At any given time, there are between five and eight phones on my desk. And by “my desk,” I mean any combination of tables and countertops throughout my house. So when I watched the Humane AI Pin reviews start pouring in last week, I did what any logical person would do: grab the closest phone and try to turn it into my own AI wearable.

Humane would like you to believe that its AI Pin represents consumer tech at its most cutting edge. The reviews and the guts of the pin say otherwise: it uses a Snapdragon processor from four years ago and seems to run a custom version of Android 12.

“It’s a midrange Android phone!” I declared at our next team meeting, waving around a midrange Android phone for effect. “You could just download Gemini and stick this to your shirt!” Simple. Trivial. Give me 10 minutes, and I’ll have a more powerful AI gadget whipped up, I said.

Hardware is hard, y’all.

Ideally, I wanted an outward-facing camera and a decent voice assistant I could use hands-free. An iPhone in a shirt pocket was an intriguing solution but a nonstarter because a) none of my shirts have pockets, and b) Siri is just not that smart. Thus, my earliest prototype was a Motorola Razr Plus clamped to the neckline of my shirt. This, unsurprisingly, did not work but for reasons I did not anticipate.

First off, you can’t download Gemini from the Play Store on a folding phone. That was news to me. But even once I’d sideloaded it and set it as the default assistant, I ran into another barrier: it’s really hard to use a voice assistant from the cover screen of a flip phone. The Razr wants you to flip the phone open before you can do anything aside from get its attention with “Hey Google.”

Running Gemini in Chrome on the cover screen actually got me closer to what I was looking for. But trying to tap buttons on the screen to trigger the assistant wasn’t working very well, and neither was operating Google Lens out of the corner of my eye. Also, Gemini misread “recycle” on a tube of toothpaste as “becicle,” which it confidently told me was an old-timey word for eyeglasses. It is not!

Prototype two was the same Razr flip phone running ChatGPT in conversation mode on the cover screen. This meant the app was constantly running and always listening, so it wasn’t practical. But I gave it a shot anyway, and it was a strange experience talking to an AI chatbot that I couldn’t see.

ChatGPT is a decent conversationalist, but we ran out of things to talk about pretty quickly once I’d exhausted my chatbot go-to’s: dinner recipes and plant care tips. I want an AI that can do things for me, not just brainstorm stir-fry ingredients.

I ditched the foldable concept and picked up a Pixel 8 and a Pixel Watch 2 instead. I set up Gemini as the default assistant on the phone and figured that would somehow apply to the watch, too. Wrong. I had one more card to play, though: a good old pair of wireless earbuds. Life on the cutting edge of technology, baby.

You know what, though? It kind of worked. I had to leave Gemini open and running on my phone since Google doesn’t fully support Gemini Assistant on headphones. But I took a picture of a Blue Apron recipe I was making for dinner, told Gemini to remember it, and left my phone on the counter. As I moved around the kitchen, I asked Gemini questions I’d normally have to peek back at the recipe to answer like “How long do I roast the vegetables for?” and “How do I prep the fish?” It gave me the right answers every time.

What was more impressive is that I could ask it tangential questions. It helped me use pantry ingredients to recreate a seasoning mix I didn’t have on hand. I asked why the recipe might have me divide the sauce into two portions, and it gave me a plausible answer. And it did something the Humane pin can’t do yet: set a timer.

It wasn’t perfect. First, I had to unplug the Google Home puck sitting on the counter because it kept trying to butt in. Gemini also told me that it couldn’t play an album on Spotify, something that that Google Home speaker has been doing for the better part of a decade. The watch came in handy for that, at least.

What started as a goofy stunt has convinced me of two things: I really do think we’re going to use AI to get more things done in the future, and also, the future of AI gadgets is just phones. It’s phones!

I love a gadget, but guys, I lived through the era of camera companies trying to convince us that we all needed to carry a compact camera and our phones everywhere. Phones won. Phones already come with powerful processors, decent heat dissipation, and sophisticated wireless connectivity. An AI gadget that operates independently from your phone has to figure all of that out.

And you know what looks a lot less doofy than a pin with a laser on your chest? Earbuds. People willingly wear them throughout the day right now. And the doofy factor definitely matters when it comes to wearables. I’m having a hard time seeing how a separate gadget can beat the humble phone plus a pair of earbuds or something like the Meta Ray Bans. Maybe there’s room in our lives and our pockets for dedicated AI hardware — the gadget lover in me is all for it. But I think it’s more likely that we have all of the ingredients we need to make good AI hardware right in front of us.

Six weeks ago, I was having a tough time sticking to my running routines and goals. Physically, I was mostly fine. Mentally, the thought of running — a sport I usually love — made me roll into a blanket burrito and never leave my bed. I started hating myself, but none of my usual fitness apps and trackers were helping. After building a weeklong streak, I couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed one Saturday. I broke it and spent the next day wallowing in guilt and self-pity.

Fed up, I went digging around the internet and ended up downloading the Gentler Streak app.

Gentler Streak is what it sounds like. It’s an iOS and Apple Watch app with a more compassionate approach toward building a fitness habit. You can set an activity status: active, on a break, sick, and injured. Selecting one of the latter three won’t break your streak. Instead, your activity is represented on an “activity path,” which is a visualization for your overall training load. There’s educational reading about nutrition, exercise, rest, and the interplay between all three. Each day, you open the app, and it’ll give you a nudge. If you’re super well-rested, you might get told to push it a little. If you’re tired, you’ll get reminded that resting is good, actually. And if you really don’t know what to do, you can tap a “Go Gentler” button on the Apple Watch to see a series of suggested exercises based on activities you like, with recommended durations and intensity levels.

There’s a lot I love about all this. First and foremost, I enjoy that it incorporates breaks and “failure” into your eventual success — and doesn’t judge you for it.

That lack of judgment is what I needed. Eleven years into my running journey, I’d stumbled into my worst-ever slump. I was caught in a vicious cycle of falling off the horse, getting back on, and then getting angry whenever my efforts were less than perfect. A silly walking app helped with reframing my all-or-nothing mindset. The problem is, inside my brain resides an evil hypercritical goblin that will find and dwell in every tiny failing while minimizing all my successes. So what if a fun walking app was getting me out and about? Walking isn’t running. So what if I ran twice a week for a few weeks? You used to run four to five times a week, easy peasy.

I know I’m not supposed to listen to the evil brain goblin, but there are times when life rudely hands it a mighty powerful megaphone. Adding Gentler Streak helped shut it up. It’s not rocket science for an app to say “taking a rest day won’t affect your overall fitness.” But many don’t. Seeing that phrase over and over again underscored that I had, against my better judgment, started conflating streaks with consistency. Streaks are just one measure of consistency and a flawed one at that. A single break — which may actually be the better choice for your health — will wreck your streak, and that’s perceived as a bad thing.

The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling beholden to one.

None of what Gentler Streak does is novel. Features that emphasize recovery are rampant in other fitness apps. It’s more that it leads with intuition instead of data. There’s a real emphasis on creating space for everything, as opposed to sticking to something. One teaches you how to adapt; the other relies on willpower — and willpower always runs out.

Take the daily “Go Gentler” suggestions. Rest and active recovery (e.g., yoga, walking, low-intensity activity, etc.) are always options 1 and 2. The remaining three are usually things that will help you maintain where you are, push you a little, or push you a lot. You don’t actually have to put in a lot of thought either because the suggestions are there. On stressful days when you’re out of willpower, that helps keep the evil brain goblin from waking up.

Like any app, Gentler Streaks still has its flaws, one of them being its reliance on the Apple Watch. You can use it with other trackers, but I’ve had issues with it pulling my sleep data from the Oura Ring reliably. Another is the subscription — $7.99 per month or $27.49 for a year. I paid, as features like the Go Gentler suggestions and extra data insights are paywalled.

Despite these shortcomings, a gentler approach seems to be working for me. Some people with iron wills may scoff. To them, I doff my cap and say I envy their blessedly silent brain goblins. But I’m running faster, longer, and more enjoyably than I have in six months. My calf remains uninjured. When I tell myself, “I’m busy today, I’ll squeeze in that run tomorrow” — the run actually happens. I’ll take it.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 35, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready to open some tabs, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been rewatching Killing Eve now that it’s on Netflix, reading about Maggie Rogers and flying cars and the Today in Tabs newsletter, nodding along as MKBHD talks about gadget reviews, testing the Godspeed to-do list app, talking to everyone I know about the Papyrus 2 sketch, listening on repeat to The Tortured Poets Department, and playing with the Plaud AI voice recorder.

I also have for you a surprisingly gadget-y week! We have a new set of earbuds to try, a new handheld camera, an AI memory system, a new audio-first social network, and much more. (Oh, also, a programming note: Installer is off next week, back May 4th.) Let’s get into it.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into this week? What should everyone else be playing / reading / watching / eating / doing? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)

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The Drop

• Delta. This retro gaming emulator instantly earned a spot on my homescreen. Leaving aside the complicated legal questions about emulators and ROMs, this app is mature and polished and supports a huge number of old consoles. The iPhone screen also turns out to be the absolute perfect size for playing some of those old pixelated Mario games. Just saying. (This was, not surprisingly, the most recommended thing this week and maybe in the history of Installer — thanks to everyone who sent it in!)
• Airchat. I honestly don’t know how to feel about this app. Are voice-based social networks going to be a thing, or was Clubhouse just a strange pandemic-induced haze we were all in for a week? Lots of tech folks I know are into this one, though, so it’s at least worth keeping an eye on.
• Limitless. A very different kind of AI gadget, this one. The “we’ll summarize your meetings” approach is… fine, but I think the vision here, to figure out how to record and give you access to your life, is pretty cool. I also really dig the Limitless Pendant, which looks much less gadget-y than your average AI device.
• The Insta360 X4. Insta360 is doing some pretty nifty stuff in the action camera world. The $500 X4 does 8K footage at 30 frames per second, which goes a long way when you’re cropping and sharing videos later. It also has some ruggedness upgrades, which should help the more, uh, clumsy of us out there.
• Soulver 3 for iPhone. Soulver is the coolest, smartest calculator you’ve ever seen, and at long (like, weirdly long) last, the latest version is on the iPhone. $14 is a lot for an app like this, but this one’s worth it just for converting recipes and splitting bills.
• The Nothing Ear (a). Nothing’s earbuds have gotten pretty good, and I am extremely into the yellow accents and case on its new low-end models. (Which cost $99 and appear to be just about as good as the more expensive ones.) They don’t have a ton of extra platform-specific features, but as Bluetooth earbuds go, they’re a really good bet.
• Maestro for Amazon Music. I love this as a use for AI: just telling your music services the kind of stuff you want to listen to. Get weird with your mood, or just type, like, “I like The 1975 and Van Morrison, play other bands” and see what happens.
• Meta AI. Say this for Mark Zuckerberg and Co.: they are not going small with their AI plans. The new bot works across platforms (and on your smart glasses) and runs on the new Llama 3 model that Meta says rivals everything else on the market.
• PodcastAP. A podcast app for the fediverse that can add new episodes to your timeline anywhere you are. It’s pretty basic right now, and Mastodon et al. need to work on being better podcast players, but this is a super cool idea.
• The Circle season 6. This is one of Netflix’s more unhinged reality shows, which is saying something! And this season, there’s a twist: one of the characters is actually an AI bot named “Max.” It’s going to get so weird.

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Group project

In last week’s Installer, I asked you all to share what you use AI for. Thanks to everyone who emailed, texted, Threads-ed, and Mastodon-ed me with your thoughts!

The main thing I heard, over and over and over again, is that you don’t use AI. A lot of you said you actively avoid it, wish your favorite apps would stop integrating it, and don’t really see much use for it at all. I get that; that’s how I feel about a lot of AI. There are so many neat-sounding things out there that turn out to kind of suck and mostly be a hassle that, at some point, you just kind of give up.

But! I did get a bunch of cool recommendations of apps and tools y’all like, so let me share a few I heard about:

• Chatbots. I mean, duh. ChatGPT seems to be the overwhelming favorite, but I heard some love for Claude, too, and even a little Gemini hype. No love for Meta AI just yet, but that might change. Oh, and some definite votes for Poe as a way to use all the bots in one place.
• Perplexity. This one’s half chatbot, half search engine, and it’s probably the most popular thing I heard about this week. As a speedy way to get real-time answers to questions, it’s pretty great.
• Arc. A bunch of you like Arc’s “browse for me” feature, which summarizes and curates websites for you. Lucky you, I think that feature is about to be in basically every browser everywhere.
• Spacebar. An app that turns your IRL conversations into “memos,” with recaps and info about everything you talked about. Would it be weird to pull this out at dinner with friends? Maybe! But I heard some good things, and I’m intrigued.

More broadly, there were a few use cases I heard a bunch of times, not necessarily tool-specific but instead just something useful you can do with AI:

• Summarize stuff. This appears to be your go-to use case for AI, and it’s definitely mine, too. What was the gist of that long article you read and already kind of forgot? What’s this true crime doc about?
• Planning things. My other favorite use case: just ask the bot what people like to do wherever you’re going and start your itinerary from there. I loved the email I got from Jeff, who used ChatGPT to summarize a bunch of people’s ideas about where to go in Europe and got a travel itinerary out of it.
• Test your knowledge. This is sort of related to the last one, but I heard from a few folks who said they’ll upload a doc to ChatGPT or Gemini and then have the bot quiz them on its contents. A fun study tool!
• Check your writing. Lots and lots of grammar checkers out there, it seems. I heard from folks using AI tools to gut check ideas, check for errors, and just make sure all the sentences make sense.
• Make your own art. Whether you’re making playlists, decorating Notion pages, or sketching character ideas for your novel, I heard from folks who love having an endless fountain of new art at their disposal.

The overarching theme of your responses was that AI is useful… as a starting point. It’s a good tool to go from “I have to do a thing” to “I have now done a first, not very good, version of a thing.” Which is progress! If you’d rather edit an email than write one or tweak your presentation rather than build it from scratch, AI can be a help. But do not trust it to finish the job. You’ll end up submitting Shrimp Jesus in the quarterly report, and nobody needs that.

I’ve been working on some stuff about other good AI tools, too, so stay tuned — and keep sending recommendations!

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Screen share

One of my favorite things about Parker Ortolani, a product manager for consumer products here at Vox Media, is that he usually has better ideas about Apple products than Apple does. (Except for his deeply confusing love for the Vision Pro, but we’ll let that one go.) He’s always doing concept art for Apple apps, fixing dumb things about iOS, and even thinks Siri might someday be great. I love this for him.

Anyway, I asked Parker to share his homescreen with us because I figure Parker’s the kind of guy who might spend way too much time thinking about the layout and organization of everything. And I figured he’d have a bunch of custom icons and stuff no one even knew existed. I was right!

Here’s Parker’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: I’m currently using an iPhone 15 Pro in natural titanium. It’s easily my favorite iPhone since the X. Though I barely use the Action Button, the much lighter frame and USB-C have been game-changers.

The wallpaper: On the homescreen, I am using a dark knit background shared by the folks over at Impending who make the excellent Clear to-do list app, which is also my task manager of choice. I like a dark background generally, but using the pure black can get boring, so it’s nice to add a little texture. iOS just feels smoother with a black wallpaper.

The apps: Messages, Photos, YouTube, Instagram, Fantastical, Soulver, Slack, Transit, Maps, Copilot, Perplexity, Delta, Bulletin, Clear, Overcast, Arc, X, Threads, Apple Music.

I primarily use X to keep up with news, startups, the hot AI companies, and folks just building cool things, while Threads has become the best app for keeping up with entertainment and interacting with writers and journalists. Instagram is floating around there, too, but that’s more for just keeping up with friends and mindlessly scrolling through adorable dog videos.

Living in New York, knowing the current subway times is a must. I’ve tried all of the New York subway apps, even the new official MTA one that’s surprisingly good, but ultimately, nothing comes close to Transit. It has far and away the best user interface, updates fast, and always has what I want right at the surface. A great bonus is that it has an excellent Apple Watch app as well.

Fantastical has been one of my favorite apps for years. It’s just one of those tools you’ll have to pry from my cold, dead hands. The ticker and list UI is the absolute best calendar experience out there. And there are native counterparts on every Apple platform (sans tvOS, for obvious reasons).

There’s lots of AI stuff here, too. While folks tend to laud Arc Search’s AI-generated webpages that can replace traditional search (which are indeed awesome), I personally just love the care that’s gone into the user interface. I supplement Arc Search with Perplexity, which I tend to use as my go-to for complex deep searches. I find that it’s best at that. Bulletin is a relatively new RSS reader with powerful AI features and a gorgeous design — the progressive blurs just make me swoon.

Apple Weather and Apple Maps have gotten really good over the past few years, so I feel less compelled to use third-party alternatives these days. I like Apple Weather so much that I’ve given it a giant widget slot at the top for the hourly forecast. (I have a love / hate relationship with widgets on iOS: they take up a lot of space, and I often find more value in having a bunch of app icons.) I’ve tried Spotify a bunch of times but always come back to Apple Music.

I like my podcasts to be separated from music, though. And while I’ve been playing around with the new Apple Podcasts transcripts feature, I’ve come back to Overcast. I listen to so many shows that a dense, truly customizable interface is a must-have for me.

I also asked Parker to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he shared:

• If you’re into LLMs, you’re probably aware of Hugging Face. The team recently released their first native mobile app, HuggingChat, that lets you use the open-source models that they host like Llama 3 and Gemma. The app is really nicely designed and a good change of pace from ChatGPT or Poe. In fact, it has no message limit. It’s quite powerful and lets you easily swap models on the fly. You can even build your own bots. It also shares the great haptic feedback that the ChatGPT app introduced.
• I love smartwatches, but I have a personal affinity for traditional watches. Recently, I got lucky and landed a white Snoopy edition MoonSwatch. Not only is it the first all-white bioceramic version but it also has an adorable little Snoopy complication. It’s a delightful reprieve from constant bits and boops.
• I stopped using the official Apple MagSafe wallet because it just doesn’t provide a whole lot of value. But I picked up the Satechi Magnetic Wallet that has a built-in stand, and it’s awesome. It has an additional slot for more cards than the Apple one.

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Crowdsourced

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email [email protected] or message +1 203-570-8663 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. Also, for even more recommendations than I could fit here, check out this Threads… thread.

“I’ve been watching Delicious in Dungeon on Netflix, and I’m super loving it! Also been playing Helldivers 2 and the new Destiny 2 stuff and poking at a bunch of iPhone 15 reviews to see if I should get that over a 13 now that my 2020 SE has a basically defunct battery and I’ve never actually had a ‘flagship’ device.” – Tyler

“I’ve been really enjoying the new podcast from Seth Meyers and The Lonely Island. As well as being deeply silly, it’s a fascinating look behind the scenes of SNL at what went into making the legendary SNL Digital Shorts. It’s inventively called The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast.” – Jonathan

“I recommend that you check out Lunch Money. I’ve been using this solopreneur-built app to organize my finances for the past couple of years. It’s been wonderful to use and has taught me financial discipline. It’s one of the few subscriptions that I’m happy to pay for.” – Akshobhya

“Recently played around with augmented reality to put together a mixed-space painting session. It was really fun. Footage here for anyone curious about it.” – K

“On the recommendation of my fav gaming podcast, The Besties, I’ve been playing Slice & Dice for iOS — it’s an RPG battler where all attacks, both yours and your enemies’, are determined by actual dice rolling around a virtual dice tray, and instead of leveling up to get better weapons, you get better dice. Really neat idea done well, great couch companion.” – Nick

“I wanted to share the app CropSize for iOS. I find myself taking multiple screenshots on social media (usually memes) and find it super cumbersome to have to crop every tweet or Instagram post so my friends don’t see the entirety of my feed. CropSize lets you batch-process images super easily and quickly. It is unfortunately $2.99, but tbh I’m just glad it’s not a subscription service. Time saver!” – Keyser

“Just finished the latest video from MKBHD’s “The Studio,” where Mariah [Zenk] talks about the future of food automation tech.” – Josh

“I changed podcast providers to AntennaPod from Pocket Casts, just got sick of the upselling and paywalls in the app. Weird to think I’d rather have an app that was less feature-rich than one that offered the extras for a subscription fee. Also it’s a very good app and I’m happy I made the change.” – Benjamin

“​​The Fallout show got me hooked to head back into the Wasteland again... Gone back to my favorite, Fallout 3.” – Max

“Reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, setting up my first NAS, and hoping that the weather cooperates for me to go play Disc Golf this weekend.” – Dylan

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Signing off

My house is full of Ikea furniture. Shelves, beds, tables, chairs, you name it, it’s mostly Ikea. (It was a big moment in my adult life when we graduated from “the cheap Ikea stuff” to “the fancy Ikea stuff,” and if you shop at Ikea, you know what I mean.) So, of course, I’m already looking around my basement office to see where I can fit stuff from the new Brännboll collection of rolling loungers, toy shelves, and deeply weird donut chairs that can’t possibly be comfortable. I don’t know why most of this qualifies as “gaming” furniture, but I do know I need that rolling pegboard cart thing as soon as possible. Forget the bar cart. I’m ready for a VR cart.

See you next week!

Tesla temporarily halted deliveries and recalled every single Cybertruck after a viral video showed how the pad on its accelerator pedal could slip off and get stuck in the interior trim, leaving the pedal depressed “down 100 percent, full throttle.” Now, video from a Tesla event in California taken today and Tesla’s own documentation confirm the riveting installation that secures the pad with a rivet, and they show us exactly how it’s done.

While Aaron Cash’s video posted to X says it’s a “35 second recall fix,” demonstrated at the “Cyber Takeover” event in Long Beach, the video starts with the required drilling jig already in place.

With it on the pedal, Tesla’s workers drill a hole as specified and install a rivet to secure the pedal pad so it won’t come off due to the “unapproved change” during manufacturing that made it slipperier than intended.

Image: Tesla (PDF)

The Service Bulletin posted by Tesla reveals the process has a few other required steps, including measuring “the distance between the bottom of the aluminum accelerator pedal pad and the bottom of the pedal backing” before the work begins. If the bottom of the pad is 5mm or further from the bottom of the pedal, then they’re supposed to replace the entire pedal assembly.

Once it’s all done, they’re supposed to inspect the work with a mirror and clean up any debris the process has left in the customer’s $99,000-plus truck that came with an untrustworthy accelerator pedal.

How Home Assistant plans to transition from an enthusiast platform to a mainstream consumer product.

How do you solve the problem of growing a popular smart home platform committed to open-source, open-standard ideals into something bigger that stays true to those ideals? You create a foundation. At least, that’s the approach Home Assistant founder Paulus Schoutsen has chosen.

This week, Home Assistant announced it is now part of the Open Home Foundation. The newly formed non-profit will own and govern all of Home Assistant and its related entities. Its creators and inaugural board members — Schoutsen, Guy Sie, Pascal Vizeli, and J. Nick Koston — all work on Home Assistant, and the foundation has no other members so far.

In a press release, the foundation stated its aim is “to fight against surveillance capitalism, and offer a counterbalance to Big Tech influence, in the smart home — by focusing on privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart home users.”

Image: Open Home Foundation

A community-built, open-source smart home platform, Home Assistant differs from its major “big tech” competitors — such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home, because it offers four things simultaneously: local control of your smart home that can be faster and more reliable than the cloud: authority over and access to all your data; compatibility with almost every connected gadget — regardless of protocol or manufacturer; and the ability to make them work together. While many competitors offer some of these, few offer all.

Home Assistant is known for its unmatched power and flexibility, but so far the platform, which has an estimated one million users, has struggled to reach the mainstream. Home Assistant can have a steep learning curve, especially when compared to the relative simplicity of a platform like Alexa or Apple Home. Onboarding devices can be complicated, the UI has lots of room for improvement, and integrations can be hit or miss.

“Home Assistant is no one’s first smart home platform,” says Schoutsen. “When people outgrow their existing systems and want more advanced control, that’s when they come to Home Assistant.” But he sees that the platform is at a tipping point.

With the arrival of the industry-backed smart home standard Matter (with which Home Assistant is heavily involved), smart home adoption is pushing into the mainstream. Home Assistant wants to stay swimming alongside Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and Google, all of which it’s been competing with in the smart home for roughly a decade now. Home Assistant has never accepted investors, says Schoutsen, and he sees a foundation as the best way to grow.

Schoutsen outlined the platform’s future roadmap at its annual State of the Open Home presentation on Saturday, April 20th. In an interview ahead of the live stream, he told The Verge about some of the bigger changes planned for Home Assistant following this transition:

• The Home Assistant Green smart home hub will be sold on Amazon this year, the first time the organization will sell directly to consumers. A new line of Home Assistant Connect dongles for Thread / Zigbee and Z-Wave will follow. These connect the hub to gadgets that use those protocols (and will replace the SkyConnect dongle).
• The Home Assistant Works With program, which offers certification for products that work with the platform, is expanding. New partners include Aqara, Ultraloq, and Jasco.
• A new Home Assistant voice control hardware device running Home Assistant’s local smart home voice assistant is planned for release at the end of the year.
• Home Assistant is working with Nvidia to incorporate a local AI model into the home automation platform.
• The platform has been researching ways to improve its UI to make it easier for everyone in the home to use Home Assistant. It’s calling this the “Home-approval factor,” a variant on the wife- or spouse-approval factor that encompasses everyone in a home.

(See sidebar for more on these.)

Image: Home Assistant

The collective goal of all these efforts is to move Home Assistant toward becoming a more mainstream, out-of-the-box option for smart home users. “We want to be a consumer brand,” says Schoutsen. “You should be able to walk into a Home Depot and be like, ‘I care about my privacy; this is the smart home hub I need.’”

The foundation will also advocate for the development of “better” smart home products, says Schoutsen, “Devices with local APIs and that are built sustainably. Because there needs to be products compatible with Home Assistant that you can trust.”

Is Home Assistant all grown up now?

Schoutsen, who started Home Assistant in 2013 with a Philips Hue smart lighting bridge, a Python script, and a mission to control his lights any way he wanted to, sees the foundation as necessary to both protect Home Assistant and move it forward. “I want to make it clear what our intentions are to the world: That we’re driven by a higher goal than money. And that we are not for sale,” he says. The new ownership structure provides a stronger platform for growth. “It gives us a way for people to take us seriously, to help us reach a bigger audience,” he says.

To date, the informal way Home Assistant operates has been confusing to companies looking to partner with the platform, says Schoutsen. The launch of the for-profit Nabu Casa five years ago provided a revenue stream for Home Assistant through an optional cloud computing service that now supports 33 full-time employees.

The foundation, which was created last month as a Verein (“association”) in Switzerland, formally separates Nabu Casa from Home Assistant. The foundation will own all of the open-source projects, standards, drivers, and libraries associated with Home Assistant, along with ESPHome, ZigPy, and Wyoming.

Nabu Casa will continue as a for-profit entity running the cloud and selling Home Assistant hardware and will operate as a commercial partner of the foundation. “Funding and support can only flow one way—from Nabu Casa, and any future partners, to the Open Home Foundation and its projects,” says Pascal Vizeli, co-founder of Nabu Casa, and a foundation board member.

It also protects Home Assistant from being sold. Swiss law prohibits members of a non-profit Verein from benefiting from it, Schoutsen explained to The Verge. “Our articles state ‘There will be no direct distribution to members in return for activities performed for the association or as any other form of gratuity in any kind,’’’ he says. Similarly, he says the foundation can only have income from membership fees, donations, license programs, and contributions from partners.

Still, Home Assistant users may be wary of these larger structural changes. The Verge asked Schoutsen how he could assuage any fears that this will negatively impact current users. It’s hard not to draw parallels with SmartThings’ shift to become a more “consumer-friendly” platform following its purchase by Samsung.

“We’re constantly doing this balance between ease of use and advanced features and I don’t know how we are going to keep balancing this,” he said. “But we cannot forget about our power users. The platform is open; maybe at some point, there might be a split where we have the basic UI and the advanced UI; I don’t know how that’s going to work. But because we are open, because our data is accessible, they’re all part of the community, even if they don’t use our specific tools that we’re building.”

He is also wary of entering the business side of the smart home while recognizing its necessity to grow Home Assistant. “We need to be very careful moving into this space,” he says. “The challenge with partnership people is that they’re very business-focused. And that’s not how we operate.”

He hopes the foundation will provide the necessary building blocks for growth while protecting the platform’s core beliefs and values. “I think we can get even bigger now that we have this stepping stone. The foundation is a real entity. People will take us more seriously. I think the press will take us more seriously. There’s a bigger audience that I would like to reach that we don’t today.”

While today's mainstream smart home platforms offer simple and convenient ways to control your smart lights, locks, and other gadgets, the lack of access to your data, limited options for local control over devices, and some platforms’ over-reliance on the cloud can put the user at a disadvantage.

Matter — which aims to bring local control and interoperability across all smart home devices and platforms—is designed to solve some of these problems. But Matter isn’t a platform; you’ll still need to use an app on your phone or computer to control your home. Home Assistant wants to be that app.

Can it move fast enough? There’s a long road between forming a foundation and packing Home Depots with Home Assistant hubs and gadgets that pledge Home Assistant loyalty. In the meantime, Matter is also providing other platforms — such as Aqara, Homey, and Hubitat — the tools to expand and grow into more viable alternatives to big tech in the smart home. It’s going to be interesting to see where everything lands.

The House once again passed a bill that could ban TikTok from the US unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance divests it — but this time, it’s in a way that will be harder for the Senate to stall.

The bill passed 360-58 as part of a larger bill related to sanctions on foreign adversaries like Russia. It’s part of a package of foreign aid bills that seek to provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza. Due to the urgency of the funds, packaging the TikTok bill with these measures means that the Senate will need to consider the proposal more swiftly that it would as a standalone bill. The earlier TikTok bill, which passed the House 352-65 just last month, has so far lingered in the Senate, with lawmakers there giving mixed messages about its future.

Notably, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA), whose committee would normally take up the bill before it proceeds to the floor, had remained noncommittal about it. But after the version in the foreign aid package was released, she said she supported the legislation.

That’s because the updated language extends the timeline for ByteDance to divest TikTok before the effective ban would be enforced. ByteDance would get up to a year to complete the sale, rather than just six months, in order to avoid a ban. The new House text would provide an initial divestment period of nine months and give the president discretion to extend it another three, assuming there’s progress toward a deal.

During debate on the bill Saturday morning, New York’s Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he supported the package that includes the updated TikTok legislation, even though he voted against the standalone version. Meeks said he opposed the earlier standalone TikTok bill “out of concern that it would be a broad authorization that could be misused far beyond what we in Washington are currently debating, beyond just TikTok.”

But, he added, “the bill took a step in the right direction with a more realistic timeframe for a complex divesture process. Let me say for the record, that I believe this bill is about one company that additional authorities provided to the executive branch or to be interpreted narrowly.”

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) did not directly address the TikTok bill when he stood in opposition to the House package on the floor Saturday but alluded to the way the app has shown Americans the destruction that’s played out in Gaza under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s command. Castro voted against the earlier standalone TikTok bill.

“We have seen how Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has used American weapons to kill indiscriminately, to force famine,” Castro said. “We cannot escape what we see before us every day. That is the blessing of today’s technology: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, all of it. And when we see it, we have to decide what we’re going to do about it. Are we going to participate in that carnage or not?”

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), the ranking member on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party who helped lead the original TikTok legislation, emphasized that the bill “is not a ban, it’s about a divestment. And it’s not really about TikTok, it’s about ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok and is indisputably controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.” (TikTok has denied such a connection).

The Senate is out of session this coming week for the Passover break, which could delay action in that chamber. Leadership could bring senators back early to vote, but that could be complicated by scheduling conflicts. As Politico recently noted, some lawmakers are scheduled for congressional delegation trips over the break, which could make it harder to bring back enough senators early to pass the package.

If the TikTok bill remains in the final version of the Senate package and clears that hurdle, it will head to President Joe Biden’s desk. He’s already committed to signing the TikTok legislation, should it pass.

Netflix’s Rebel Moon films both feel like Zack Snyder trying to celebrate sci-fi classics by gently riffing on them in some of the least inspired ways possible.

The trouble with trying to create original sci-fi epics in the vein of Star Wars is that the classics are so culturally ever-present that newer films always tend to feel like pale imitations. Zack Snyder is far from the first director to take that reality as a challenge to prove how, with the right ideas, stars, and studio, the wheel could be reinvented or at least cleverly reimagined. But Snyder’s nascent Rebel Moon film franchise — the second part of which just hit Netflix — is so narratively derivative, emotionally inert, and overlong that it seems as if this entire project is just cruising along on limp vibes rather than heading toward an intended destination.

Between two (so far) interconnected films that, together, clock in at a little over four hours, the story being told in Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire and Part Two: The Scargiver seems like it should feel more complex. But there’s a baffling simplicity to almost everything that defines Rebel Moon’s heroic lead, Kora (Sofia Boutella), and her quest to topple a fascist empire with the help of a ragtag group of freedom fighters from different planets across the galaxy.

Part One introduced Kora as a former Imperium soldier hiding on the agrarian planet Veldt after being disowned by her adoptive father, Balisarius (Fra Fee), as part of his plan to seize control of the empire. After years of following Balisarius’ orders to kill alongside his admiral Noble (Ed Skrein), Kora knew the costs that could come with resisting the Imperium’s might. But her love for Veldt and its salt-of-the-earth natives, like wheat farmer Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), was enough to convince her to stop hiding. A Child of Fire never seemed all that interested in establishing how Kora’s small rebellion could become formidable enough to legitimately challenge an intergalactic power. But the movie did introduce other righteous warriors like blacksmith Tarak (Staz Nair), former general Titus (Djimon Hounsou), and cyborg assassin Nemesis (Doona Bae), whose unexplored backstories all felt like they could be vital pieces of a fascinating tale.

The first Rebel Moon played like two hours of throat-clearing as Kora rallied her newfound allies to Veldt’s cause in between set pieces that each felt the sort of mildly imaginative, slowed-down action sequences Snyder’s known for. By closing out on Kora seemingly killing Noble, though, the movie appeared to be setting the stage for The Scargiver to hit the ground running and finally make clear what Snyder was trying to accomplish with his thinly-veiled Luke Skywalker analog. But rather than pushing Rebel Moon’s story forward in a meaningful way, The Scargiver instead retreads ground its predecessor already established.

And while it spends some time gesturing toward the existence of a larger universe brimming with potential for interesting stories, those gestures are clumsy to the point of making it feel like Snyder doesn’t have a solid vision for this franchise beyond its ability to mimic things you’ve seen elsewhere, albeit executed with far more skill. You can almost hear Snyder reminiscing about how blown away he was by The Matrix as a disoriented Noble returns from the dead in The Scargiver with a series of tubes affixed to various parts of his pale body that’s encased in a gooey chrysalis.

Noble isn’t the film’s biggest bad, but The Scargiver frames him as a Darth Vader-like figure as he chokes subordinates to remind them who he is. Back on Veldt, Kora’s relief is quickly dashed as word of Noble’s resurrection spreads, and it becomes clear that the Imperium intends to attack the planet for its defiance. But rather than building on that looming sense of dread, The Scargiver instead doubles down on its Seven Samurai inspiration with a series of sequences designed to emphasize how the people of Veldt are just mere farmers who need Korra and her allies to protect them.

As The Scargiver’s farmers sing solemn hymns while reaping their crops, Snyder seems to be following in the footsteps of the Hunger Games films, where music played an important role in establishing a deeper connection between District 12 and the US’s Appalachian region. But when you actually listen to what the farmers are saying, the biggest takeaway is that they would be helpless to defend themselves against the Imperium because all they know how to do is work land with simple tools. Those details were already readily apparent in the first film, which is part of why Kora spelling them out in The Scargiver feels so silly. At the same time, however, the new film’s story is so thin that it’s hard to imagine Kora having all that much to say to her followers other than warning them that they won’t all survive the coming battle.

Boutella and her co-stars make an admirable go of trying to make these characters feel like they could be compelling in better circumstances. You can see flashes of genuine imagination where the gang comes together to share their histories as if that knowledge might somehow contain a secret that would help them defeat Noble and Balisarius. It doesn’t, but it does briefly shift The Scargiver’s focus away from Veldt to other, more inspired worlds in flashbacks that all feel like snippets ripped from more exciting films gestating in Snyder’s subconscious. But those moments are regrettably brief and ultimately don’t add much context to the story at hand, which drags at a glacial pace because of how much time The Scargiver spends focusing on Kora and the others, basically waiting to be attacked.

Even in its explosive climax as the Imperium descends on Veldt, The Scargiver has an air of undercookedness because it isn’t all that clear how that one singular battle could change things on a larger scale. Dune was able to steer clear of that issue by making Arrakis a uniquely powerful planet by way of its valuable natural resources. But The Scargiver lacks that sort of worldbuilding — the kind that makes you understand why people want things they’re willing to kill for. Instead, the movie closes out on a cliffhanger and a twist that’s only surprising because of how forgettable the character it involves is.

That is far from the ideal note for the second installment in a sci-fi film franchise that, so far, has cost upwards of $166 million to produce. But it’s one that Snyder’s comfortable landing on. Ironically, it wouldn’t be quite as disappointing if ​​Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver was a proper period at the end of a sentence. Snyder has made it clear that he wants to keep cranking these things out, though, and with Netflix having recently signed him to a new overall deal, it seems very possible that he might do just that.

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver also stars Ray Fisher, Elise Duffy, Anthony Hopkins, Alfonso Herrera, Stuart Martin, Cary Elwes, and Charlotte Maggi. The movie is now streaming on Netflix.

Horror films live and die by their conceits. And sometimes, the best way to make a movie scary is to place it in an environment that’s not scary at all.

Is there anything further from spooky than a brightly lit TV studio? The surprise box office darling Late Night with the Devil, which hit horror streamer Shudder this weekend (and might be more suited to home viewing), tries to make one of the most innocuous American broadcast traditions into a terror. David Dastmalchian, a character actor who you’ll recognize from the margins of half a dozen Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve movies, gets a rare star turn as Jack Delroy, the host of late-night talk show Night Owls. But in an era where Johnny Carson rules after-hours broadcast, Delroy’s second-place program is on the verge of getting canceled. The only way to save it, Delroy believes, is to air an extraordinary Halloween episode about the occult in the middle of sweeps season.

Courtesy of Adam White.

Aside from a bit of superfluous expository setup, the entire film is faux found footage of the episode, complete with a live studio audience and commercial breaks. (Between ad gaps, there are some behind-the-scenes shots as well.) If you like a low-budget horror movie that constricts its location to a single house, you’ll dig that Late Night restrains itself to a convincingly rendered ‘70s talk show set. As the guests’ paranormal features escalate, so do the demons — personal and literal — until reaching an inevitable, violent end.

Sometimes, a horror movie can be satisfying enough just by pursuing a strong conceit and not embarrassing itself along the way. Still, things are played a bit safe here. Without giving much away, Late Night does feel a little by the numbers in the final act. Most people will recognize the beats — vomit, levitation, Satanic voice — from any movie about demonic possession. (Though in a knowing moment, one character says, “‘Psychic infestation’ is the term we prefer.”)

Sure, nothing here touches the brilliant novelty of last year’s Skinamarink, but the best thing going for Late Night is its dedication to the conceit. The disparity between the cheery TV format and the creeping dread sustains the tension throughout its brief 93 minutes.

Mostly, Late Night with the Devil is charming and clever, and Dastmalchian and his sideburns make the work look effortless. Like any talk show host worth their salt, it’s all about committing to the bit.

Happy Saturday, dear readers! The big news on the drone beat this month was the official launch of DJI’s Avata 2, a new FPV drone that’s slicker, more stable, and longer-lasting than the original model released in 2022. That said, I wouldn’t consider it a beginner drone at $999, even if it is noticeably cheaper than its last-gen counterpart. If you are after a true beginner drone, however, the DJI Mini 3 is currently on sale at Amazon and Best Buy with DJI’s screen-equipped RC controller for around $549 ($60 off) — an all-time low.

While not as capable as the DJI Mini 4 Pro or even the DJI Mini 3 Pro, the consumer-focused Mini 3 remains an excellent entry-level drone for budding aerial photographers or anyone who is simply drone-curious. The foldable, ultra-portable quadcopter weighs a mere 249 grams (around 8.8 ounces), yet can still handle wind resistance of up to 10.7m/s. Its compact size also means it doesn’t require a permit to fly in the US or abroad, allowing you to achieve up to 38 minutes of flight time without having to file for a permit with regulators like the FCC. Then there’s the onboard 1/1.3-inch camera sensor, which lets you capture video at 4K / 30fps in HDR and shoot stills from 48MP to 12MP in size. It can shoot both portrait and landscape photography as well, in addition to spherical panoramas, all with the help of some pretty effective image and flight stabilization.

If you’re looking to get more out of the DJI Mini 3, Amazon is also selling it as part of a larger bundle containing a DJI RC-N1 Remote Controller, a Shoulder Bag, a Two-Way Charging Hub, and two extra Intelligent Flight Batteries for $589 ($69 off). Alternatively, you can grab the drone by itself at Amazon and Best Buy for around $419 ($50 off), which is the lowest price to date on the standalone unit.

Earlier this week, Nintendo held an Indie World showcase, providing a brief glimpse at forthcoming titles like Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, SteamWorld Heist II, and a smattering of Apple Arcade ports (some of which are already available on the Nintendo Switch). To coincide with the event, Nintendo also launched its spring Indie Sale, which will let you snag a batch of beloved classics through Tuesday, April 23rd.

In addition to being the home of blockbuster first-party titles like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, I’ve always found the Switch to be the handheld for tackling indie games at home or on the go. Thankfully, Nintendo is currently offering up to 50 percent off some of the best digital titles of the past decade, including Hollow Knight (now $7.50), Tunic (now $20.99), Ori and the Blind Forest (now $7.99), and Vampire Survivors (now $4.24). You can also pick up Hades, a masterclass roguelike, for $12.49 (about $13 off), or the turn-based RPG Sea of Stars for $27.99 ($7 off).

My final callout would have to be Stardew Valley, a wholesome farming simulator that’s on sale right now for $9.99 ($5 off). The 2016 title just received a massive PC update with new festivals and late-game content, and while the long-awaited update 1.6 hasn’t hit the Nintendo Switch as of writing, we’ve been promised it will follow “as soon as possible.”

More deals, discounts, and ways to save

• The beastly Hyperkin Duke is currently available via Amazon Japan for a mere $27.39 (about $63 off), though, as you might expect, the current deal price does not include overseas shipping if you live in the US. Promo price aside, the wired Xbox controller is a pretty faithful reissue of the original Xbox gamepad from 2021. Hyperkin did slightly modernize it with a logo display, bumpers, and a 9-foot detachable cable, but it’s still a big boi despite the changes.
• Now through tomorrow, April 21st, you can pick up Anker’s 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe from Amazon or Anker for $112.46 (about $38 off), though, you’ll need to use promo code WSTDZUQ4NV for the latter. We consider the cube-shaped charger to be the most versatile option for home and travel, namely because the ultra-compact gadget still manages to supply proper 15W charging speeds while simultaneously juicing an Apple Watch and a set of AirPods.
• The Sonos deals have been coming somewhat fast and furious as of late, with the manufacturer now offering 25 percent off select soundbars. Sadly, the promo only extends to refurbished models — like the first-gen Sonos Beam (now $239) — but it’s not a bad opportunity when you consider that each soundbar comes with the same accessories, documentation, and one-year warranty as new Sonos products.
• Let’s not kid ourselves: spring is a hellish time for anyone with allergies. Luckily, Levoit’s Vital 200S is on sale at Amazon and Levoit’s online storefront for $159.99 ($30 off), matching its best price to date. The four-speed smart air purifier is relatively quiet, particularly at lower speeds, yet it’s pretty effective at picking up pollen, smoke, and other allergens in medium to large-sized rooms. You can even shut off the built-in display at night, which, believe it or not, isn’t a guarantee with all HEPA air purifiers.

Skip Crossrope unless you really love skipping rope.

Like everybody else, my New Year’s resolution was to work out more. After moving to a new city, I fell out of my workout routine, and it didn’t help that the gym chain I belonged to was now a 30-minute drive in Los Angeles traffic.

So I started researching workouts I could do from home. Jump roping is fun and a great, full-body cardio workout that can also improve agility and coordination. So when I heard the $199 Crossrope AMP Jump Rope Set would quantify the experience and help me incorporate strength training into my routine with its weighted ropes, I was intrigued.

After testing the set for a month, I can confirm few jump ropes are as well-made as Crossrope’s, and its workouts and community offer a lot of value for jumping enthusiasts. Yet, at $199, plus a $12 monthly subscription, it’s only for those committed to jumping consistently — not casual users.

Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge

The Crossrope system, which has been around since 2013, consists of interchangeable handles, ropes, and ropeless jumping attachments in a variety of weights from three ounces up to five pounds. The AMP set that I tested comes with a set of Bluetooth-connected handles plus quarter-pound, half-pound, and one-pound ropes.

The ropes and handles are built from strong materials and connect with steel clasps. They feel made to last, but unlike most jump ropes, each rope is a fixed length — you can’t adjust them. They come in six different lengths, but I tripped a few times despite using the size Crossrope recommended for my height. While I began to trip less as I improved as a jumper, when I asked the Crossrope community for help, several members acknowledged they had had the same issue.

Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge

The AMP handles are what turn this from an expensive modular jump rope system to an expensive modular smart jump rope system. The Bluetooth-enabled handles connect to iOS and Android devices, allowing you to track jumps, streaks, power output, speed, and calories burned from the companion app. If you connect it with your Apple Watch, you can also import your heart rate data. It’s difficult to judge how accurate these stats were, but Crossrope correctly counted my jumps for the most part, and the other numbers didn’t seem like a stretch.

But that information comes at a price: $11.99 per month. That’s right: along with forking out $199 for the set (or $99 for the handles if you already have Crossrope ropes), you also have to pay a monthly fee to get any value from the smart handles. Even the jump counter is paywalled. That fact was — and still is — jarring to me and is the biggest downside to the set.

That said, you’re not paying just for metrics. Along with a helpful Facebook community of nearly 100,000 people, Crossrope includes an app with over 2,500 workouts created by its personal trainers and on-demand classes taught by instructors popular in the jumping world. Jumping rope is obviously the focus, but the custom workouts also include other exercises like squats and dumbbell lifting. There are also longer programs focused on specific fitness goals, from burning fat in, say, six weeks to improving endurance. If you don’t like any of the options, you can also create your own workout, which was helpful when I required a slower pace.

I appreciated how well thought out the workouts are, with a timer included for each set and rest sessions. Crossrope’s own programs even feature Spotify playlists curated by beats per minute geared for different rope weights and speeds. Unlike, say, Apple Fitness Plus or Fitbit Premium workouts, Crossrope also displays a (weird) 3D avatar of the trainer performing the same exercise in real time, which helps with form. And unlike Apple’s and Fitbit’s programs, you can even message Crossrope’s trainers with questions for a more personalized experience.

But we have to address the elephant in the room: the Crossrope AMP costs two hundred dollars, plus $12 a month. It exists in a niche market with little direct competition, but it also exists in a world with a lot of cheaper jump ropes. To pull an example almost at random, the Te-Rich Smart Weighted Jump Rope I found on Amazon costs $17 and has a built-in LCD display with a timer and jump counter, while the YaoYao app also tracks jumps and time and only costs $0.99 per month (or $10 for a one-time unlock). Both also estimate calories burned, and YaoYao also lets you set the length of workouts and rest sessions and compete with others via a leaderboard.

Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge

While YaoYao often overestimated my jumps, the Te-Rich Smart Weighted Jump Rope’s stats were consistent with Crossrope’s, and sometimes even counted my jumps more accurately. The flimsy 9.8-foot PVC rope tangles easily, but that’s forgivable at this price, especially as the rope is adjustable. The Te-Rich lacks custom workouts, on-demand video classes, and community, but you can find similar ones online. In fact, some on-demand class instructors offer their own YouTube channels. Plus, you can always use the free or paid versions of Crossrope’s app without the AMP handles if you want the workouts and don’t mind losing the jump counter, personalized targets, benchmarks, and leaderboards.

Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge

The most effective workout is the one you’re going to stick with. If a smart jump rope with guided workouts and an encouraging community makes it easier for you to exercise consistently, Crossrope is worth it. It’s overpriced, but it’s also smaller and cheaper than other home gym equipment I considered, like treadmills. Crossrope’s 60-day return policy also means you can get your money back if you decide you’re not going to use it enough to justify the expense.

I enjoyed my time with the Crossrope. It helped put some of the fun back into fitness for me. But I don’t think jumping will replace jogging and walking as my primary cardio workout — though it’s a fun accessory — so I won’t be buying the Crossrope AMP once I send the review unit back. The Te-Rich didn’t come with a bunch of workout programs or a Facebook group or track my heart rate, but it still gave me a rough idea of jumps and calories burned and didn’t cost $200.