Nest wants to make smart thermostats more appealing to a broader audience.

Nest unveiled its first smart thermostat in 2011, and rolled out two updated variants with added compatibility for heating and cooling systems and a larger screen. The underlying design has largely remained intact, along with the $249 price tag.

Nest is looking to change that with the Thermostat E — a ”​simpler,​ ​more​ ​affordable​” thermostat with an all-new design that will retail for $169. Whereas the Nest Learning Thermostat is made out of metal with a glossy finish, the Thermostat E features a polycarbonate chassis with a ”ceramic-like” control dial that gives it a plainer look. There are other differences as well — the Thermostat E doesn’t have a far-field sensor, so you won’t be able to use Nest’s Farsight feature. But you still get basic proximity detection.

Nest designed the Thermostat E to be able to blend into the background, and as a result the …

Put an intelligent virtual assistant with multilingual parsing on a television box and you might just score an Emmy Award. At least if your name is Siri.

Apple TV’s Siri implementation has been given an Emmy Award. Specifically, a Technical / Engineering Achievement Award. Far as I can find, this is the first time a virtual assistant has been honored by the television industry awards.

From the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences:

Contextual Voice Navigation for Discovering and Interacting with TV Content

Comcast
Universal Electronics (UEI)
Apple TV
Nuance Dragon TV

Siri on Apple TV is notable because it can handle multiple sequential languages, which is an incredibly tough problem to crack.

In this case, Siri has to understand the first language to figure out the action it needs to perform, like playing a movie. Then, Siri needs to recognize the speaker is switching to a second language and figure out the subject of the action, like the title of the…

Looking to change up your Apple Watch band but just can’t justify dropping the cash for those Apple-branded options? Here are some third-party bands that look great and are only a fraction of the cost.

There are a lot of very expensive Apple Watch bands out there, but if you want to be able to buy a few and switch it up every day — and do it without breaking the bank — then we have the best inexpensive bands for you!

Infantry heavy-duty nylon strap
Yearscase sport band
top4cus Milanese Loop
Burkley Cuff
Vilo V-MORO Double Tour
Supcase Unicorn Beetle Pro

Infantry heavy-duty nylon strap

If you have your eye on the new Sport Loop that was announced for the Apple Watch series 3 and want to get your hands on something similar ASAP, then check out the Infantry heavy-duty nylon strap.

This durable nylon strap is water resistant up to 100 meters and can easily be secured to fit almost any wrist size with it’s tough velcro design. If things go wrong with your Infantry heav…

Save some money while figuring out what’s wrong with your car thanks to our pals at Thrifter!

No one likes seeing their check engine light pop on, and it’s even worse when you don’t know what the cause of it is. Sure, there are some places that will scan your car for free to tell you what’s up, but most of them charge for the service. Stop throwing money away having your car scanned, and start doing it for yourself.

Right now you can pick up Kobra’s Wireless OBD2 reader for just $14.39 with the coupon code 83ZIWPVF. This is a savings of nearly $6 from its regular price, and one of the best features of it is that you can connect it right to your smartphone to decipher the cards.

THE MOST EFFECTIVE OBD SCANNER AND CAR CODE READER YOU HAVE EVER TRIED: Diagnose Your Car – Like a Pro and instantly transform your car into a Smart Car! KOBRA has created a top quality auto diagnostic scanner. This OBD2 Scanner can read generic and manufacturer-specific trouble codes and its database inc…

Want to see how Google Maps routes a destination instead? There’s an app for that.

The Maps app is, shall we say, controversial: While Apple’s mapping app has seen incredible improvement over the last few years, there are still areas (both physical and feature-related) where it falls short.

While you can’t change the default mapping app on iOS, you can make it easier to switch to an alternative with a $1.99 utility app called Opener.

The app runs as an action extension from your Share sheet: It was originally designed to open web URLs in their proper apps, but you can also use it to open Apple Maps locations in Google Maps, Waze, or another mapping app of your choice. Here’s how to use it!

How to open Apple Maps locations in Google Maps

First, you’ll have to set up Opener.

Download Opener.
Open Apple Maps.
Search for a location.
Swipe up on the info screen to reveal the Share button.

Tap the Share button.
Press the More button in the Share sheet.
Switch the Opener toggle to …

… And if you do, please be smart about it…

Instagram is great for a lot of things: following your besties, posting selfies, updating your IG story with a wild night out, getting makeup recommendations from beauty gurus, following your favorite celeb’s day-to-day super glam lives, and shopping for a plastic surgeon!

🎶 … One of these things is not like the other… 🎶

Social media has changed the way plastic surgeons interact with their colleagues, patients, and friends. Social media is a rapidly changing phenomenon that it is critical to plastic surgeons and their practice. Plastic surgery can be marketed directly to consumers and therefore social media can provide a valuable platform to interact with potential patients and to define a surgeon’s expertise and practice online. Social media impacts search engine optimization algorithms, increasing web traffic to a surgeon’s site, and it can affect patients’ perceptions of the practice and surgeon. (O…

Backing up photos is important for ensuring you keep your memories safe from things like lost or stolen devices and software crashes. These are the best backup services for taking care of your photographs!

Arguably the most important things we carry around with us on our iPhones are our photos: they’re personal, unique, and irreplaceable captures of moments in our lives, and if something were to happen to and we hadn’t properly backed them up, then our treasured memories would be lost forever!

There are a handful of fantastic apps for backing up and storing your photos in the cloud, which will keep them safe no matter what happens to your iPhone. It all depends on what features you think are most important!

Here are the absolute best photo backup services available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac!

Apple iCloud Photo Library
Amazon Photos
Adobe Creative Cloud
Google Photos
Microsoft OneDrive
Dropbox

Apple iCloud Photo Library

For those fully immersed in the Apple ecosystem, the iCl…

Samsung’s Gear Sport, Gear Fit2 Pro, and Icon X are all variations of designs we’ve seen before. The Gear Sport is an evolution of the Gear S3 Frontier, Samsung’s outdoor smartwatch I reviewed last year. I didn’t get as close a look at the Gear Fit2 or the Icon X earbuds – but maybe that’s just as well given how much the newer models improve upon their forebears. With MIL-STD 810G durability and 5ATM water resistance the Gear Sport and Fit2 Pro bring a strong outdoor game, while the 2018 revision of the Icon X earbuds improves battery life many times over. All that’s pretty exciting stuff even for a non-athlete such as myself – and to hear Samsung tell it, that’s kind of the whole idea.

Click on through to the video above to catch MrMobile going hands-on with the Samsung Gear Sport, Gear Fit2 Pro, and Icon X 2018! Then be sure to check out Android Central’s own in-depth coverage, and stay tuned for much more mobile tech coming out of Berlin as IFA 2017 rolls …