When Sapphire returned from the vet, Moore decided to move her into the bedroom. “She hid under the bed a full 24 hours,” Moore said.
The Moore family had no idea how long Sapphire would be scared of them, especially of Moore’s husband. So they resolved to go about their daily business. Moore just had a baby girl in May, so there was no shortage of things to do around the house with a newborn.
Then, quite suddenly, after a day under the bed, there was Sapphire. She just went ahead and hopped up onto the bed and started lavishing the family with love.
Early Thursday morning, the Evans family was taking their young puppy, MJ, for a walk, when suddenly she disappeared.
As they approached the spot where seconds ago MJ had been standing, whimpers echoed from a previously unnoticed sewer drain, which was hidden by the grass and missing its cap.
At just a few weeks old, MJ had fallen into the hole and was quickly carried far from her family by water waste down the long pipe.
It had only been a few days since the puppy had come to live at her forever home, and the Evans family was already deeply attached to their newest member. Knowing that time was of the essence, they immediately reported the missing dog, and the Charlotte Fire Department of North Carolina rushed to the scene.
“It was shocking because she was so feeble and doomed to death,” Todua told The Dodo. “She was hungry, thirsty and had a lot of worms … and she was very docile.”
The rescuers scooped up the puppy before she got hit by a car, which is a common fate for dogs in Rustavi, Todua explained. The animal was too small and young to be on her own, so they hoped to find the puppy’s mom around — but when they spoke to some locals, they learned the puppy’s sad story.
Osborne and her husband actually got Moose from a pet store, although Osborne explained they’d never get a dog from a pet store again. But in June 2016, the couple wandered into a shop near their home in Defiance, Ohio, when their eyes fell on Moose, who was only about 3 or 4 months old at the time.
“My husband saw him and freaked out because he was a blue heeler,” Osborne said. “Within two minutes, we knew we needed to get him.”
Apparently, someone had left the back door open, and the curious cat had wandered right in after drinking from a fountain in the yard. Taylor’s housemate noticed the animal first and shrieked, causing the lion to retreat behind the couch.
Taylor, who has previously worked in wildlife rescue and also practices energy healing, knew they’d have to give the cat a lot of space and remain calm to encourage her to leave safely. Taylor saw the lion lie down, so she quietly went outside to keep watch through the window.
If you’re an Amazon Prime member, it’s likely that you’ve had a shopping list ready for weeks. But if you’re just browsing today through July 18, we have a few Prime Day deals on weird or quirky items that you might not have even considered. From robots you can keep in your home to Japanese-style toilet seats, here are the strangest, coolest discounted items we’ve seen this Prime Day.
Amazon Prime Day is Over:Be sure to check out our Post-Prime Day Deals and Non-Amazon Deals in the next couple days. After that, be sure to keep an eye on WIRED’s Gear page for the latest product reviews, guides, insights, and deals. (Updated Tues. July 18)
Jibo is kind of like an Alexa speaker… if Alexa had a body, face, and could dance. When we reviewed Jibo a year ago he brought us joy and creeped us out in almost equal order, but we kept him around. In the year since, he’s learned how to play a couple games, give you a daily report, play the radio, tell slightly better jokes, and communicate back and forth just a little.
He’s nowhere near perfect, but for $500, it’s a lot easier to give Jibo a try if you’d like to be one of the first homes with an actual robot. He’s the only product you’ll feel guilty about unplugging.
The Nuraphones are the strangest, and most interesting headphones you can buy, as we discovered when we reviewed them. They’re a hybrid between an earbud and over-ear design, and that’s because of their central feature: they use NASA-grade microphones to scan your ear and map out your hearing. Once the Nuraphones know how sensitive each of your ears is to each of a range of high and low frequencies, it makes a custom sound profile just for your ears.
It takes some time to get used to the probing feeling of earbuds inside headphones, but the sound speaks for itself. We also like that Nura just sent out a free firmware update to all users that adds active noise cancelling, more button functionality, and ambient noise pickup, so you can hear the outside world better, if you want.
Is your stay-at-home dog so over frozen dog food in Kongs? We loved the Furbo when we reviewed it. It’s clean, simple, easy to use, and you can also remotely toss Cheerios at your crawling infants in a pinch.
We tried the Walabot at CES 2018. It gives you X-ray vision when you’re remodeling your house, letting you spot studs, wires, or even moving rats (er, objects). Nota bene: It doesn’t work for iPhone users.
Homebrewing is a lot of fun, but unless you have a lot of friends, it’s hard to drink a full keg of beer every other week. The PicoBrew lets you fine-tune your recipes five liters at a time.
Do you want a fast and easy way to spruce up your bathroom routine? Toto’s washlet electronic bidet toilet seats are heated, and have customizable washing temperatures and pressure settings. Add your pick (out of many!) to your cart to see the discount.
Early this year the Sustainable Oceans Alliance announced it would be starting its own accelerator with a focus on conservation. The nonprofit has just announced the Ocean Solutions Accelerator’s first wave of startups: a particularly varied and international lineup that’s easy to root for.
You may also remember that the SOA was one of the beneficiaries of the mysterious Pineapple Fund, administered by a mysterious cryptocurrency multimillionaire. No doubt that has helped get the accelerator on its feet in good time.
The startups — which I’m getting to, be patient — will receive an initial investment to cover the cost of relocating to the Bay Area for eight weeks this summer. There they will receive the loving care of the collection of academics, founders, officials and others in or around the Alliance, plus some important “personal development and executive training” intended to keep your company alive long enough to ship a product.
Interestingly, applications were only open to founders 35 years and under, presumably to get that young blood into the conservation game. Here are the five companies selected to take part:
SafetyNet, from London, makes light-emitting devices that attach to fishing nets and can be programmed to attract or discourage certain kinds of fish. This prevents a boat from catching — and subsequently throwing away — thousands of the wrong fish, a huge waste.
CalWave came out of Berkeley a couple of years ago and has been testing and refining its wave-harvesting renewable energy system, and in fact won a big Department of Energy grant just last year. Now presumably the team is looking to go from prototype to product and do some big installs.
Loliware’s edible cups.
Loliware has created seaweed-based straws and cups that are so compostable you can do it yourself — like, in your mouth. The items last for a day in a drink (or with a drink in them) but when you throw it away it’ll totally dissolve in about two months — or you could literally eat it. The New Yorkers were on Shark Tank and I’m guessing they ate one on camera. You can already order them on Amazon and people say they’re actually pretty tasty.
Etac, a Mexican company from Culiacan, has few details on its site, but SOA’s press release says the company “designs and produces functional nanomaterials for energy and environmental applications, such as oil spill and wastewater cleanup.” I believe them.
And because there can’t be an accelerator without a blockchain startup in it, there’s Blockcycle, based in Sydney, which aims to create a marketplace around waste materials that would normally go to the landfill but could also be valuable to recyclers, reusers and so on. (Turns out there was an uptick in blockchain applications after the Pineapple Fund thing.)
All five companies will present their ideas on September 11 at an event (specifically, a gala) timed to coincide with California Governor Jerry Brown’s Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. And then in October they’ll present again in Bali at the Our Ocean Youth Summit.
“These ocean entrepreneurs are a beacon of hope at a time when new, bold approaches are needed to fast-track innovation and sustain the health of our planet,” said SOA founder and CEO Daniela Fernandez. “By supporting these incredible startups, we are encouraging young people to take ownership of the environmental threats facing their communities, bet against consensus and re-invent existing markets to benefit, instead of harm, our climate, and ocean.”
There is no escaping Amazon Prime Day today. It’s the biggest sale day of the year for the biggest online retailer. We’ve already named our picks for the Best Amazon Prime Day 2018 Deals, along with some Home Deals and the Best Amazon Device Deals. But if you’re a gamer (no matter if you prefer the PC, PlayStation, Xbox, or a Nintendo console), be sure to peruse the deals below. We’ve sifted through about 58,000 Prime Day deals, and there are a few you might be interested in.
We’ve separated the deals into console and PC categories. We’ll add new deals throughout Prime Day, as we find them.
Amazon Prime Day is Over:Be sure to check out our Post-Prime Day Deals and Non-Amazon Deals in the next couple days. After that, be sure to keep an eye on WIRED’s Gear page for the latest product reviews, guides, insights, and deals. (Updated Tues. July 18)
Xbox One S Bundle + Rare Replay for $230 (Was $295) – The Starter Bundle comes with 3 months of Xbox Game Pass (Netflix for Xbox games), 3 months of Xbox Live Gold (to play online multiplayer), and a free copy of Rare Replay, which has 30 classic Rareware games in it.
Nintendo Switch + Game on Walmart for $330 (Was $360) – It’s not an Amazon deal, but we thought you might want to know about this deal anyway. Normally the Switch is $300 by itself, but for $330, you get the system and a $60 game—your choice of Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, or Splatoon 2. These are four of the Best Games on Switch.
Console Accessory Deals
SanDisk 128 GB microSD Card
Sandisk
We like all of these Prime Day deals, but our Best Switch Accessories and Best PS4 Accessories guides are also good resources if you’re looking for other recommended console accessories.
WD 2TB External Hard Drive (PS4) for $59 (Was $90) – If your PS4 hard drive is anywhere close to filling up, and it’s not hard if you own games like GTA V, you should consider an external hard drive. This one is compatible with PS4 and at a very good price.
There are a few different gaming headset deals for Prime Day. We recommend the Arctis Pro highest, but we have tested (and like) the HyperX Cloud II, as well. The rest of these headsets are also high quality and praised in in reviews. Read our Best Wireless Gaming Headsets for more suggestions.
None of these PCs are made for VR, but they’re very capable gaming machines.
iBuyPower Gaming Desktop PC for $1,000 (Was $1,149) – iBuyPower isn’t as famous as some other brands but they’ve been making computers for years. The specs on this tower are impressive: Intel Core i7 (8th Gen) CPU, 3GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 120GB SSD, 1TB hard drive, Windows 10 Home, liquid cooling, and an RGB case (for whatever that’s worth).
Asus 15-inch Gaming Laptop for $729 (Was $999) – This is a decent mid-range gaming laptop, and very nice for the price with an Intel Core i7 (7th Gen) CPU, 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050, 128GB SSD, 1TB hard drive, 8GB DDR4 RAM, Windows 10 Home, and a 1080p screen.
Dell 15-inch Gaming Laptop for $910 (Was $1,300) – This is a deal from Dell during Prime Day. It’s not powerful enough for VR, but this is a solid gaming laptop. It has an Intel i7 (7th Gen) CPU, 4GB Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD storage.
PC Accessory Deals
LG Curved Ultrawide Monitor
LG
LG 34-Inch Curved Ultrawide Gaming Monitor for $329 (Was $400) – We’ve used LG’s non-curved 34-inch monitor and highly recommend it. A curve isn’t necessary for gaming, but it is nice, and if you’re going to buy a monitor, you should consider an ultrawide. There are no downsides—just a lot more screen space.
Razer Lancehead Gaming Mouse for $48 (Was $80) – This wired mouse is simple, and built for gaming. It has 16,000 DPI and tracks at 450 inches per second. Reviews are positive across the web.
Logitech G910 Gaming Keyboard for $90 (Was $180) – This mechanical keyboard definitely has that gaudy PC-gaming look to it, but it has some nice customizations for players, including 9 programmable G-keys and a quick control panel.
Game Deals
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
Ubisoft
There aren’t a lot of games on sale for Amazon Prime Day, but we did find a few you might want to check out.
Deputy Bryan Bowman, of Florida’s Marion County Sheriff’s Office, was on patrol over the weekend when he encountered this large tortoise moseying along at a very leisurely pace. Normally, this would be no problem at all, of course — but this particular fellow had chosen to do so in the middle of a road.
Bowman reportedly tried to usher the tortoise off the street, but the “grandpa” snapped at him.
Here’s a video the deputy took after that bit of unpleasantness.
After the dog’s mugshot was posted to Facebook, captioned with the warning, “This is what happens when you run away from home,” it began going viral. Before long, it received thousands of likes and shares.
Wouldn’t you know it — that did the trick.
“We use social media a lot. It’s a great way to reach a lot of people. You can reach a ton of people. It’s a great way for us to get investigative leads,” Marino said. “And sure enough, someone who saw the Facebook post knew the dog’s owner and got in touch with them. We were able to reunite the dog and her owner. Everyone found it funny, but it ended up finding the owner for us.”
The dog, whose name is Bean, is now resting comfortably at home, hopefully having learned the error of her way.
Unfortunately, crates aren’t the only thing that can pose a strangulation hazard to a collared pet. Similar situations can occur if a collar gets caught on a tree branch, a doorknob or another dog’s mouth while playing. It’s common practice for groomers, veterinarians or doggie day cares to remove dogs’ collars after taking them in for this very reason.
In Emmie’s memory, Gresham hopes that her warning can help protect other pets from the same risk. She also suggests looking into a breakaway collar that will open if the dog gets snagged on anything.
“[Emmie] brought so much fun, personality, light, and love into our lives,” Gresham said. “I feel so guilty that it happened. Now in hindsight, I see so many ways it could have been prevented. I beg you to never put a collared animal in a crate.”
The modern TV experience is an odd combination of technological advancements and drawbacks. Thanks to streaming video, we have more content options than ever; thanks to advances in displays, our TVs can be as thin as pencils. Sound quality, however, has suffered; the physics of flat-panel televisions are hardly conducive to booming audio.
Roku knows this, and has a plan to improve the sound on the TVs that come with its Roku software built in: The company is going to start selling speakers. The Silicon Valley-based maker of streaming boxes, sticks, and software has just announced a two-speaker bundle, called the Roku TV Wireless Speakers. The bundle also includes a standard Roku remote, and a “tabletop remote” that’s supposed to go in a different room than the one your TV is in, so you can control the speaker audio from elsewhere in your home.
The pair of speakers don’t have the same elongated shape as a soundbar; they look more like a pair of black Sonos One speakers. But by selling speakers designed specifically to work with a TV, Roku is trying to convince its customers to go with Roku’s devices instead of those made by Sonos, Samsung, Bose, Sony, Polk Audio, and many more. The competition is stiff—and Roku probably knows this, because it’s announcing this new audio product early, with few technical details. It isn’t shipping the TV speakers until late October.
Roku is making a compelling argument around price: The whole bundle of gadgets will cost just $199, and will have a reduced price of $149 for the first week after they’re announced. But the speakers will only work with Roku TVs, which are TV sets made by third-party manufacturers like TCL, Hisense, Insignia, Sharp, and Phillips, and have Roku OS as the default operating system. The speakers won’t even work with non-Roku TVs that happen to have a Roku box attached.
Roku
We don’t know a whole lot yet about the physical build of the speakers, except that they weigh about four pounds each, and that each speaker has one .75-inch tweeter and one 3.5-inch woofer. They’ll support stereo sound, dialogue enhancement, and automatic volume leveling.
The speakers don’t have any cables aside from a power cable. They’re designed to connect wirelessly to a Roku TV, and are running on a version of Roku’s operating system. They do support Bluetooth, so you can play other stuff from your phone or tablet on the speakers; but Roku says if you try to pair them wirelessly with a non-Roku TV, they just won’t work.
And, while other speaker makers are starting to build voice control into their products (Amazon excluded, since the company lead the whole category of voice-controlled speakers), Roku hasn’t built any far-field microphones or voice assistants directly into the speaker. Instead, it’s leaning in to touch-controlled remotes. The speakers ship with a traditional Roku TV remote—one that does have voice search built in—along with a small, puck-like device that remotely controls the TV sound coming through the speakers. The idea behind this remote, called Roku Touch, is that you’d put it somewhere away from your TV, like in the kitchen, and tap it to pause or adjust the volume of the content playing in another room.
Lloyd Klarke, Roku’s director of product management, says he believes Roku customers will buy this bundle instead of other TV speakers largely because of simplicity. Current soundbar setups are complex and expensive, is Roku’s pitch. “We’re able to do things you can’t do with a third-party speaker, like perfect A/V sync,” Klarke says. “We’re managing the software updates of both products at the same time.” Add that to “exceptional performance at an attainable price,” Klarke adds, and Roku thinks these will be a no-brainer for people who want to get better sound from their Roku TVs. (WIRED has not yet demoed the speakers, so I can’t comment on sound quality.)
The idea behind this is that if your TV sounds better, people will stream more, which is the metric Roku cares most about, Klarke says. Roku likes to say that it’s the US’s number one streaming content system based on streaming hours, which are up 56 percent year-over-year for the company. According to a report from research firm Parks Associates, Roku holds the largest share of streaming media players in households in the US, although Amazon’s share has been growing.
And Roku-based TV sets have been one of the fastest growing product categories for the company. In the first quarter of this year, it says, one in four “smart” TVs sold in the US were Roku TVs. That makes sense when you consider that people can buy a Roku TV for as little as $279 (the 2018 version of TCL’s 55-inch, 4K Roku TV currently costs $650).
This is also not Roku’s first speaker rodeo. Back in 2004, the company shipped a product called the SoundBridge, a networked media player that streamed music from your PC or Mac to your home sound system. But seeing as that was over a decade ago, Roku has quite a bit of catching up to do in the audio market.
WeWork, the co-working startup that’s valued at ~$20 billion and has some 200,000 members across 200 locations globally plus nearly 6,000 staff of its own, will no long allow employees to expense meat. It will also no longer serve meat at company events. The policy shift is intended to reduce the business’ environmental impact.
The new internal policy was reported on Friday by Bloomberg which obtained a company memo in which co-founder Miguel McKelvey revealed the policy, writing: “New research indicates that avoiding meat is one of the biggest things an individual can do to reduce their personal environmental impact — even more than switching to a hybrid car.”
So Elon Musk take note.
A WeWork spokeswoman confirmed the new policy to us — which specifically removes red meat, poultry and pork from company menus and expenses policy. Though she emphasized that the company is not prohibiting WeWork staff or members from bringing in meat-based meals they’ve paid for themselves.
Members are also still free to host their own events at WeWork locations and serve meat they’ve paid for themselves. The policy only applies to food purchased (or paid for) by WeWork itself.
The spokeswoman also confirmed that fish is not covered in the meat-free initiative.
The internal memo announcing the meat-free policy is embedded below:
Global Team,
One thing that inspires me most about WeWork is our ability to effect positive change. Our team, united together, has no limit when solving any problem. That’s the Power of We.
In the past few weeks, many teams around the world have already taken action to help us become more environmentally conscious. From plastic-free events in Montreal to recycling initiatives in Hong Kong, we’re excited and humbled by how quickly our teams can make an impact.
But we know we can do more.
We have made a commitment to be a meat-free organization. Moving forward, we will not serve or pay for meat at WeWork events and want to clarify that this includes poultry and pork, as well as red meat.
New research indicates that avoiding meat is one of the biggest things an individual can do to reduce their personal environmental impact — even more than switching to a hybrid car. As a company, WeWork can save an estimated 16.7 billion gallons (63.1 billion liters) of water, 445.1 million pounds (201.9 million kg) of CO2 emissions, and over 15 million animals by 2023 by eliminating meat at our events.
One of our most powerful annual events is Summer Camp. Many of you have asked if we will be serving meat this year. In keeping with our commitment, we will not be serving meat at camp. This is a significant first step — and one that will have a meaningful impact. In just the three days we are together, we estimate that we can save more than 10,000 animals. The team has worked hard to create a sustainable, plentiful, and delicious menu. If you require a medical or religious accommodation, please contact our Global Policy Team.
We are energized by this opportunity to leave a better world for future generations and appreciate your partnership as we continue the journey.
For information on changes (from T&E to the Honesty Market), additional reading on the effects a meat-free diet can have on the world, or to get involved, visit our Connect page. You can also reach out to us at culture@wework.com.
The changes you are making every day will truly change the world.
Miguel
Scientists have been warning for years that the meat industry is a massive generator of greenhouses gases — although the topic often gets bypassed in mainstream environmental discussions and overlooked by corporate social responsibility policies, so it’s interesting to see WeWork stepping up to the plate (ha!) and putting its policies where its environmentally conscious soundbites are.
According to Bloomberg, the company will also exclude meat products from the self-serve food and drink kiosk systems that are present in around 400 of WeWork’s co-working buildings.
So its affirmative environmental action to reduce meat consumption will have some impact — albeit likely a smaller one — on its paying members too.
Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 5/25/18) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 5/25/18). Your California Privacy Rights. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices.
Alas, we knew this day would come. Amazon’s fourth annual Prime Day Sale is about to crash from the virtual sky like a meteor in Fortnite, and as of April, there are 100 million Amazon Prime members set to scoop up all the deals that land.
Prime Day started innocently enough back in 2015. It was a day-long sale celebrating Amazon’s 20th anniversary, and a fun gift to the millions of Prime subscribers. The sale was so successful that Amazon made it an annual event, and it’s been getting bigger and nuttier ever since.
This year, Prime Day will stretch 36 straight hours, and likely feature more deals then ever, and in new categories. Amazon now owns Whole Foods and is trying to promote Twitch Prime, so we can expect more food and gaming deals for starters. Below are some tips if you have something you’re hoping to buy on discount.
Amazon Prime Day is Over:Be sure to check out our Post-Prime Day Deals and Non-Amazon Deals in the next couple days. After that, be sure to keep an eye on WIRED’s Gear page for the latest product reviews, guides, insights, and deals. (Updated Tues. July 18)
Our Prime Day Coverage
Amazon Prime Day has started. These are our stories so far.
Starts: Prime Day kicks off on Monday, July 16 at 3 p.m. ET.
Ends: 36 hours later on Wednesday, July 18 at 3 a.m. ET.
That’s not all, though. You can expect bursts of pre-Prime Day deals all the way to kickoff. Amazon already has a bunch of deals on its own devices, which we’ve highlighted below, and more are on the way.
Early Prime Day Deals
Here are a few of the early Prime Day deals Amazon has going.
Amazon Kindle for Kids Bundle for $100 (Was $125) – This Kindle comes with reading goals and other tools to help kids read, as well as a cover and a 2-year warranty, just in case your child totally destroys it.
$30 Off Your First Amazon Fresh Order – Enter the code 30FRESH at checkout to get this deal when you start the free trial. Amazon Fresh is Amazon’s grocery delivery service. It’s normally $15 per month.
$10 Off Orders $40 or more on Prime Pantry – Enter the code PANTRY at checkout to get this deal. Prime Pantry is Amazon’s way of letting Prime members shop for common household items. You save more by bundling items together.
Free Games if You Subscribe to Twitch Prime – Amazon is offering a free game every day, and exclusive pieces of in-game gear, for those who sign up for Twitch Prime. The service gives you ad-free game watching, free channel subscriptions, and other perks.
3 Months of Audible for $5 (Was $45) – Audible is the most comprehensive source for audio books and has apps for most every device. You get one free book per month with the subscription.
How to Snag the Best Deals
Prime Day is basically another Black Friday for Amazon. There are deals on almost everything, but not all of them are great. But to join the deal party, you must be an Amazon Prime member. You can sign up for Amazon Prime here. There is a 1-month free trial, and students can get 6 months free (and a discount), but odds are you’re already onboard. If not, you should know that Prime is about $10 a month (if you subscribe annually) and offers free 2-day shipping on many items and access to the Prime Video service. There are other perks, like free Kindle books, and you can read them all here.
Get Your Cards in Order: Timing is everything. Sign up for Amazon Prime, and if you don’t shop on Amazon all that often, make sure your credit card and shipping address defaults are set, and that you have 1-click ordering enabled. Once you add a deal item to your cart, you’ll have about 15 minutes to buy before it’s released to another eager shopper.
Set Up Deal Alerts for Particular Products: If you’re hoping a particular item will go on sale, there are ways to keep an eye on it. First, install the Amazon Shopping app for iPhone or Android so you can get instant notifications. Then add the items to your Amazon Cart (You can “Save for Later”). Amazon should notify you if the price changes.
Another way to track changes is by using CamelCamelCamel.com. It lets you search up the price history of any product on Amazon and track them at a click. Better yet, if you sign up (free), it can import and track prices on your entire Amazon Wish List. (You can easily make wish lists on Amazon by clicking on the “Add to List” button on every product page.)
Track Upcoming Lightning Deals:Lightning Deals can be super stressful. It’s so easy to miss them, but if you have the time to browse through deals in the morning, you can track upcoming Lightning Deals using the Amazon Shopping app. Click on the hamburger icon in the upper left, then Today’s Deals > Upcoming. You can click the “Watch this Deal” button on any deal that’s more than 10 minutes away to add it to your “Watching” list. The app should then notify you the moment Lightning strikes.
Amazon
Set up an Echo for Alexa Exclusive Deals: Last year Amazon offered Alexa-only pre-Prime day deals, and this year it’s already doling out prizes to try it. If you own an Echo device, you can set up voice purchasing. In the Alexa app on your phone, head to Settings > Accounts and select “Purchase by Voice.” Learn more about it here.
Other Stores Will Have Sales, Too
Historically, retailers like Walmart and Best Buy have gotten pretty worked up about Amazon Prime Day and offered their own defensive sales to try and steal some of Amazon’s thunder. Below are a few stores likely to start having sales right around Prime Day and before.
Many people like to run their robovacs at night or while they’re at work. I choose to run ours while I’m awake, right after dinner and while we’re putting the kids to bed.
First off, I don’t see any reason to walk around all evening with crumbs sticking to the bottoms of my feet if I don’t have to. But I’ve also found that most robot vacuums will require rescue, which means you have to be awake or around. If you’re sufficiently pressed for time and energy that you need a robot vacuum, you’re probably not being as diligent as you could be about eliminating botvac booby traps, like tiny doll socks or stray shoelaces.
Even with navigational aids like virtual wall barriers, magnetic strips, or no-go lines, only a few robot vacuums have been reliable enough to leave completely unattended. I’m happy to report that the Electrolux Pure i9 is one of them.
Love Triangle
Right out of the box, the Electrolux Pure i9 looks markedly different from the other botvacs that I’ve tried. It’s a steel-gray, rounded triangle that measures 12.8 inches across and 3.3 inches high. It’s only 0.2 inches less in diameter than the Roomba 690, but it looks much smaller.
Electrolux
It comes with only its charging stand, a magnetic side brush, and instructions to download the Pure i9 app. Unlike other robot vacuums, it’s not compatible with Alexa, Google Home, or other voice assistants.
Out of the box, it took two hours to charge. Setting it up by connecting it to the app is an easy, familiar process, and the app itself is clean and simple to navigate. Just follow the app’s instructions to connect the Pure i9 to your Wi-Fi; you can also operate it with buttons on the botvac’s top panel. Once connected, you can select your robot’s name (I chose “Dung Beetle”) and tinker with its settings. For example, you can select a more energy-efficient eco mode, or a mute option that reduces the volume of the bot by about 5 decibels, from 65 to 60. You can schedule cleanings, or switch the app’s language. You can access online support or visit Electrolux’s online shop for replacement parts.
Power Hour
The botvac’s battery life is not overly long. In normal mode, it ran for 50 minutes—slightly longer than the advertised 40 minutes—before it had to return to the base for charging. It was able to clean 270 (very dirty) square feet in 40 minutes. But I strongly suspect that Electrolux might be able to increase that runtime if it could make the navigation software slightly more efficient.
The Pure i9 uses a 3-D vision camera set in the front to navigate. It’s exceptionally accurate. Even without navigational aids, the Pure i9 never got lost or stuck. It never dinged my furniture or bashed into any walls. It never mistook a cliff where there was none, or failed to clamber over the lip of a doorway or a carpet. When I stepped in front of it, it paused to assess the situation before moving around my feet.
After one cleaning session, I realized that my toddler had completely disassembled a flag banner and hidden it under the couch. Almost any other botvac would have found this to be a disaster—frayed string, little pieces of loose fabric—but the Pure i9 navigated smoothly around it.
However, the mechanism by which it steered clear of obstacles was maddening to watch. It’s easy to intuitively divine how the navigation mechanisms in a robot vacuum work. The cheaper ones ping-pong randomly back and forth, while powerful, methodical botvacs, like the Neato line, vacuum back and forth in orderly parallel lines.
The Pure i9 gave the impression of being an elderly butler, wandering around haphazardly with a dusting brush in a sheepish, absentminded manner. “Does that robot vacuum know where it’s going?” our babysitter asked, watching it work one morning.
Every time it went around a corner, came up against the base of a chair, or approached the edge of a rug, it stopped and re-started over and over, repeatedly reassessing the situation until it deemed it safe to go forward. “Oops, oh no, excuse me,” I imagined it saying in a British accent, every time that it started shuffling in the hallway for one, two, or five minutes. “How perfectly buffle-brained of me. Please, you go first.”
I could chart its progress in real-time on a map of my house in the app. Electrolux doesn’t display the amount of square feet cleaned or time spent cleaning graphically over time, as do iRobot and Neato. But the map is a fairly close approximation of what my house looks like, and made it easy to check if I’d had the bathroom or bedroom doors closed on any given day.
Let Me Clear My Throat
With mute on, I measured the Pure i9’s sound at a fairly quiet 60 decibels. In normal mode, the vacuum ran at about 65 dB, which kicked up to a turbo 70 dB whenever it encountered a particularly filthy patch of carpet.
After each cleaning, the high traffic areas by the door and under the kitchen table were clear. The triangular shape with the side brush may have helped with digging into the corners.
The Pure i9 didn’t provide nearly as deep a carpet clean as the Roomba 980, mainly because it wasn’t able to thoroughly agitate the fibers. But the anti-tangle brush wasn’t constantly snarling and stopping the vacuum, in the way that the Neato Botvac D7 Connected did. I also didn’t have to clean out the bin nearly as much. Even with its diminutive size, it has an impressive dustbin capacity of 0.7 liters. In comparison, the dustbin of the Samsung Powerbot holds only 0.3 liters.
The Pure i9 has AutoPower, which automatically detects the floor surface that the vacuum is on and calibrates the level of cleaning power. When battery runs down, it returns automatically to the base, recharges, and restarts, which occasionally scared me awake when I forgot that it hadn’t finished and it automatically restarted in the dead of the night.
My one real gripe is that the Pure i9 is only so-so at returning home to the charging station. If a cleaning cycle had finished, it went back no problem. But if I stopped it and pushed the home button halfway through, the app informed me that the the Pure i9 was returning home even when it clearly wasn’t. Some mornings, I would awake to find it sitting sadly, alone in a corner.
Not Afraid to Trade(off)
It’s hard for me to recommend products that I wouldn’t purchase myself. Spending $899 is a lot, especially for a robot vacuum that lacks many basic functions. I don’t use a voice assistant to control my robot vacuum, but many people do, and much cheaper robot vacuums work with Google Home and Alexa. It also has spot cleaning but no directional control and no remote, which has bothered me in the past.
Still, its very simplicity won me over. I have spent so much time fussing with navigational aids to help my robot vacuums, that it never occurred to me that I might not even need them. And while its navigational quirks can be maddening, I have spent more evenings than I would like, cowering in bedrooms, listening to Neato Connecteds trying to break the door down. I appreciated a shy, sheepish robot vacuum that gave my house a thorough clean without breaking anything, or itself, in the process.
In the end, this isn’t my top recommendation for a high-end robot vacuum. But if you’re looking for a slightly smaller, reliable, and good-looking robot vacuum, the Electrolux Pure i9 makes a very decent contender.
Sadly, there is no shortage of scenes like this one, showing wild animals forced to live among our waste — and that’s because there’s plenty of waste going around. Every year, roughly 14 billion tons of plastic enter Earth’s oceans, putting countless animals’ lives in peril. But hope is not lost.
“We need smart policies that encourage manufacturers to move away from throwaway plastic,” Elizabeth Murdock, director of the Pacific Ocean initiative for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), told The Dodo earlier this year. “[We need] individuals who understand the impacts our trash has on vulnerable marine life and make personal choices that help reduce the trash in our oceans.”
According to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in California, the little black cat simply showed up a couple of days ago outside one of their stations in Eden Township. Tiny though he was, the kitten appeared to have some grand ambitions.
“We think he was trying to walk on as a K9 unit and refused to leave until he got into the building for an interview,” the sheriff’s office wrote online. “Once in the sergeant’s office, he took over the printer and had a little nap.”
Last week, on July 4, Fletcher accompanied his owner Nicki Wyatt-Park to an Independence Day party held at a friend’s place. They have a large yard, so the location was perfect for Fletcher, a curious pup who loves to explore.
That’s where he discovered the object of his dreams.
“He found this rogue volleyball and brought it to me,” Wyatt-Park told The Dodo. She assumed it belonged to her friend. “I was like, ‘Oh no! Fletcher’s destroyed your ball.’ But they said it wasn’t theirs.”
The ball, it seems, had been discarded — but it wasn’t trash in Fletcher’s eyes. It was a treasure.
After confining Oolu in a safe, enclosed space where she couldn’t run away or get hurt, Ritch contacted Hope for Paws, and rescuers Loreta Frankonyte and Eldad Hagar drove out to the port to meet sweet Oolu. When they arrived, they approached her slowly, as they didn’t want to scare her, and the confused senior dog watched them from a safe distance.
