Samsung SmartThings: How to start a smart home - The Verge

Samsung SmartThings: How to start a smart home

How to start a smart home using Samsung SmartThings

How to start a smart home using Samsung SmartThings

/

SmartThings, one of the first and open smart home automation platforms, has come a long way since its early days.

Illustration by Samar Haddad for The Verge

Before the smart home was as popular as it is today, monitoring or automating your home was something limited to the more technically minded. Then along came Samsung’s SmartThings, providing a user-friendly, organized way of controlling a smart home.

I came across the system back in 2015 and immediately found that it provided that missing piece of my smart home: a way to automate my home via motion and door sensors, smart locks, Philips Hue lights, and Sonos smart speakers.

In addition, SmartThings was built to be open, with a hub that supported both of the main smart home protocols: Z-Wave and Zigbee. Although SmartThings launched with its own range of sensors and a smart plug, the idea was that third-party devices would also work with the system. At a time when these protocols were used in closed systems by companies such as Philips Hue, SmartThings was revolutionary. With cloud integrations, SmartThings could be expanded to support a wider range of devices, further improving the system’s capabilities.

While you don’t necessarily need one, a SmartThings hub such as the SmartThings Station can add to its usefulness.

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Since then, Samsung has changed the system a lot. SmartThings, now the app for controlling Samsung smart devices ranging from TVs and projectors to ovens and washing machines, is a familiar app in many homes. SmartThings still plays a vital role in my smart home, although it is fair to say I use it alongside Amazon Alexa and Apple Home, as there’s still not one system that delivers everything I need.

The history of SmartThings

Launched in 2013, SmartThings was developed by Alex Hawkinson, who had suffered damage in his family’s cabin when a frozen water pipe burst. Knowing that if he had been aware of the impending issue, he could have prevented it (or at least reduced the damage), Hawkinson set about building SmartThings.

Bought by Samsung in 2014, SmartThings was originally marketed and sold as a home monitoring and automation platform. This version of SmartThings was built around its hub, which supports both Zigbee and Z-Wave devices. These protocols, still in use today, are designed specifically for smart devices and create secure, reliable mesh networks. They’re low-power, too, working with plugged-in and battery-powered devices alike.  

Additional products, such as Arlo cameras, could be connected via the cloud. This combination of hub- and cloud-connected devices meant that SmartThings provided a connection to a wider range of devices than other smart home platforms and attempted to unify them in a way that no other system had.

SmartThings works with a variety of third-party devices, such as this Arlo camera.

Photo by David Ludlow for The Verge

But as useful as SmartThings was, the original Classic app was designed for technical users and was a little confusing and complicated. To counter this, Samsung moved to a new SmartThings app in 2018, which had a smarter interface and more focus on smart appliances. Samsung is also pushing for wider hardware support, working with companies to integrate their products into SmartThings via its Works With SmartThings program and encouraging others to develop hubs with Works as a SmartThings Hub certification. As part of this change, a smart home manufacturer called Aeotec has taken over production of Samsung’s SmartThings hub and sensors. 

While the new SmartThings app is largely an improvement, Samsung has reengineered its platform, removing some of the more advanced features. For example, the advanced scripting engine Webcore, which added incredibly powerful automations, is no longer supported, and it’s no longer possible to select which devices can be controlled by Amazon Alexa and which can be hidden.

With hardware support lagging behind that offered by Amazon Alexa and Google Home, SmartThings isn’t quite in the same strong position that it was a few years ago. While most manufacturers will write skills for Amazon Alexa and Google Home, the same is not true for SmartThings. Buy a Roborock or Ecovacs robot vacuum cleaner, an Abode or SimpliSafe smart alarm system, or a Govee smart lighting, and you won’t find any SmartThings support. 

But the game’s not over, particularly as Matter support for the platform will ultimately improve compatibility. For now, though, SmartThings is currently a platform that’s best for those with specific hardware and requirements.

What’s good about SmartThings

SmartThings is built to tie together devices from multiple manufacturers, letting different ecosystems work together in smart ways, with the Works With SmartThings certification guaranteeing compatibility. In short, SmartThings means that you don’t have to buy all your smart devices from one manufacturer and can pick and choose the devices that best suit your home.

At its simplest, SmartThings provides a single app for controlling your various smart devices. Devices can be organized into rooms, as with other systems, and controlled individually. However, the level of control you get may not be as advanced as if you were using the manufacturer’s app. With a Philips Hue bulb, for example, you can set the color (or temperature) and brightness, but you can’t use advanced dynamic scenes.

SmartThings doesn’t require a hub, and it can be used with a wide range of devices through cloud connections. You can see the Works With SmartThings list online. Getting started is easy with some of the bigger names that most people will have, such as Google Nest devices, Ring doorbells and cameras, Philips Hue lights, August smart locks, and Arlo cameras. Try a Ring doorbell and one or more Philips Hue light and then build some simple routines: turn off all your lights when you leave home or have the hall light turn on automatically when the doorbell is pressed, for example.

On top of manual control, SmartThings adds routines, so your home can react and respond automatically. That could be as simple as turning off a smart plug when a motion sensor doesn’t detect movement or turning smart lights red when a water leak is detected. SmartThings’ routines can have more complex actions than the similar controls in Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or Apple Home, making it a more powerful system overall.

In fact, SmartThings may be the biggest and best platform for smart kitchen devices. That comes down to its control, integration, and Life apps. If you get a Samsung smart oven, for example, the Cooking Life app gives you step-by-step recipes, including the option to send the correct oven settings to your cooker. More advanced cooks will not use this, but when getting started with a new appliance, having some automation is always useful.

SmartThings may be the best platform for smart kitchen devices.

Recipes include the option to send the correct oven settings to your appliance.

With laundry appliances, SmartThings can link a washing machine to a tumble dryer, setting the drying cycle based on the wash program. It’s the little automations like this that make life a bit easier. It is not just Samsung appliances that work in SmartThings: Home Connect devices from Bosch, Siemens, and Gaggenau do, too. And SmartThings is the only ecosystem with a bona fide smart fridge. 

There are other add-ons. Home Monitor can turn the SmartThings system into a basic alarm system with Home, Away and Disarmed modes, although a dedicated alarm system such as the Ring Alarm Pro is better and offers more features, including cellular backup to guard against internet failure and automatic emergency service dispatch in the event of a triggered alarm. More useful are the automatic monitoring and alerts from smoke alarms and water leak sensors: the initial purpose of SmartThings is alive and well. 

There’s no need to use the SmartThings hub for all of this, as many devices can be connected via cloud connections, signing in via your regular login. But add in a hub and SmartThings grows, with Matter support and access to many Z-Wave and Zigbee devices, including motion sensors, lights, leak detectors, and more. I prefer the Aeotec SmartThings hub over the SmartThings Station because it supports Z-Wave devices in addition to Zigbee and Matter-over-Thread, though it can be hard to find. 

With this hub, it is worth trying some simple devices. The Nanoleaf Essentials Matter light bulb range and Eve Energy smart plug are good starters, as is the Z-Wave Fibaro Motion Sensor, which is also a temperature and light sensor.

The Z-Wave Fibaro Motion Sensor also senses temperature and light.

Photo by David Ludlow for The Verge

While it is not essential, a SmartThings hub that supports the Thread smart home protocol gives a wider choice of Matter-compliant devices. Matter, designed to make smart home devices easier to share and use between different systems, is a bit of a mess at the moment, but as it gains momentum, SmartThings is in a good place to benefit from it. In fact, aside from Apple Home, SmartThings is the only other fully functional Matter system I have in my home.

A hub adds some other advantages. First, directly connected devices are either Edge devices now or will be transitioned to Edge. Edge devices are controlled directly by the hub rather than requiring a cloud connection, so automations continue to work even if the internet is down. That’s similar to how Hue wireless remotes work with a bridge: even without an internet connection, the controls will still let you use your lights.

While most Edge devices are connected directly to a SmartThings hub, they can include other devices: the SmartThings hub can, for example, control the Philips Hue Bridge locally rather than via the slower cloud connection. 

With the Aeotec Smart Home Hub (a rebranded version of the Samsung SmartThings Hub V3), there’s also support for Z-Wave, Zigbee and Matter-over-Thread devices, alongside cloud integrations. This combination makes SmartThings more flexible than any other smart home system — plus this choice means you can save cash when buying hardware. If you want a motion sensor for SmartThings, for example, you can hunt around and find one for around $20; if you want an Apple Home-compliant motion sensor, you will likely pay more. 

There is also a new smart lighting feature that makes it easier to automate lighting from one central place rather than filling up an app with a confusing number of routines. I have set up a smart lighting routine that turns on my office lights when motion is detected and luminosity is below a set level, with lights turning off automatically after 10 minutes of inactivity, which only operates between sunrise and sunset: in other words, my lights turn on automatically if it’s suddenly dark during the day because of cloud cover. There is no other system that makes this level of control quite so straightforward or possible. 

Routines and scenes are immensely powerful in SmartThings. Scenes are triggered manually and can be used to control multiple devices at once. For example, a “movie night” scene could set lights to a certain brightness, turn on a smart plug for a lamp, and turn on a connected Samsung TV.

Routines offer a similar level of control, only they trigger automatically. Triggers include devices such as a motion sensor picking up movement; a time of day; the current weather; when a person leaves or enters the home; or when the system mode is changed, such as to Away mode when everyone leaves the house.

What is neat is that SmartThings makes it very easy. For example, if I want a smart light to turn on when motion is detected, I can tell the system to do that only between sunset and sunrise; and I can tell SmartThings to reverse the device control (turning off the light, in this case) after a set period.

While SmartThings is quite straightforward to use, the excellent guide to getting started with SmartThings gives a great overview of the system’s capabilities.

SmartThings in my home

I stick with SmartThings for two reasons. First, the compatibility with Z-Wave and Zigbee devices. For example, I have a Yale Keyless Connected lock on my office door with a Z-Wave module installed. Although there is a Bluetooth adaptor that makes the lock compatible with the Yale Home app, the Z-Wave connection through SmartThings is faster to use and more dependable.

I am a big fan of the Arlo smart camera integration, too. Rather than having to change Arlo modes, which have become a lot more restrictive since the new app launched, I can use SmartThings to turn individual cameras on and off.

In my office, I have SmartThings set up so that when I unlock the door, SwitchBot Blind Tilt robots open the Venetian blinds automatically (connected via Matter thanks to the SwitchBot Hub 2), and my Arlo office and garden cameras are turned off. On the way out, locking the door causes the blinds to shut, the smart plug to turn off, and the office Hue lights to turn off.

I use Flic buttons a lot, connected via a Flic Hub LR, which can be used to trigger SmartThings scenes. I have a dedicated button that turns on the office lights, with a long-press turning them off; a button that controls a Meross Smart Power Strip to turn on my PC monitor and peripherals and a long-press to turn them off; and a button that operates an Eve Energy switch (connected via Matter) to power on my Sonos Sub and Amp, with a long-press to turn them off.

Flic buttons can be used to trigger a variety of actions.

Photo by David Ludlow for The Verge

What SmartThings gets wrong

The list of SmartThings annoyances is pretty long, and there are some hefty drawbacks to using this system. One issue is how confusing the hardware is. Samsung passed on its SmartThings hardware to Aeotec but also has its own range of hubs, including the SmartThings Station and SmartThings Hub Dongle for TVs. While it’s good to have a choice, Samsung’s own offerings don’t have Z-Wave support but do offer Zigbee and Thread (coming soon for the dongle). 

My biggest bugbear with SmartThings is that if I want to use Alexa or Google Assistant to add voice control for local devices, such as my Nanoleaf Matter Essentials Smart Lightstrips or my smart locks, there’s no way to restrict which devices can and can’t be controlled, which results in duplications. For example, I use Philips Hue lights and have them connected to Alexa via the Hue Skill. If I connect SmartThings to Alexa, then all of my Hue lights appear again.

I could turn off the Hue Alexa integration, but I do not want to: it provides more features, including scene control, and it’s faster to respond than the SmartThings Skill. Instead, I either don’t use Alexa with SmartThings or spend time disabling the duplicate devices found. With SmartThings Classic, it was possible to choose which devices Alexa could see and control.

Hardware support is good and growing but falls far behind what is available for Amazon Alexa and Google Home. While Apple Home has few compatible devices, it has the advantage that it is relatively easy to add support for third-party devices via Homebridge; the SmartThings community does produce third-party add-ons, but they’re often fiddly to install.

SmartThings also misses out by often not exposing all devices from a given platform. Philips Hue motion sensors and wireless switches, for example, show up in Apple Home but not SmartThings (or Google Home). That often means some duplication is required. In Apple Home, you can set a Hue motion sensor to trigger non-Hue devices and scenes. To replicate the same function in SmartThings, you’d need to buy a SmartThings-compatible motion sensor.

The interface is also a little confusing at times. Home monitoring, for example, appears in the Life section of the app, but the Smart Lighting option is available in the automations section under SmartApps. The end result is a system that’s a little overwhelming for those new to the smart home. 

A bit of a niche product

As the default app for Samsung’s appliances and TVs, SmartThings is something that many homes encounter for device control. When it comes to expanding the system to wider home control, SmartThings is more of a niche product. It doesn’t work with as many devices as Amazon Alexa or Google Home, and the app isn’t quite as straightforward as the Apple Home app.

For those that are a bit more technical and want to use a wider range of sensors and devices, primarily Z-Wave or Zigbee, there is no other mainstream system that quite has the same range of compatibility and power as SmartThings. 

Thanks to the Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Homebridge integrations, SmartThings can act as an intermediary for these other systems. This can be handy if you prefer the look or interface of the other smart home systems but you want the extra hardware that SmartThings supports. Just don’t duplicate existing hardware you have linked.

SmartThings’ advantage over its rivals is in the power of its routines, offering far more nuanced automations. Today, that power is offered to a more limited selection of hardware than with Amazon Alexa, but as Matter grows in popularity, SmartThings will be able to control a wider selection of devices. This may well make SmartThings a more powerful force in the future, particularly for those looking to squeeze more out of their smart devices. For now, most of those starting off with the smart home will find Amazon Alexa or Apple Home a simpler place to get started.

Source

New Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 leak highlights a big cover screen - The Verge

New Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 leak highlights a big cover screen

New Samsung Z Flip 5 leak highlights a gloriously big cover screen

New Samsung Z Flip 5 leak highlights a gloriously big cover screen

/

Based on the latest alleged render of the Galaxy Z Flip 5, it looks like Samsung is giving us what we asked for: a much bigger cover screen. It’ll need one to compete with the Razr Plus.

By Allison Johnson , a reviewer with 10 years of experience writing about consumer tech. She has a special interest in mobile photography and telecom. Previously, she worked at DPReview.

Jun 16, 2023, 5:17 PM UTC |

Hot foldable summer, y’all.

Image: MySmartPrice

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 leaks and rumors have all pointed to a larger cover screen on the upcoming phone, and a new alleged render published by MySmartPrice continues the trend. The image shows the Z Flip 5 with a gloriously big cover screen, which is exactly what we want. And by we, I mean me personally. I want this.

The Galaxy Z Flip 4’s outer screen measures just 1.9 inches. It’s fine for checking the weather and reading notifications, but the small size limits the kinds of actions you can take with it, like typing out responses to texts. It’s also not ideal for framing up selfies with the outer cameras — one of the benefits of a flip-style phone — because the preview image is literally the size of a postage stamp. I checked.

That seems poised to change with the Z Flip 5, and just in time: the Motorola Razr Plus is here, and it comes with a comparatively giant 3.6-inch screen. In my brief hands-on time previewing the device, I used the screen to run Google Maps, type out texts, and even browse websites. It’s infinitely more capable than a small screen.

It’s not all about hardware, though. There are a lot of tricky software problems to solve for with a big cover screen. Do you let people run just any old app on it, even if it breaks the app’s functionality? How do you handle the handoff between the large and small screen? What do you do about the camera lenses? Samsung seems to be taking a different approach to Motorola on the latter, at the very least, by molding the screen to avoid the cameras rather than flowing it all the way around them. It’ll be very interesting to see how their approaches to these other software challenges differ, too.

We’ll find out what shape Samsung’s next foldables will take soon enough — the next Unpacked event is due to take place in Seoul sometime in July. In the meantime, hot foldable summer is well underway.

Source

Home Assistant: How to start a smart home - The Verge

Home Assistant: How to start a smart home

How to start a smart home using Home Assistant

How to start a smart home using Home Assistant

/

If you’re a tech nerd, then Home Assistant may be the smart home ecosystem for you.

There is a certain flavor of tech nerd that needs direct, unadulterated access to whatever they are working with. Most of these people are Linux users, can own several Raspberry Pis, can’t stand it when something comes in between them and their hardware, and will take whatever complex path they need to interface directly with it. I am one of these people, and I am only getting worse over time, which is why I have converted my smart home to Home Assistant, the home automation solution for true freaks.

Now, many “normal” people out there are satisfied with Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and the like, and I understand. These ecosystems are easy to use, require very minimal setup, and (for the most part) they “just work.” Apple Home, in particular, works great if you have multiple Apple devices. But get demanding enough, and you will hit walls, little compatibility issues, annoying limitations, and various other roadblocks that come from being in a walled garden. Home Assistant addresses that by being open source, flexible, and limited only to whatever people want to develop around it. If you can think of a smart home product, a sensor or switch or light, it’s very likely that one or more frustrated nerds figured out how to get it to work using Home Assistant several years ago.

Home Assistant started as a Python application back in 2013 and has quickly evolved over time into the go-to solution for fans of open-source software. Unlike other smart home systems, it can be installed on tons of devices like single-board computers (which includes Raspberry Pi devices and easier-to-get hardware like the Odroid N2 Plus) as well as other network devices. For a while, I had Home Assistant running on a Docker container on NAS, but eventually, I put it on its own Pi. 

You can also buy hardware specifically for Home Assistant, like the Home Assistant Yellow, and they even offer a dongle called the SkyConnect for Zigbee and Thread support. Home Assistant is funded by Nabu Casa, an optional Home Assistant cloud computing service. 

Home Assistant Yellow is designed to be user-upgradable. 

Image: Nabu Casa

I have found that Home Assistant offers the greatest amount of compatibility with the devices in my home. If you can think of a scenario for your smart home gear, you can probably script your way to it. You can make any button or switch (provided you can find a compatible blueprint) trigger any other device in your household in excruciating detail. You can have specific conditions based on any number of very tiny criteria and external factors. If you really wanna get twisted, you can create an elaborate flow chart using something like Node-RED, a development tool originally made by IBM that has been adapted to Home Assistant specifically for just such depraved uses.

For example, not only was I able to program every light in my house, but I was also able to program one of my light switches to play audio through my speakers from the episode of Family Guy where Peter Griffin has to explain why he did not care for the movie The Godfather (“it insists upon itself”). Another example: fellow Verge-er Chris Grant took a cue from this Hackaday post and made a secret bookshelf switch that turns on his fireplace. 

Most people will never need that functionality, but for me, the freedom to do something that inane with my gear is absolutely vital. What’s more, I want as few people holding the keys to my home as possible, and so self-hosting my home automation is absolutely crucial. I don’t want Jeff Bezos knowing anything about my home activities aside from the countless reams of consumer spending data he already has on me and everyone reading this.

Ready, set, start

If you want to get started with Home Assistant, you can’t go wrong with a Raspberry Pi 4, provided you can find one. But given the relative unavailability of Raspberry Pis even now, an Odroid N2 Plus is probably your best bet (this is what the developers currently recommend). Basic installation is pretty straightforward as far as these things go and far less intensive than most single-board computer projects. 

For example, with the Odroid, you’re going to need your little computer, your boot medium (usually a flash card but sometimes an EMMC), and a program called Balena Etcher. From there, you can flash your card via an URL, put that flashed medium into your SBC (single board computer) when you are done, connect that bad boy to your router, and let it set up. You should be able to access Home Assistant from any browser or phone, provided you are connected to the network. Connecting externally or via the cloud is an entirely different topic, although Nabu Casa is available if you don’t want to figure out remote access.

Once you have Home Assistant set up and connected to your network, the sky’s the limit for what’s possible. Do you already have Wi-Fi or Zigbee light bulbs? Home Assistant can work with them. In my case, I can group together my Hue lights, my Elgato Key Lights, and some fixtures I soldered together from scratch using WLED into scenes and automations. I used an integration called ZHA (Zigbee Home Automation) and the SkyConnect to negate the need for my original Hue hub.

One of the first things I did when I got Home Assistant set up was to automate my office lights using a human presence sensor I got on Aliexpress for 25 bucks. Unlike a motion sensor, a human presence sensor is sensitive enough to detect not only when you’re in a room but also when you’re in there and not moving. I currently have it set to turn all my lights on in the office with a brightness and color temperature that is time-dependent. It works very well. I don’t even use the light switch in there anymore, although the sensor is so sensitive that it occasionally detects human presence through the wall and in the hallway adjacent to the office itself. I have no idea why it does that, and my girlfriend finds it very funny.

A simple human presence sensor can make your home even smarter.

Photo: Smart Home Scene

I can control everything using the handy Home Assistant app or just via my browser if I want. The UI out of the box is not the slickest around, but it’s functional and allows for tons of customization. Home Assistant is able to talk to my many Airplay 2 devices, it can play media from my home server via DLNA, and if I want to expand it further, there’s an entire ocean of gadgets on Aliexpress that I can get to flesh it out. I actually bought a CO2 and air quality sensor for it that I’ve been meaning to build. There isn’t really much in my house with Wi-Fi or Zigbee that is outside of its reach. If I ever end up in a situation where owning a house with solar panels is possible, Home Assistant could be used to manage them. 

Help from the enthusiasts

I have written about my experience setting up Home Assistant before, but much of it involved taking the smart home ecosystem I had cobbled together over the years and ripping it apart to rebuild from scratch. When it was all said and done, it felt great. But I am not going to say it was a painless ordeal. Much of what makes Home Assistant work is built by enthusiasts, so if a device doesn’t work out of the gate, very often, someone in the Home Assistant Community will create a blueprint to fill the gap. 

While this is not the most complicated thing you will have to set up, it’s an additional layer to deal with and a far cry from the native support of other ecosystems. Little touches, like transitions between lighting scenes, need to be created manually. You need to know exactly what you are doing and why you’re doing it. This is especially true if you sink your teeth into the Home Assistant Community Store, a very powerful integration that adds tons of options if you really want to take the training wheels off.

To give Home Assistant credit, it has gotten much better and more intuitive over the years, but again, it is not frictionless. I wish that it was a little less difficult to make the UI more attractive (although I’ve found that Mushroom looks very elegant), and while I am the kind of person that loves scripting, it can be a little tedious at the end of the day. Better and more intuitive integration into community elements would be nice, but I mostly have it set up now, so I am not really complaining. That said, would I trust a clueless family member with only basic tech knowledge to be able to work with Home Assistant if I set it up for them? Probably not.

While there isn’t a lot that Home Assistant can’t do with enough elbow grease, there are ways it could be more inviting. It’s still a lot of manual work, and it has the highest barrier to entry. But on some level, what do you expect? If anything, it’s less about what I want out of Home Assistant but rather what I want out of hardware makers. While Home Assistant can be made to work with nearly anything, a more robust ecosystem of hardware that works out of the box (like Skyconnect) would make recommending it to people an easier sell. 

I would love a world where an open-source smart home was so simple and intuitive that a not-tech-inclined person could set it up easily. It would make me so happy for Home Assistant to be so ubiquitous that most hardware manufacturers have to support it instead of the other way around (although with Matter, that is less of an issue). I hope that Home Assistant becomes so robust and popular that I can recommend it to someone without having (or getting) to explain, in detail, what a Raspberry Pi is.

That’s a nice future to imagine, but currently, Home Assistant is still strictly for the real freaks, which is convenient — because that’s a fitting description of me.

Source

The Division Resurgence hits smartphones this fall - The Verge

The Division Resurgence hits smartphones this fall

The Division Resurgence hits smartphones this fall

The Division Resurgence hits smartphones this fall

/

The mobile spinoff is the latest shooter aiming to bring console-style gameplay to your phone.

By Andrew Webster , an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

Jun 12, 2023, 5:34 PM UTC |

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission.See our ethics statement.

The Division is coming to your smartphone later this year. At its Ubisoft Forward event, the company confirmed that The Division Resurgence, a mobile spinoff of the near-future shooter series, will be launching in fall 2023.

As with the previous games in the series, Resurgence is set in a “mid-crisis” version of New York, one thrown into a crisis following an outbreak of a genetically engineered virus known as the “dollar flu.” And like those games, the mobile version is a cross between an open world game, where you can explore the city and take on missions, and a multiplayer experience where you can squad up with friends. Ubisoft describes it as a “true MMO experience.”

I had the chance to check out an early version of the game, and while I couldn’t test much of the social experience, what I played felt very much like, well, The Division on your phone. The graphics were great; I especially loved being able to get up close to my character during the creation process. The parts of Manhattan that I saw were both dense and large, with lots of cover strewn about — which is good since this is a cover-based shooter where you need to get out of the line of fire often.

That said, while it looks the part of a big-budget Ubisoft game, the touchscreen controls took some getting used to. I played on an iPhone and the screen had a lot of information on it, and I often found myself accidentally getting out of cover instead of shooting. Resurgence is also a free-to-play game, and it wasn’t clear from my time yet how pervasive the paid elements of the experience will be, which is an important thing to know about a loot-focused shooter.

Resurgence has been in the works for some time. It was first announced in 2021, and was only given a name last year. It’s also not the only expansion of the franchise in the works: a free console and PC spinoff called Heartland is also in development.

Source

Sony starts testing cloud streaming PS5 games - The Verge

Sony starts testing cloud streaming PS5 games

Sony starts testing cloud streaming PS5 games

Sony starts testing cloud streaming PS5 games

/

PlayStation Plus Premium members will eventually get access to stream PS5 games without having to download them to a console.

By Tom Warren , a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.

Jun 14, 2023, 4:08 PM UTC |

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony says it has started testing the ability to stream PS5 games from the cloud. The PlayStation maker says it’s testing cloud streaming for PS5 games and is planning to add this as a feature to its PlayStation Plus Premium subscription.

“We’re currently testing cloud streaming for supported PS5 games – this includes PS5 titles from the PlayStation  Plus Game Catalog and Game Trials, as well as supported digital PS5 titles that players own,” says Nick Maguire, VP of global services, global sales, and business operations at Sony Interactive Entertainment. “When this feature launches, cloud game streaming for supported PS5 titles will be available for use directly on your PS5 console.”

A cloud feature for PS5 games would mean you’ll no longer have to download games to your console to stream them to other devices. Sony currently supports streaming PS5 games to PCs, Macs, and iOS and Android devices, but you have to use your PS5 as the host to download and stream titles to your other devices.

It has seemed obvious for months that Sony was working on cloud streaming for PS5 games. Recent job listings hinted at a new cloud gaming push, and then PlayStation chief Jim Ryan teased “quite aggressive plans” for cloud gaming last month. But Sony went on to reveal its PlayStation handheld, codenamed Project Q, by only confirming Wi-Fi streaming of PS5 games directly from a console.

While Sony still hasn’t detailed whether its PlayStation handheld will support PS5 cloud game streaming, this PlayStation Plus Premium cloud push is clearly a move toward that even if there’s no release date yet. Sony’s CEO, Kenichiro Yoshida, hinted earlier this month that the company is still in the early stages of cloud gaming, so perhaps Project Q will still launch (in November?) without this key support.

Sony’s PlayStation handheld will surely support PS5 cloud streaming eventually.

Image: Sony

“We think it’s important for Premium members to be able to enjoy as many games as possible via cloud streaming,” says Maguire. “We’re in the early stages right now, and we can’t wait to share more details when we’re ready, including a launch time frame.”

Sony’s confirmation of PS5 cloud streaming comes more than four years after it unveiled a surprising partnership with Microsoft that would see the companies collaborate to develop future cloud solutions for game and content-streaming services. We haven’t heard much about that deal since 2019. In 2021 PlayStation chief Jim Ryan said Sony was still at the “exchanging ideas” stage, despite an original promise of the gaming rivals exploring the use of Microsoft Azure datacenter-based solutions for Sony’s game and content-streaming services. Given Sony’s recent mentions of AWS in its job listings, the Microsoft strategic partnership could well be over.

Update, 12:15PM ET: Article updated with details of Sony’s Microsoft cloud partnership from 2019.

Source