for any of
your stored long-term statistical data. It can render as a line or bar chart.
Bars are suited for metered entities that have a summed value. Lines are
perfect to display the mean, min and max of the entity.

The support for long-term statistics is limited at this moment. We are
expecting to open it up for more measurements in the upcoming releases while
more integrations are adding support for these new measurement types.

Sidebar view

The default layout you see in Lovelace (which we generally all use), is called
the “masonry” layout. We also have a panel view/layout that stretches a single
card to the whole view. This release brings in a brand new view layout: Sidebar.

This new sidebar view has two columns, a wide one and a small one on the right.
It is perfect for displaying larger cards like graphs (like that nice new
statistics graph card), or maps. While having some additional smaller cards
with information on the side.

The new Energy dashboard uses this new view layout, but of course, made
available for use in other Lovelace dashboards as well.

Screenshot of new Lovelace sidebar view layout
Screenshot of new Lovelace sidebar view layout.

Gauge card now has needle mode

A nice little addition to the Lovelace gauge card: Needle mode!

Instead of showing a value and filling it partially, in needle mode, it will
show the full gauge but point out the value with a needle. And, if you add
severity to your gauge card configuration, it will always be shown.

Screenshot of the Gauge card in needle mode with severity configured
Screenshot of the Gauge card in needle mode with severity configured.

These settings are available straight from the Lovelace UI editor; More
information and examples can be found in the Gauge card documentation.

Currency core setting

To support the display of financial values, we’ve added a new setting to Home
Assistant that allows you to define the currency Home Assistant should use
in cases it relies on your input.

You can find this new currency setting in the general settings of Home Assistant.

This setting is used for the cost calculation of the new energy features.

Siren

The last release, we introduced the select entity,
this release, we introduce the siren entity! 🚨

Thanks to @raman325 for adding this noisemaker to the family! He also
implemented the first integration to add support for Sirens: the Z-Wave JS
integration. So, if you have a Z-Wave enabled Siren, you can now control it.

Locking, Unlocking and Jammed

Locks in Home Assistant can be a little bit smarter as of today, thanks
to @bdraco. Besides the locked & unlocked states, support for locking,
unlocking and jammed has been added.

Support for these new states has been added to the August, HomeKit Controller
and template integrations. Additionally, HomeKit, Alexa and Google Assistant
have been made compatible and aware for these states as well.

Scripts/Automations/Templates

Some new features landed for script, automations and templates this release.

This

When an automation or script is triggered to run, a new variable is available:
this. This variable contains the state object
of the automation or script running and allows you to access information about
the automation directly. Thanks, @r-t-s!

Device template functions

If you like to write YAML automations manually, are using templates, and require
device IDs or device information, than you know those IDs are hard to find and
the device information is not available at all.

@raman325 added some new template functions that can be helpful when working
with devices.

  • device_entities(device_id) returns a list of entities associated
    with a given device ID (can also be used as a filter).
  • device_attr(device_or_entity_id, attr_name) returns the value of attr_name
    for the given device ID or entity ID.
  • is_device_attr(device_or_entity_id, attr_name, attr_value) returns whether
    the value of attr_name for the given device ID or entity ID matches attr_value.
  • device_id(entity_id) returns the device ID for a given entity ID
    (can also be used as a filter).

Thanks for these powerful new features!

Other noteworthy changes

There is much more juice in this release; here are some of the other
noteworthy changes this release:

  • Thanks to @firstof9, Z-Wave JS now has support for transitions with lights!
  • More Z-Wave JS improvements by @raman325. He added support for device
    triggers and conditions. Thanks!
  • You can now assign a unique ID to light, cover and media player groups,
    allowing you to manage them from the Home Assistant frontend and assign
    them to an area!
  • The motionEye integration now has support for motion detection, thanks @dermotduffy
  • ZHA can now work with Formaldehyde and VOC level sensors, thanks @Adminiuga
  • @posixx added a new feature for integration that provide alarm panels;
    those integrations can now update to support Vacation mode!
  • Rainbird now has a service to change the rain delay, thanks @Kr0llx!
  • If you are using BMW Connected Drive, @EddyK69 added a lot of trip sensors.
  • Sonos snapshots now behave, are more robust and work as expected. Additionally,
    support for controlling crossfade has been added, thanks @jjlawren!
  • WLED now supports controlling the new playlists features introduced in WLED 0.13.
  • @farmio added support for KNX lights that use HS-colors, thanks!
  • And @joncar added support for transitions to LiteJet lights, awesome!
  • If you have MFA on your Tesla account, thanks to @BreakingBread0,
    the integration now supports that.
  • When using the Netatmo integration, you can now control the schedule it
    should be using with a select entity. Thanks, @cgtobi!
  • @janiversen added more data types to modus and added array write to
    the turn on/off capabilities of Modbus switches, fans and lights.
  • Advantage Air now has temperature sensors for each zone, thanks @Bre77!
  • Gree Climate now has switches to support more modes, thanks to @cmroche!
  • You can now remove holidays from the workday sensor by name instead of
    date. This is useful for holidays they don’t have a fixed date each year.
    Thanks @matthewgottlieb!
  • HomeKit will not auto-recreated TVs when sources are out of sync. One thinsg
    less to worry about, thanks @bdraco
  • @jbouwh has drastically reworked and extended the Humidifier support for
    the Xiaomi Miio integration. Amazing job!

New Integrations

We welcome the following new integrations this release:

New Platforms

The following integration got support for a new platform:

Integrations now available to set up from the UI

The following integrations are now available via the Home Assistant UI:

Release 2021.8.1 – August 4

  • Fix Panasonic Viera TV going unavailable when turned off (@Hyralex – #53788) (panasonic_viera docs)
  • Add temporary fix to modbus to solve upstream problem (@janiversen – #53857) (modbus docs)
  • Fix attr_unit_of_measurement in update of apcupsd entity (@mib1185 – #53947) (apcupsd docs)
  • Fix coordinator not defined in yale_smart_alarm (@gjohansson-ST – #53973) (yale_smart_alarm docs)
  • Fix divider for Fritz sensors (@chemelli74 – #53980) (fritz docs)
  • Fix empty sonos_group entity attribute on startup (@jjlawren – #53985) (sonos docs)
  • Update frontend to 20210804.0 (@bramkragten – #53997) (frontend docs)

Release 2021.8.2 – August 5

  • Bump pylitterbot to 2021.8.0 (@natekspencer – #54000) (litterrobot docs)
  • Add missing device class to SAJ energy sensors (@frenck – #54048) (saj docs)
  • Handle empty software version when setting up HomeKit (@bdraco – #54068) (homekit docs)
  • Bump up ZHA dependencies (@puddly – #54079) (zha docs)
  • Packages to support config platforms (@balloob – #54085) (automation docs) (script docs) (template docs)
  • Fix Shelly last_reset (@thecode – #54101) (shelly docs)
  • Two fixes (@chemelli74 – #54102) (fritz docs)
  • Increase time before scene and script HomeKit entities are reset (@bdraco – #54105) (homekit docs)
  • Bump zeroconf to 0.33.3 (@bdraco – #54108) (zeroconf docs)

Release 2021.8.3 – August 6

  • Gracefully handle additional GSM errors (@ocalvo – #54114) (sms docs)
  • Handle software version being None when setting up HomeKit accessories (@nzapponi – #54130) (homekit docs)
  • Fix sensor PLATFORM_SCHEMA for ebox and enphase_envoy (@mib1185 – #54142) (enphase_envoy docs)
  • Fetch interface index from network integration instead of socket.if_nametoindex in zeroconf (@bdraco – #54152) (zeroconf docs) (network docs)
  • Bump zeroconf to 0.33.4 to ensure zeroconf can startup when ipv6 is disabled (@bdraco – #54165) (zeroconf docs)

Release 2021.8.4 – August 8

  • Add missing motor_speed sensor for Xiaomi Miio humidifier CA1 and CB1 (@bieniu – #54202)
  • Fix update entity prior to adding (@Trinnik – #54015) (aladdin_connect docs)
  • Fix androidtv media_image_hash (@tkdrob – #54188) (androidtv docs)
  • Solve missing automatic update of struct configuration in modbus (@janiversen – #54193) (modbus docs)
  • Update const.py (@Mk4242 – #54195) (ebusd docs)
  • Add parameter to delay sending of requests in modbus (@janiversen – #54203) (modbus docs)
  • Bugfix: Bring back unique IDs for ADS covers after #52488 (@carstenschroeder – #54212) (ads docs)
  • Don’t block motionEye setup on NoURLAvailableError (@dermotduffy – #54225) (motioneye docs)
  • Pin google-cloud-pubsub to an older version (@allenporter – #54239)

Release 2021.8.5 – August 9

  • Fix camera state and attributes for agent_dvr (@tkdrob – #54049) (agent_dvr docs)
  • Force an attempted subscribe on speaker reboot (@geuben – #54100) (sonos docs)
  • Fix login to BMW services for rest_of_world and north_america (@rikroe – #54261) (bmw_connected_drive docs)
  • Always set interfaces explicitly when IPv6 is present (@bdraco – #54268) (zeroconf docs)
  • Fix atom integration for long term statistics (@ZeGuigui – #54285) (atome docs)
  • Use correct state attribute for alarmdecoder binary sensor (@tkdrob – #54286) (alarmdecoder docs)
  • Bump soco to 0.23.3 (@jjlawren – #54288) (sonos docs)
  • Fix ondilo_ico name attribute (@cdce8p – #54290) (ondilo_ico docs)
  • Bump zeroconf to 0.34.3 (@bdraco – #54294) (zeroconf docs)
  • Ensure hunterdouglas_powerview model type is a string (@bdraco – #54299) (hunterdouglas_powerview docs)
  • Remove zwave_js transition on individual color channels (@firstof9 – #54303) (zwave_js docs)
  • Restores unit_of_measurement (@dgomes – #54335) (integration docs)
  • Fix xiaomi air fresh fan preset modes (@jbouwh – #54342) (xiaomi_miio docs)
  • Update frontend to 20210809.0 (@bramkragten – #54350) (frontend docs)
  • Fix Xiaomi-miio turn fan on with speed, percentage or preset (@jbouwh – #54353) (xiaomi_miio docs)
  • Fix aqualogic state attribute update (@dailow – #54354) (aqualogic docs)
  • Cast SimpliSafe version number as a string in device info (@bachya – #54356) (simplisafe docs)
  • Do not process forwarded for headers for cloud requests (@balloob – #54364) (http docs) (cloud docs)
  • Revert “Use entity class attributes for Bluesound (#53033)” (@balloob – #54365) (bluesound docs)
  • Update Climacell rate limit (@raman325 – #54373) (climacell docs)
  • Fix race condition in Advantage Air (@Bre77 – #53439) (advantage_air docs)

Release 2021.8.6 – August 10

  • Handle CO2Signal response value being None (@balloob – #54377) (co2signal docs)
  • Fix Canary sensor state (@ludeeus – #54380) (canary docs)
  • Re-add Tibber notify service name (@Danielhiversen – #54401) (tibber docs)
  • Bump hass_nabucasa to 0.46.0 (@balloob – #54421) (cloud docs)
  • Bump pyopenuv to 2.1.0 (@bachya – #54436) (openuv docs)

Release 2021.8.7 – August 15

  • Use pycarwings2 2.11 (@filcole – #54424) (nissan_leaf docs)
  • Fix Huawei LTE entity state updating (@scop – #54447) (huawei_lte docs)
  • Strip attributes whitespace in universal media_player (@0xFelix – #54451) (universal docs)
  • Bump notifications-android-tv to 0.1.3 (@tkdrob – #54462) (nfandroidtv docs)
  • Updates to bump MyQ to 3.1.2 (@ehendrix23 – #54488) (myq docs)
  • Add missing PRESSURE_BAR conversion (@Danielhiversen – #54497)
  • Treat temporary errors as warnings for Tesla (@alandtse – #54515) (tesla docs)
  • Fix attributes not showing after using entity class attributes (@gerard33 – #54558) (bmw_connected_drive docs)
  • Upgrade qnapstats library to 0.4.0 (@colinodell – #54571) (qnap docs)
  • Fix bug in ambiclimate (@Danielhiversen – #54579) (ambiclimate docs)
  • Fix Tibber last reset (@Danielhiversen – #54582) (tibber docs)
  • Adax, update requirements (@Danielhiversen – #54587) (adax docs)
  • Clamp color temperature to supported range in ESPHome light (@oxan – #54595) (esphome docs)
  • Bump zeroconf to 0.35.0 (@bdraco – #54604) (zeroconf docs)
  • Bump py-synologydsm-api to 1.0.4 (@mib1185 – #54610) (synology_dsm docs)
  • Guard partial upgrade (@balloob – #54617) (http docs)
  • Solve switch/verify register type convert problem in modbus (@janiversen – #54645) (modbus docs)
  • Send color_brightness to ESPHome devices on 1.20 (pre-color_mode) (@jesserockz – #54670) (esphome docs)

Release 2021.8.8 – August 18

  • Fix TPLink emeter reset not updating (@TomBrien – #54848) (tplink docs)
  • Fix tplink doing I/O in event loop and optimize (@rytilahti – #54570) (tplink docs)
  • Fix ‘in’ comparisons vesync light (@cdce8p – #54614) (vesync docs)
  • Update PyMetEireann to 2021.8.0 (@DylanGore – #54693) (met_eireann docs)
  • Fix BMW remote services in rest_of_world & north_america (@rikroe – #54726) (bmw_connected_drive docs)
  • Fix HomeKit cover creation with tilt position, open/close, no set position (@bdraco – #54727) (homekit docs)

If you need help…

…don’t hesitate to use our very active forums or join us for a little chat.

Experiencing issues introduced by this release? Please report them in our issue tracker. Make sure to fill in all fields of the issue template.

Energy Management in Home Assistant

by smart home

TL; DR: We’re adding energy management and it’s awesome. Created two products to read out electricity meters: SlimmeLezer for P1 ports & Home Assistant Glow for activity LEDs. Upgraded most of the existing energy integrations to be compatible.

The world is in a climate crisis. Global warming is a reality and the weather is getting unpredictable. Our way of living needs to change, at all levels. I am worried that the climate crisis is something that the world is going to try to solve too late and after irreversible damages have already been done.

So with Home Assistant we want to do our part to help take on the climate crisis, and help you do the same. One part of fighting the climate crisis is making sure our homes are energy efficient and use low-carbon energy sources.

Starting today, Home Assistant is adding official support for home energy management. Our energy management will help users monitor the energy usage, transition to sustainable energy and save money.

Diagram how both home automation and energy management use the same data.
Home automation and energy management are built on top of knowing what devices are doing

Energy management and Home Assistant in context

Bill Gates was recently interviewed by Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) and talked about how intelligent homes are needed to make smart cities. And how all of this starts with energy management in the home. The interview is 3 minutes and worth watching:

Home Assistant won’t have all the answers when it comes to energy management, at least not right away. But we have two key things going for us that makes us the perfect platform to choose for your energy management:

The first is that we’re completely open. This means that with Home Assistant, anyone can use the source or its collected data and build anything with it. We already see this happening: the European federation of citizen energy cooperatives is using Home Assistant to build energy management software tailored for communities. We are part of a rich ecosystem with many different approaches, all connected with Home Assistant.

The second thing is that we have a passionate and global community that wants to make their homes the best it can be. A community that revolves around building and sharing their own hardware and software to be able to achieve their goals. Through experimentation and iteration we will be able to improve energy management over time to fit our needs – there are no investors to satisfy.

When it comes to your home, Home Assistant is the best platform to manage it and figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Copy-of-FreePower-Top

Wireless charging firm Aira raises $12M

by GadgetsHardwareRecent FundingStartupsWireless Charging

Founded in 2017, Arizona-based Aira didn’t waste any time proving out its technology. We’ve written about the company’s wireless charging a few times over the years, including the “FreePower” technology it has baked into Nomad’s charging pads, which brings a more streamlined version of the Apple’s abandoned AirPower. The tech allows for users to charge up to three objects at once, without having to futz with their precise placement on the pad.

Nomad’s new Base Station Pro offers a taste of what Apple’s AirPower had promised

Today, the startup announced that it has raised a $12 million seed round, primarily led by private investors, including Jawad Ahsan, Lori Greiner and Robert Herjavec.  The funding will go toward expanding the company’s reach beyond consumer device charging, into the worlds of enterprise, automotive and hospitality, as well as the development of a 2.0 version of its charging tech.

“This new round of funding is a game changer when it comes to accelerating our capacity for innovation,” co-founder and CEO Jake Slatnick said in a release. “With so many partnerships in our pipeline, a 2.0 version of FreePower on the horizon, and Jawad having just joined our board, this is an inflection point for Aira.”

Image Credits: Aira

As we noted late last year, Aira has already made some headway in automotive. Late last year, it announced funding from auto parts supply giant Motherson, which is also part of this round. The deal was a pretty clear indication that the firm was pushing into integrating its wireless modules into cars — a welcome addition, as many automakers have traditionally lacked consumer electronics-friendly amenities.

Neither party announced any specific car partners at the time — or now, for that matter. But Aira notes that it and Motherson are teaming up to create automotive-grade FreePower modules.

Image Credits: Aira

“Current wireless charging technology is not built for moving environments, leaving consumers and automakers underwhelmed,” Aira says in a release issued today. “In-car charging surfaces with FreePower, on the other hand, are able to support devices shifting around while driving, multi-device charging, surfaces of any size, and firmware updates for future enhancements and compatibility. They can also deliver high-power charging while maintaining stringent safety and regulatory standards.”

The news also sees Axon  CFO Jawad Ahsan joining Aira’s board of directors.

Aira takes key investment to build its fantastic smartphone wireless charging pad into vehicles

Sara-Spangelo-headshot

Swarm debuts $499 Evaluation Kit for consumers and tinkerers

by aerospaceGadgetsSatellitesScienceSpaceTC

Satellite connectivity company Swarm’s new product will give anyone the ability to create a messaging or Internet of Things (IoT) device, whether that be a hiker looking to stay connected off the grid or a hobbyist wanting to track the weather.

The Swarm Evaluation Kit is an all-in-one product that includes a Swarm Tile, the company’s flagship modem device, a VHF antenna, a small solar panel, a tripod, a Feather S2 development board and an OLED from Adafruit. The entire kit comes in at less than 6 pounds and costs $499. The package may sound intimidatingly technical, but Swarm CEO Sara Spangelo explained to TechCrunch that it was designed to be user-friendly, from the most novice consumer all the way through to more advanced users.

It “was super intentional to call it an evaluation kit because it’s not a finished product,” Spangelo explained. “It serves two different kinds of groups. The first group is people that want to be able to do messaging anywhere that they are on the planet for a really low cost. … The second group of people will be the tinkerers and the hobbyists and educational folks.”

Image Credits: Swarm. CEO and co-founder Sara Spangelo 

This is the second consumer product for Swarm — it went commercially live with its flagship Swarm Tile earlier this year. The Swarm Tile is a key part of the company’s ecosystem, which includes a few different components: the Tile, a kind of modem that can be embedded in different things and what the customer interfaces with; the satellite network; and a ground station network, which is how the company downlinks data. The Tile is designed for maximum compatibility, so Swarm serves customers across sectors including shipping, logistics and agriculture.

“One of the cool things about Swarm is that we’re infrastructure,” she said. “We’re like cellphone towers, so anyone can use us across any vertical.” Some of the use cases she highlighted included customers using Tile in soil moisture sensors, or in asset tracking in the trucking industry.

Swarm’s low-cost satellite data network is now available to commercial clients

A major part of Swarm’s business model is its low cost, with a Swarm Tile costing $119 and the connectivity service available for only $5 per month per connected device. Spangelo credits not only the engineering innovations in the tiny devices and satellites, but the gains in launch economics, especially for small satellite developers like Swarm. The company also sells direct, which further reduces overhead.

Swarm was founded by Spangelo, a pilot and aerospace engineering Ph.D. who spent time at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and at Google on its drone delivery project, Wing. She told TechCrunch that Swarm started as a hobby project between her and co-founder Ben Longmier, who had previously founded a company called Aether Industries that made high-altitude balloon platforms.

“Then [we] realized that we could do communications at speeds that were similar to what the legacy players are doing today,” Spangelo said. “There was a lot of buzz around connectivity,” she added, noting that initiatives like Project Loon were garnering a lot of funding. But instead of trying to match the size and scale of some of these multi-year projects, they decided to go small.

In the four and a half years since the company’s founding, Swarm has put up a network of 120 sandwich-sized satellites into low Earth orbit and grown its workforce to 32 people. They’ve also been busy onboarding customers that use the Tile. One hope is that the kit will be an additional way to draw customers to Swarm’s service.

Spangelo said the kit is for “everybody in between, that likes to just play with things. And it’s not just playing — the playing leads to innovations and ideas, and then it gets deployed out into the world.”

As China shakes up regulations, tech companies suffer

FTC puts hardware makers on warning for potential ‘unlawful repair restrictions’

by GadgetsGovernmentHardware

As phones and other consumer devices have gained feature after feature, they have also declined in how easily they can be repaired, with Apple at the head of this ignoble pack. The FTC has taken note, admitting that the agency has been lax on this front but that going forward it will prioritize what could be illegal restrictions by companies as to how consumers can repair, repurpose and reuse their own property.

Devices are often built today with no concessions made toward easy repair or refurbishment, or even once-routine upgrades like adding RAM or swapping out an ailing battery. While companies like Apple do often support hardware for a long time in some respects, the trade-off seems to be that if you crack your screen, the maker is your only real option to fix it.

That’s a problem for many reasons, as right-to-repair activist and iFixit founder Kyle Wiens has argued indefatigably for years (the company posted proudly about the statement on its blog). The FTC sought comment on this topic back in 2019, issued a report on the state of things a few months ago, and now (perhaps emboldened by new chair Lina Khan’s green light to all things fearful to Big Tech companies) has issued a policy statement.

The gist of the unanimously approved statement is that they found that the practice of deliberately restricting repairs may have serious repercussions, especially among people who don’t have the cash to pay the Apple tax for what ought to be (and once was) a simple repair.

The Commission’s report on repair restrictions explores and discusses a number of these issues and describes the hardships repair restrictions create for families and businesses. The Commission is concerned that this burden is borne more heavily by underserved communities, including communities of color and lower-income Americans. The pandemic exacerbated these effects as consumers relied more heavily on technology than ever before.

While unlawful repair restrictions have generally not been an enforcement priority for the Commission for a number of years, the Commission has determined that it will devote more enforcement resources to combat these practices. Accordingly, the Commission will now prioritize investigations into unlawful repair restrictions under relevant statutes…

The statement then makes four basic points. First, it reiterates the need for consumers and other public organizations to report and characterize what they perceive as unfair or problematic repair restrictions. The FTC doesn’t go out and spontaneously investigate companies, it generally needs a complaint to set the wheels in motion, such as people alleging that Facebook is misusing their data.

Second is a surprising antitrust tie-in, where the FTC says it will look at said restrictions aiming to answer whether monopolistic practices like tying and exclusionary design are in play. This could be something like refusing to allow upgrades, then charging an order of magnitude higher than market price for something like a few extra gigs of storage or RAM, or designing products in such a way that it moots competition. Or perhaps arbitrary warranty violations for doing things like removing screws or taking the device to a third party for repairs. (Of course, these would depend on establishing monopoly status or market power for the company, something the FTC has had trouble doing.)

More in line with the FTC’s usual commercial regulations, it will assess whether the restrictions are “unfair acts or practices,” which is a much broader and easier to meet requirement. You don’t need a monopoly to make claims of an “open standard” to be misleading, or for a hidden setting to slow the operations of third-party apps or peripherals, for instance.

And lastly the agency mentions that it will be working with states in its push to establish new regulations and laws. This is perhaps a reference to the pioneering “right to repair” bills like the one passed by Massachusetts last year. Successes and failures along those lines will be taken into account and the feds and state policymakers will be comparing notes.

Apple expands its independent repair program to Mac, after US antitrust investigation examined company’s repair policies

This isn’t the first movement in this direction by a long shot, but it is one of the plainest. Tech companies have seen the writing on the wall, and done things like expand independent repair programs — but it’s arguable that these actions were taken in anticipation of the FTC’s expected shift toward establishing hard lines on the topic.

The FTC isn’t showing its full hand here, but it’s certainly hinting that it’s ready to play if the companies involved want to push their luck. We’ll probably know more soon once it starts ingesting consumer complaints and builds a picture of the repair landscape.

Nothing founder Carl Pei on Ear (1) and building a hardware startup from scratch

elipsa-review-2

Kobo Elipsa review: A sized-up e-reading companion with clever note taking

by GadgetsHardwareReviewsTC

Kobo’s Elipsa is the latest in the Amazon rival’s e-reading line, and it’s a big one. The 10.3-inch e-paper display brings it up to iPad dimensions and puts it in direct competition with the reMarkable and Boox’s e-reader tablets. It excels on reading experience, gets by on note taking and drawing, but falls a bit short on versatility.

Kobo has been creeping upmarket for a few years now, and though the cheaper Clara HD is still the pick of the litter in my opinion, the Forma and Libra H2O are worthy competitors to the Kindle lines. The $400 Elipsa represents a big step up in size, function and price, and it does justify itself — though there are a few important caveats.

The device is well designed but lacks any flourishes. The tilted “side chin” of the Forma and Libra is flattened out into a simple wide bezel on the right side. The lopsided appearance doesn’t bother me much, and much of the competition has it as well. (Though my favorite is Boox’s ultracompact, flush-fronted Poke 3)

The Boox Poke 3 is my new favorite e-reader

The 10.3″ screen has a resolution of 1404 x 1872, giving it 227 pixels per inch. That’s well below the 300 PPI of the Clara and Forma, and the typography suffers from noticeably more aliasing if you look closely. Of course, you won’t be looking that closely, since as a larger device you’ll probably be giving the Elipsa a bit more distance and perhaps using a larger type size. I found it perfectly comfortable to read on — 227 PPI isn’t bad, just not the best.

There is a front light, which is easily adjustable by sliding your finger up and down the left side of the screen, but unlike other Kobo devices there is no way to change the color temperature. I’ve been spoiled by other devices and now the default cool grey I lived with for years doesn’t feel right, especially with a warmer light shining on your surroundings. The important part is that it is consistent across the full display and adjustable down to a faint glow, something my eyes have thanked me for many times.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

It’s hard to consider the Elipsa independent from the accessories it’s bundled with, and in fact there’s no way to buy one right now without the “sleep cover” and stylus. The truth is they really complete the package, though they do add considerably to its weight and bulk. What when naked is lighter and feels smaller than a standard iPad is heavier and larger once you put its case on and stash the surprisingly weighty stylus at the top.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

The cover is nicely designed, if a bit stiff, and will definitely protect your device from harm. The cover, secured by magnets at the bottom, flips off like a sheet on a legal pad and folds flat behind the device, attaching itself with the same magnets from the other direction. A couple folds in it also stiffen up with further magnetic arrangement into a nice, sturdy little stand. The outside is a grippy faux leather and the inside is soft microfiber.

You can wake and turn off the device by opening and closing the cover, but the whole thing comes with a small catch: you have to have the power button, charging port and big bezel on the right. When out of its case the Elipsa can, like the others of its lopsided type, be inverted and your content instantly flips. But once you put it in the case, you’re locked in to a semi-right-handed mode. This may or may not bother people but it’s worth mentioning.

The Elipsa, center, with the Forma and reMarkable 2 to its left and right. Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

The reading experience is otherwise very similar to that on Kobo’s other devices. A relatively clean interface that surfaces your most recently accessed content and a not overwhelming but still unwelcome amount of promotional stuff (“Find your next great read”). E-books free and paid for display well, though it’s never been my preference to read on a large screen like this. I truly wish one of these large e-readers would make a landscape mode with facing pages. Isn’t that more booklike?

Articles from the web, synced via Pocket, look great and are a pleasure to read in this format. It feels more like a magazine page, which is great when you’re reading an online version of one. It’s simple, foolproof and well integrated.

Kobo’s new note-taking prowess

What’s new on the bottom row, though, is “Notebooks,” where unsurprisingly you can create notebooks for scribbling down lists, doodles, notes of course, and generally use the stylus.

The writing experience is adequate. Here I am spoiled by the reMarkable 2, which boasts extremely low lag and high accuracy, as well as much more expression in the line. Kobo doesn’t approach that, and the writing experience is fairly basic, with a noticeable amount of lag, but admirable accuracy.

There are five pen tips, five line widths and five line shades, and they’re all fine. The stylus has a nice heft to it, though I’d like a grippier material. Two buttons on it let you quickly switch from the current pen style to a highlighter or eraser, where you have stroke-deleting or brush modes. The normal notebooks have the usual gridded, dotted, lined and blank styles, and unlimited pages, but you can’t zoom in or out (not so good for artists).

Then there are the “advanced” notebooks, which you must use if you want handwriting recognition and other features. These have indelible lines on which you can write, and a double tap captures your words into type very quickly. You can also put in drawings and equations in their own sections.

Close enough. Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

The handwriting recognition is fast and good enough for rough notes, but don’t expect to send these directly to your team without any editing. Likewise the diagram tool that turns gestural sketches of shapes and labels into finalized flowcharts and the like — better than the original wobbly art but still a rough draft. There are a few clever shortcuts and gestures to add or subtract spaces and other common tasks, something you’ll probably get used to fairly quick if you use the Elipsa regularly.

The notebook interface is snappy enough going from page to page or up and down on the “smart” notebooks but nothing like the fluidity of a design program or an art-focused one on an iPad. But it’s also unobtrusive, has good palm blocking, and feels nice in action. The lag on the line is definitely a con, but something you can get used to if you don’t mind the resulting product being a little sloppy.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

You can also mark up e-books, which is nice for highlights but ultimately not that much better than simply selecting the text. And there’s no way you’re writing in the margins with the limitations of this stylus.

Exporting notepads can be done via a linked Dropbox account or over USB connection. Again the reMarkable has a leg up here, for even if its app is a bit restrictive, the live syncing means you don’t ever have to worry about what version of what is where, as long as it’s in the system. On the Kobo it’s more traditional.

Compared to the reMarkable, the Kobo is really just an easier platform for everyday reading, so if you’re looking for a device that focuses on that and has the option of doodling or note taking on the side, it’s a much better deal. On the other hand, those just looking for an improvement to that stylus-focused tablet should look elsewhere — writing and sketching still feels way better on a reMarkable than almost anything on the market. Compared with something like a Boox tablet, the Elipsa is more simple and focused, but doesn’t allow the opportunity of adding Android apps and games.

At $400 — though this includes a case and stylus — the Elipsa is a considerable investment and comparably priced to an iPad, which is certainly a more versatile device. But I don’t particularly enjoy reading articles or books on my iPad, and the simplicity of an e-reader in general helps me focus when I’m making notes on a paper or something. It’s a different device for a different purpose, but not for everyone.

It is however probably the best way right now to step into the shallow end of the “big e-reader” pool, with more complex or expensive options available should you desire them.

Extra Crunch members get unlimited access to 12M stock images for $99 per year

Raylo nabs $11.5M to get more mobile users to lease and reuse

by EuropeGadgetsHardwareiOSiPhoneTechnologyUnited Kingdom

UK-based smartphone subscription startup Raylo has tucked $11.5 million in Series A funding into its top pocket, led by Octopus Ventures.

The equity round follows a debt raise last year — and brings Raylo’s total raised since being founded back in 2019 to $40M (in equity and debt). Its roster of investors to date also includes the Macquarie Group, Guy Johnson of Carphone Warehouse and the co-founders of Funding Circle.

The new funding will be used to charge up a subscription smartphone play that nudges consumers never to own their own mobile device — but just pay a monthly fee to lease a new or refurbished SIM-free device instead.

Raylo says it’s seen 10x YoY growth of customers and revenues, and plans to plough the Series A into accelerating its growth in the UK — including by doubling its headcount and further developing its tech. And while it suggests it’s entertaining the idea of a future global rollout it remains firmly UK focused for now.

Back Market raises $335M for its refurbished device marketplace, now valued at $3.2B

Consumers opting to get the latest smartphone hardware through Raylo will pay a lower cost than the full RRP for a device since they won’t actually own the hardware at the end of the contract.

Environmental considerations aside, that may be an increasingly important consideration, given the inflating price of premium handsets like the top-of-the-range iPhone which has broken $1,000 for a few years now.

Plus the fact that most consumers simply won’t shell out so much for a handset. Leasing and returning offers an alternative way for people to get to use such expensive high-end devices.

With Raylo, the leased mobile is typically returned after the end of the 12 or 24-month contract — with the returned device refurbished for reuse via a second (or third) leased life with another user.

End of life devices are recycled (by partners), per Raylo. So it’s touting a circular model that promotes sustainability via device usage longevity vs the more typical upgrade scenario, via a carrier, where a consumer may just toss their old unused handset into a drawer, wasting its further potential utility.

Albeit, many people do pass on old devices to other family members or even sell or trade them in. But Raylo claims there are an estimated 125M smartphones in unused ‘hibernation’ across the UK. So, the suggestion is, plenty of smartphone users don’t bother ensure their old handset gets a second life.

Raylo reckons each of its subscription leased device can be used by a total of three customers over 6-7 years – which, if achieved, would mean a lifespan that it says is almost 2x longer than the UK average (of 2.31 years).

To further the longevity goal, all the phones it supplies come with a free case and screen protector.

Users also need to weigh up whether they want to shell out for insurance too, though, since they need to make sure they don’t damage the leased handset or risk having to shell out for expensive repairs or a non-return fee. (Raylo sells its own flavor of device insurance to users as an optional extra which slightly bumps up the monthly cost.)

Raylo competes with carriers’ own device subscription plans, of course. But again the claim is it’s cheaper to lease its way — although that’s as it should be since the consumer doesn’t own the hardware at the end of the contract (so won’t automatically have anything of value they could sell or trade in elsewhere).

If a user doesn’t want (or fails) to return a device at the end of the contract they have to pay a non-return fee — which varies depending on the handset hardware and how long they’ve been paying for it. But the fee can stretch to over £600 at the premium end — after 12 months of use of a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G with 512GB of storage or an iPhone 12 Pro Max, for example.

While consumers that want to continue using the same device rather than upgrading after their contract ends can opt to continue paying their usual monthly fees — with payments continuing up to a maximum of 36 months, after which the non-return fee drops to a token £1.

All Raylo’s leased devices come with a 24 month warranty, under which it says it will freely repair faults not related to user damage or accidents, or else supply a replacement device if the handset can’t be fixed.

Commenting on Raylo’s Series A in a statement, Tosin Agbabiaka, early-stage fintech investor at Octopus Ventures, said: “The subscription economy is rapidly transforming the way we access products and services — yet the smartphone, an individual’s most valuable device, is still locked behind a bundled, ownership-based model. This means most people are trapped in a buy-and-dispose cycle, with a steep financial and environmental costs.

“Raylo solves these problems by offering access to premium consumer devices at lower, subscription-based prices, helping to widen access to the latest technology. By repurposing its devices at the end of their cycle, Raylo is also the sustainable choice in this market and has built a product loved by its customers — the opportunity here is massive, and we believe that [co-founders] Karl [Gilbert], Richard [Fulton], and Jinden [Badesha] have the vision and depth of expertise to transform the way we all access our devices.”

A number of refurbished electronics businesses have been attracting investor attention in Europe in recent years where lawmakers are also considering right to repair legislation.

Recent fundings in the space include a 5M round for French refurbished device marketplace startup Back Market; a m round for Berlin-based Grover‘s subscription electronics business; and a .6M round for Finland-based Swappie, which refurbishes and sells secondhand iPhones, to name a few.

European lawmakers propose a ‘right to repair’ for mobiles and laptops

Fairphone’s new flagship, the 3+, costs just €70 as a modular upgrade

Refurbished electronics startup Refurbed raises $17M round, led by Evli Growth Partners