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‘Dystopian’ Ring Search Party feature sparks public backlash [Video]

Tone-deaf Ring Search Party feature sparks public backlash | Image shows an aerial view of a residential neighborhood with blue circles activated

Amazon apparently thought the world would respond with a collective “awww” when it announced an expansion of its Ring Search Party feature to help find lost dogs, promoted via a 30-second Super Bowl ad (below). Instead, it’s being widely panned as a dystopian move in the current climate.

Since the company has recently rolled out a facial recognition capability for the Ring video doorbell, people drew the obvious and exceedingly short line between surveilling for dogs to surveilling for people …

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This accessory solves the biggest problem with Philips Hue smart bulbs

Philips Hue bulbs are one of the easiest ways to give your existing light fixtures smart home capabilities, including through Apple’s HomeKit platform. The problem with Philips Hue bulbs, however, is that whenever a wall light switch is flipped off, the smart lights become unresponsive.

The Lutron Aurora dimmer is a simple yet ingenious way to solve this problem, and it should be at the top of every smart home fan’s holiday wish list.

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Major Philips Hue launch turns bulbs into motion sensors, adds smart doorbell, more

Major Philips Hue launch turns bulbs into motion sensors, adds smart doorbell, more | Hue Secure doorbell shown

We’ve known for some time that there was major news on the way from Philips Hue, and the company has now announced all of the details.

One of the headline features is a new Bridge Pro which turns your existing smart bulbs into motion sensors. Bulbs also get more affordable, light strips get brighter, and there’s support for Matter-over-Thread. Finally, the smart doorbell leaked earlier in the year is now official …

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