Articles by Jeramy Johnson

Google Assistant is one of the most popular smart voice assistants on the planet and is accessible on Google Home compatible devices as diverse as smartwatches, smartphones, smart speakers, and more. In addition to the devices it’s built into, Google Assistant has integrations with hundreds, if not thousands, of other smart devices and services. What follows is a list of some of our favorites, broken down by category.

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Smart lights
Home automation
Smart appliances
Security
Entertainment
Music services
Streaming services for video

Google Home Compatible Devices Smart lights

Connected smart lights are the easiest and most fun way to start building out your smart home network. There are multiple brands like Philips Hue and Sengled that offer complete collections of smart lighting solutions that are connected by a hub and work well with Google Assistant.

Smart light starter kit

Philips Hue Multicolor A19 Starter Kit

Staff Pick

Philips is one of the leading manuf…

Ring’s various video doorbells provide a great way to make your home a bit smarter, but you can make them even more powerful with the best of the best Ring doorbell accessories. While Ring includes everything you need to get up and running out of the box, it never hurts to go beyond the basics. Some items are available for specific Ring doorbell models only, so pay close attention before buying.

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Amazon Echo Show 10

Staff Pick

You can use the Echo Show 10 to see who is outside your door, and as the newest Show device, this version is better than ever thanks to its 10.1-inch HD screen that actually moves on its base to follow you, always keeping you in frame or the screen facing you. You can also talk to whoever is outside through the Echo Show 10 and hear them back.

$250 at Amazon $250 at Best Buy

Creative mounting

Corner Kit for Ring Video Doorbell 3/3 Plus, 4

Every doorway is different, and you may need to get creative with how you mount your doorbell for it to b…

We all love to share photos and videos on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and for the most part, everything generally works out as planned. However, frequently the images we share on Twitter are overly compressed, squished, or cropped in ways that aren’t flattering. Thankfully, Twitter is now rolling out some new methods to allow users to upload high-quality — even 4K — images and videos to Twitter, both on Android and iOS. We’ll show you where these settings are located in the Twitter app so you can start sharing the shots you intended, once and for all!

How to upload high-quality 4K images to Twitter for Android

The first improvement that you’ll notice immediately is when you tweet an image, the result — or what gets posted in the timeline — will match what you see in the tweet composer. No more cropped photo surprises!

Secondly, you will now be able to upload and view 4K images from your Android (or iOS) device. Here’s how!

Open your Twitter…

Bit by bit, Google continues to add useful features to the Chrome browser and Chrome OS. Recently, live captioning came to Chrome desktop, and we also saw the read later feature come to Android. One of the latest features might not seem so exciting, but I’ve found it to be such a productivity hack, especially when sharing relevant information with friends and family. What is this new feature? It’s the ability to share links to highlighted text in Google Chrome, and I’ll show you how simple and intuitive it is to use.

How to link highlighted text from Google Chrome

From your Chrome browser, select a bit of text that you want to share a direct link to.
Right-click on the text.
Select the Copy Link to Highlight option.

Share that link with somone, and/or paste it into another browser tab or window.

You or the person you share the link with should be taken directly to the highlighted text on the page in question.
This feature is supported in Chrome version 90 and later and shou…

Chatting with the AC forums.

There are so many reasons to love Android. Whether it’s the variety of hardware among the best Android phones, the customization and theming options with the software, or just the ability to “be together, not the same.” With over 70% market share worldwide, Android is obviously doing something right!

But in all fairness, Apple’s iOS is a very strong, secure, and stable operating system with a lot of great user features. Its iPhones are undisputedly some of the best-made devices around, with great cameras and good displays. As tech lovers, it’s only natural to be tempted by what’s on the other side of the fence. That happened to one of our AC forums members, with a not-so-surprising conclusion…

SwitchBoardDj
04-21-2021 05:27 PM

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I originally bought a S21 Ultra at release…the silver model or whatever it’s called. I liked the phone but didn’t really care too much…

If you are looking for an affordable, mid-range smartphone, we think the Google Pixel 4a is the best Android phone you can get under $400. That’s because it offers the same core experience as the higher-end Pixel 4 that preceded it. You get the same software and features and the same camera experience. The only shortcomings come in the hardware and a couple of the specs — a fine trade-off to save hundreds of dollars.

Best Overall Android Phone Under $400: Google Pixel 4a

The Pixel 3a from 2019 stood out as one of the best Android values for well over a year, and to fill its impressive shoes, we now have the Pixel 4a. Google took what worked about the 3a, kept it in place, and added a few improvements to make the Pixel 4a as fully-featured as possible — all while selling the Pixel 4a for less than what the 3a cost.

As with any Pixel phone, the best thing about the Pixel 4a is its camera. The 12.2MP single rear camera certainly isn’t impressive on paper, but it’s outstanding i…

The most advanced, fashionable Fitbit tracker to date.

What you need to know

Fitbit just announced a stylish, high-end fitness tracker called the Luxe.
The new Luxe is the first Fitbit tracker with a color screen, and it features many of the advanced health monitoring abilities of its premium smartwatches like the Sense.
The tracker is available for preorder today for $149.99, with a special edition version coming in June for $199.99.

Now that we’re a full month into spring at this point, Fitbit has given us all another reason to get out, be active, and take better care of ourselves. The company just announced a new premium fitness tracker that it’s calling the Fitbit Luxe.

What is the Fitbit Luxe?

The Fitbit Luxe is not only luxurious, but it is also a very advanced fitness tracker.

From the looks of things, the new Fitbit Luxe is not only the best tracker that Fitbit has ever made, but it might be the best fitness tracker on the market today. It features a refined and e…

Chatting with the AC forums.

Now that the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro have been available for a while, and we’re anxious to see how their cameras live up to the Hasselblad hype. In our testing and personal usage, we already consider both devices to be among the best Android phones available, thanks to their impressive screens, clean software, durable construction, and long battery life. But how do they compare among the best Android cameras?

Thankfully, our industrious community members have already started a thread on the AC forums to share their best OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro camera samples. Check it out, and contribute if you’re so inclined (click through each post to see the user photos)!

mustang7757
04-07-2021 12:16 PM

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Let’s see some photos
Reply

msm0511
04-08-2021 08:13 AM

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Haven’t even gotten the chan…

There are several reasons why you might want to know how to enable dark mode on your Samsung Galaxy smartphone. With larger displays on phones like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, dark mode is not only easier on your eyes, but you’ll also be able to take advantage of Samsung’s OLED screen technology and save battery life by lighting up fewer pixels. Or maybe you just think dark mode looks cool (it does). Whatever the case, I’ll show you how easy it is to set your screen to dark mode. Who knows? You may never want to go back!

How to enable dark mode on your Galaxy phone

For this guide, I’ll assume your device is on Android 10 Q or newer. There is a way to enable a version of dark mode for Galaxy phones on Android 9 Pie, but it’s technically not an Android OS-level setting and may not work across all of your apps.

Make sure that your device is updated to at least Android 10.
Slide down the notification and settings shade.
Depending on how you’ve organized your system settings in the…

With phone displays getting more and more pixel-dense and faster refresh rates, like the OnePlus 9, batteries can drain even faster. Thanks to OLED screens, knowing how to enable dark mode on your OnePlus phone is a thing that not only looks cool but can also save you some battery life. You see, OLED panels don’t activate any pixels when representing “black” — instead, black represents what it really is, the absence of light. By not activating large swaths of pixels, you inevitably save battery life. While it’s not as simple as a quick settings shortcut like on Samsung Galaxy phones, enabling dark mode on a OnePlus phone is still darn simple.

How to enable dark mode on your OnePlus phone

Open the Settings app from either the app drawer or from the quick settings in the notification pane.
Tap on Display.
Tap on Dark Mode.

By giving Dark Mode a proper set of easy-to-use toggles, you can choose to live on the dark side all the time or schedule your phone to adjust from light …