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Silicon Valley Throws $100M at AI-Powered Mattress With a Subscription

by admin August 21, 2025



In brief

  • Eight Sleep landed a $100M Series D from Founders Fund, Y Combinator, and F1 investors, pushing sales past $500M
  • It’s AI “Sleep Agent” system adjusts temperature and heart rate, but users gripe about leaks, glitches, and black-box data
  • Celebrity fan club includes Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Scarlett Johansson—while Reddit calls it a “glorified water bed”

Eight Sleep, a startup that sells $3,000 AI-powered mattresses with a monthly subscription fee, just raised $100 million in Series D funding, hoping to bolster a relatively novel idea within the consumer discretionary sector.

The round—led by Founders Fund, Y Combinator, Valor Equity Partners, and HSG (formerly Sequoia China)—also drew investments from F1 driver Charles Leclerc and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.

The deal pushes the company’s valuation to about $500 million, with more than $500 million in Pod sales reported since launch.



Eight Sleep’s “Pod” system uses water-filled tubes in a mattress cover to adjust bed temperature between 55°F and 110°F (13-43 °C).

Built-in sensors track heart rate, breathing, and heart rate variability, which an AI system called Autopilot uses to tweak the environment in real time.

Prices start at $2,500 for the mattress topper, and climb over $4,000 for the whole system. Then there’s a $17–$25 monthly subscription for “advanced features”—because yes, even your mattress now needs a membership plan.

The company has amassed a high-profile fan base, including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Scarlett Johansson swears by it, and biohacker Bryan Johnson, who spends $2M a year on anti-aging, is another user.

“This new funding enables us to accelerate the deployment of AI for sleep optimization, expand into medical applications like menopausal sleep and sleep apnea, and bring our technology to millions of people around the world,” CEO Matteo Franceschetti said in the announcement. The former lawyer, turned sleep obsessive, founded the company in 2014 after struggling with his own sleep issues.

But not all the feedback has been positive. On social media, users have shared stories about glitches that cause the system to stop working entirely, leaving them with an expensive, non-functional bed. Others have reported issues with water leaks and connectivity problems.

Woke up because my AI controlled bed is too cold. Went to adjust temperature and I can’t because the Eight Sleep app is currently broken. Can’t adjust by hand because I have a Pod3, not the upgraded Pod4 with physical controls.

Now I am stuck in a cold bed. This feels dystopian.

— Theo – t3.gg (@theo) June 16, 2025

The system’s AI has been called a “black box” by some users, who complain it does not provide transparent data.

Eight Sleep’s new funding will support the development of what it calls a “Sleep Agent,” an AI that will run thousands of nightly simulations to further refine a user’s rest. The company is also seeking FDA approval for medical applications of its technology, including treating menopausal hot flashes and sleep apnea..

The company says its AI models have processed over 1 billion hours of sleep data. With $100 million in fresh capital, the bet for Eight Sleep remains that its blend of hardware and software will continue to find a decent resting place, no matter the price.

Generally Intelligent Newsletter

A weekly AI journey narrated by Gen, a generative AI model.





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Microsoft lock in a release date for their ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, but no price yet because macroeconomics
Game Updates

Microsoft lock in a release date for their ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, but no price yet because macroeconomics

by admin August 21, 2025


Xbox’s handhelds have a confirmed release date, and yes, it’s the one that leaked. As for how much the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X will cost you, Microsoft aren’t sharing a price yet, because there are some macroeconomics to take into account, don’t you know.

The pair of Asus devices souped up with some extra Xboxiness to fit the company with all the green branding will release on October 16th. As I said, no price or pre-orders as of yet, with Asus senior vice president Shawn Yen having offered the following explanation to IGN as to why that’s the case:

I think we will have to… we need more time to figure the macroeconomic impact to pricing, and that’s why we’ll be sharing more later, in September and October.

Odds are that’s exec speak for something along the lines of ‘We’d like to see how things play out a bit more with these US tariffs, if you please’. Dealabs, whose reliable leaker Billbil-kun was behind the early sharing of the handhelds’ release date, report that the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X’s US prices could be $549.99 and $899.99 respectively. We’ll just have to see if that’s accurate, and what it equates to in sadness island pounds and pence.

Xbox also revealed a Handheld Compatibility Program, that’ll let you look for the “Handheld Optimized” or “Mostly Compatible” badges on games in your library to see what should work on your Xbox Ally, much like you’d check for Steam Deck verification. There’ll also be a “Windows Performance Fit indicator” that’ll “reflect expected performance” on your hardware.

Odds are our James will have plenty to say about both when they debut, which’ll amount to far more than my expert analysis that them be some cheeky little thumbsticks. I can’t see myself investing in one over a Steam Deck whenever I inevitably decide a handheld’s a thing I need more than life itself, as Phil Spencer has over the past couple of years.

I’ll run out the clock here by flagging that there have been protests going on this week at a Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus. Staff continue to voice their opposition to the company’s business relationship with Israel’s armed forces amid the on-going assault on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Read Edwin’s full write-up here.



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Google Pixel Watch 4 hands-on: big ideas for the AI wearable future
Product Reviews

Google Pixel Watch 4 hands-on: big ideas for the AI wearable future

by admin August 21, 2025


The original Pixel Watch was late to the game. For years, there had been rumors of a Google smartwatch that never materialized. Then, when it finally arrived, it was a quintessential first-gen device, with thicc bezels, dismal battery life, and a host of quirks that needed ironing out. My DMs were full of people wondering when the watch would be unceremoniously dumped into Google’s infamous product graveyard. A part of me wondered if Google was going to spend the next decade playing catch-up.

Fast forward to 2025, and I’m holding the Pixel Watch 4 at Google’s office in New York City. On the surface (and my wrist), it doesn’t look like much has changed. But after fiddling with a few menus, watching some demos, and talking over the updates, it’s evident that Google has a clear vision about where smartwatches are going.

“The overall lens through which we see our mission as a team is ‘essential companion,’” says Sandeep Waraich, Google’s product lead for Pixel wearables. That “essential companion,” Waraich says, should be a wearable and continuous presence on your body that’s intelligent, helps coach you to better health, and also acts as a “guardian.”

Viewed that way, the bevy of Pixel Watch 4 updates starts to look like a roadmap.

The Pixel Watch 4’s new display has thinner bezels, 10 percent more screen area, and a 50 percent increase in brightness.

Starting with hardware, the Pixel Watch 4 has a new domed “Actua 360” display — as in, the display itself, not just the glass, is also domed. What this translates to is about 10 percent more visible screen space, 15 percent thinner bezels, and a 50 percent increase in maximum brightness to 3,000 nits. On a table, there’s a lineup of the Pixel Watch 2, 3, and 4 with the flashlight app turned on. Side-by-side, the improvements are striking.

Material 3 Expressive in Wear OS 6 also helps emphasize the Pixel Watch’s roundness. (No squircles here, folks.) The widgets have more rounded edges, and each screen has been redesigned to be more glanceable, fitting more complications. It’s not Liquid Glass, but there are subtle animations when flitting through menus that call your attention to the Pixel Watch’s rain droplet-inspired design. Altogether, it’s a design tweak that makes sense and is aesthetically pleasing.

Google also says battery life has improved. The 41mm watch gets an estimated 30 hours on a single charge, while the 45mm gets 40 hours. That can stretch up to two days in battery saver mode for the smaller watch and three days for the larger one. I couldn’t test that at a hands-on, but I did get to see the improved fast charging in action. At 1:30PM ET, I stuck a 45mm Pixel Watch 4 with 50 percent battery on the watch’s new side-mounted charger. By 1:48PM, it was at 94 percent. Google says this translates to about 25 percent faster charging, taking only 15 minutes to go from zero to 50 percent.

Look! Tiny screws! According to Waraich, the inside of the Pixel Watch 4 resembles a “bento box” for better serviceability.

I was prepared to hate the new side-mounted charger, which sees the charging pins moved onto the edge opposite the crown. Three proprietary chargers in four years feels wasteful. But while I don’t love e-waste, I do like the change. For one, it turns your watch into a little desk or nightstand display. It also makes it so that it doesn’t matter what kind of strap you use. With more traditional charging pucks, a loop-type band without a clasp tends to flop over. My colleague Allison Johnson pointed out that it kind of looks like the Pixel Watch is resting its tired little head on a pillow. That’s kind of cute.

Another thing that caught my eye: if you remove the straps and peer into the lugs, you now see two teeny tiny screws — because starting this year, the Pixel Watch 4’s display and battery will be replaceable and repairable. The screws aren’t proprietary either, and according to Waraich, the idea is to make the devices as durable and long-lasting as possible. He also says this will be true of every Pixel Watch going forward.

That’s huge. Smartwatches are notoriously hard to repair, and the Pixel Watch’s screen design makes it particularly prone to damage. (The Verge should know; we unintentionally cracked the displays of two Pixel Watches.) Repairability has specifically been a pain point for the Pixel Watches, so seeing Google take that feedback to heart is encouraging.

Put together, these hardware updates really zero in on Google’s attempt to build a glanceable device that lasts a long time. As for the personalized companion part, well, of course that’s referring to AI.

The new charger looks like a little pillow for a sleepy smartwatch.

As with the Galaxy Watch 8, Gemini has a big presence on the Pixel Watch 4. It replaces Google Assistant and is capable of more complex queries — even if none have been able to blow my mind yet. But, in a bid to make interacting with Gemini as smooth as possible, the speaker and haptic engines have also been updated so you can hear and interact more easily. There’s also a new raise-to-talk gesture that lets you speak to Gemini without having to use the wake word. The processor has been upgraded to the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 to enable more on-device AI features, as well, like smart replies. On the Pixel Watch 4, you’ll get more smart reply options to texts that refer to the content of your conversations. They’re not confined to the default Messages app, either.

But the major AI update this time around is a Gemini-powered health coach that’s slated to arrive alongside a revamped Fitbit app in October. So far, I’ve been skeptical about AI fitness features, but I’m cautiously curious about what I’ve seen from Google. The gist is the health coach will act more like a personal trainer than a Captain Obvious summary generator. If you sleep poorly, it’ll adjust workout suggestions. (This is also why Google is also introducing an improved sleep algorithm.) You can tell it that you’ve been injured, and that too will be taken into consideration when generating weekly fitness plans. I did a deeper dive on the health coach demo, but to keep things brief, this is the first time that I’ve felt remotely intrigued by any AI health coaching feature.

Another big first is the Satellite SOS mode. If you’re without your phone and in a remote area with no signal, you can still call emergency services. (So long as you have the LTE version of the watch.) The big thing here is that there’s no extra subscription cost. The watch will also feature more accurate dual-frequency GPS — a nice update given that I’ve had issues with the Pixel Watch’s GPS maps in the past.

It only looks like last year’s Pixel Watches. These updates are incredibly substantive.

When you look back at the original Pixel Watch, this is a substantial amount of progress. There’s a healthy mix of sensible and experimental ideas. As far as AI smartwatch assistants, Google has beaten Apple to the punch. (Technically, Samsung got Gemini on a smartwatch first, but Gemini is Google’s baby.) Satellite SOS on a smartwatch is also an industry first, and Google is making a statement here with repairability. We’ll have to see how that AI coach fares in testing, but here, too, Google is barreling forward.

I’m not saying every update or idea presented here is a good one. But you can at least see the shape of Google’s plans: a sleek, all-day, and personalized companion that lets you bring AI where your phone can’t easily go. There are rough edges. Some would argue glasses are a much better form factor for this concept. But, given how many wearable makers have felt stuck in a loop of iterative updates, it’s refreshing to see that Google has a bold, wearable thesis that it’s working toward. Whether it can truly execute on delivering the ultimate “essential companion” is up for debate. But right now? Dare I say it, I think Google has the wearable juice.
Photos by Allison Johnson / The Verge

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August 21, 2025 0 comments
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Pragmata's blend of shooting and hacking is the most stressful new idea I've seen in a shooter in generations, and it's brilliant
Game Reviews

Pragmata’s blend of shooting and hacking is the most stressful new idea I’ve seen in a shooter in generations, and it’s brilliant

by admin August 21, 2025


We’ve said it before, here, already: Pragmata represents Capcom at its weird, experimental best. To me, it’s in line with Exoprimal and Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess as a game that shows the publisher is confident to let its studios run with any ideas they have. Whilst those two may not have been commercial (or in Exoprimal’s case, critical) successes, I think Pragmata has a bigger shot at penetrating through the mainstream thanks to three key things: it’s a shooter, its main character is more of an everydad – his name is Hugh Williams, for goodness sake – and it has one of the most exciting genre hybrids I’ve seen in a while.

Pragmata

  • Developer: Capcom
  • Publisher: Capcom
  • Platform: Played on PS5 Pro
  • Availability: Out 2026 on PC (Steam) and PS5

In a recent demo at Capcom’s offices ahead of Gamescom, the publisher let me loose on a new demo of the game: a slightly beefier version of the Summer Games Fest demo Alex wrote about in the preview above. The main difference took the form of a boss fight against a mechanised walker that stomped all over an arena that’s also an elevator (standard) that put me in mind of Lost Planet, Vanquish, and I guess… Watch Dogs?

Like I said, it’s a really peculiar grab bag of genres glued together with what seems like a plot that would have to have more structure to be paper thin. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t think people are going to be picking this one up expecting a Hugo-winning tale of redemption and loss, to be honest. What you get with Pragmata, instead, is a very video game-y video game. Strafing around shooting a boss that looks like something from Metal Gear’s cutting room floor whilst a young girl that’s also an android hacks into its systems is peak video game. For me, this is a good thing.


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Everything about the demo is peak video game. Hugh wanders around gruffly, muttering about whatever as he solves simple environmental puzzles, exchanging a little bit of mumbly dialogue with Diana (the android). Every now and then, the GLaDOS-like security system wakes up some robot goons that you need to kill, and you push on. The mob enemies all have shields, so Diana needs to hack them before you shoot them. It’s pretty, with this nice clean space station sci-fi aesthetic, and a great little training ground for you to figure out the third-person shooting/hacking dichotomy before the boss.

So, enter the boss. It’s here the twin strands of Pragmata’s DNA form into a beautiful helix that shows off what the game is going for. As the walker slams about the platform and you dodge out of the way of missiles and AoE splashes on the floor, you need to use one of your three guns (it looks like there’ll be four in the final game) to inflict damage. There’s a pistol with a relatively low damage output and slow reload time that makes up for its shortcomings by having infinite ammo, a shotgun that has ridiculous damage-per-second but can only hold six shells at once, and a fun little stasis net that slows down your prey and does a little damage over time.

Diana and Hugh fend off a bad robot. | Image credit: Capcom

It’s a nice trio of arms. Swapping between them to maximise damage whilst minimising threat to yourself is the aim of the game, here, and it all ends up feeling a bit like a combat puzzle you solve on the fly as you strafe around the room. It’s not exactly Halo, but that’s where the Lost Planet reference earlier came from. Bosses like the walker have weak points (identified by Diana as you aim down sights), and in the case of this mechanical lump, it was a fuel tank on it’s back.

Once you’ve got the lay of the land, and you’ve identified where to ‘spend’ your limited shotgun shells, you pop out a stasis net, circle around the back, and get to work. I let out a horrible little laugh as everything came together in my preview – after slowing it down with the net, I unloaded a full clip of shotty shells into the tank whilst I used Diana to hack to the machine, immobilising it and spending some of her resources in order to lower its defence. The way it all mingles together under your fingers feels natural, like I’ve done this before. But, of course, I haven’t. Because this whole concept is completely batshit.

You shoot and aim with your standard trigger setup, then use the face buttons to solve a very easy puzzle and hack an enemy mid-fight (there’s the Watch Dogs nod). You can also jump and dodge, using the shoulder buttons, making your fingers hop across the whole pad in a glitchy, frantic little dance. It’s overwhelming, but in a flustering way that scratches the same part of my brain Vanquish did back in 2010. And once you’re au fait with the scheme, that desperate dance you do with hacking and shooting feels surprisingly natural.

Probably not a paranoid android. | Image credit: Capcom

Watching my footage back, I really don’t think what you see on screen does justice to Pragmata; it’s very much the sort of game that you need to feel in your hands in order to understand. I pray Capcom releases a demo (for its own sake), because the elevator pitch may be a little too obscure for some. It represents Capcom’s confidence, though, and hooks onto the same philosophy that Dead Rising did back in 2006: take a well-established genre, take it apart, and put it back together in a wholly new way.

There are still some anachronistic game design decisions in Pragmata (most of the story is told to you via text logs left scattered around the deserted moon base or projected holograms, very is still very 2006), but mixed in with these new ideas and genuinely fascinating combinations of genres. Pragmata is intriguing. I think games like this represent Capcom at its best: experimental, weird, and willing to break away from the triple-A pack in order to do something left-of-centre, a bit bizarre, a bit proggy. And ultimately, to arrive at something that’s all the better for it.



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3,477,149,925,825 Shiba Inu (SHIB) in 24 Hours: Growth Starts
NFT Gaming

3,477,149,925,825 Shiba Inu (SHIB) in 24 Hours: Growth Starts

by admin August 21, 2025


  • Healthy on-chain movement
  • Market’s reaction

The amount of 3,477,149,925,825 tokens was transferred across the network in the last day, according to a Shiba Inu blockchain explorer, highlighting the recovery of on-chain activity. A huge increase in transaction volume like this indicates greater involvement from larger institutions as well as retail holders, which could lead to increased market volatility.

Healthy on-chain movement

According to SHIB’s on-chain metrics, billions to trillions of tokens were transferred day by day, with a most recent uptick to three trillion. This suggests that the ecosystem is somewhat healthy and not experiencing any anomalies.

Source: Etherscan

Given that bulk transactions continue to be a defining characteristic of SHIB’s on-chain activity, large whale movements most likely also played a role. Price changes are typically preceded by active phases of accumulation or portfolio repositioning, as indicated by the magnitude of these movements.

Market’s reaction

Even with the surge in transactions, SHIB’s chart is not looking that great. Following several retests, the price is consolidating around $0.0000125 and holding onto an ascending support line. In contrast to the RSI, which is neither overheated nor oversold, moving averages continue to be compressed, indicating indecision.

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The on-chain surge has not been reflected in trading volume on exchanges, which begs the question of whether the majority of activity is repositioning or pure buying pressure. Price volatility usually occurs within weeks of a spike in SHIB’s on-chain volume.

Bullish momentum might resurface and push a test of the resistance zone between $0.0000135 and $0.0000141, if market participants perceive this as accumulation. Alternatively, if the rising trendline is broken, SHIB may return to the $0.000011 support.

SHIB is in a position that is not obvious for short-term investors and might not show enough traction for the future. Despite the bullish structural signal of the on-chain surge, there is currently no price confirmation. It is important for traders to keep a close eye on SHIB’s ability to convert volume growth into positive momentum.



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crypto, stablecoin
Crypto Trends

Stablecoins Will Boost US Bonds Demand: Treasury Secretary

by admin August 21, 2025


Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure

The US Treasury Secretary has reportedly contacted leading crypto industry players to discuss the potential impact of the stablecoin sector on the demand for US government bonds in the coming years.

Treasury Secretary Bets On The Crypto Industry

On Wednesday, the Financial Times (FT) reported that the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, is “betting” on the crypto industry to become a key buyer of US Treasuries in the coming years.

Following the enactment of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act in July, digital assets pegged to the US dollar are required to be backed on a one-to-one basis by US dollars or Treasury bills.

Sources familiar with the discussions told the news media outlet that Secretary Bessent has signaled to Wall Street that he expects the industry to “become an important source of demand for US government bonds” as Washington seeks to bolster demand for a surge of new US government debt.

According to FT, Bessent has contacted leading stablecoin issuers, including Circle and Tether, for information, revealing the Treasury Department’s alleged plans to increase sales of short-term bills for the coming quarters.

The report noted that the focus on the sector follows investors’ concerns about the US’s deteriorating public finances, adding that the Treasury Department’s hopes are also a sign of the White House’s “drive to bring crypto to the heart of US finance.”

“The recent passage of the Genius Act is a significant development which we are monitoring as it will promote innovation in stablecoins and grow demand for short-term Treasury securities” the Treasury Department told FT, explaining that “issuance plans will continue to be informed by a variety of inputs including that from investors, primary dealers and the Treasury borrowing advisory committee”.

Jay Barry, head of global rates strategy at JPMorgan Chase, told FT that “[Secretary Bessent and the Treasury department] absolutely think that stablecoins will be a real source of new demand for Treasuries. And that is absolutely why [Bessent] is comfortable weighting issuance towards [short-term debt].”

A Multi-Trillion ‘Gold Rush’ Era?

Notably, the Treasury Secretary previously affirmed that “this groundbreaking technology will buttress the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency, expand access to the dollar economy for billions across the globe, and lead to a surge in demand for U.S. Treasuries, which back stablecoins.” Adding that “The GENIUS Act provides the fast-growing market with the regulatory clarity it needs to grow into a multitrillion-dollar industry.”

Similarly, Goldman Sachs asserted that the industry is “at the beginning of a stablecoin gold rush,” which could potentially bring the $271 billion global market to trillions of dollars, Fortune reported.

“Stablecoins are a $271bn global market, and we believe USDC (…) benefits from market share gains on and off of partner Binance’s platform, as ongoing stablecoin legislation legitimizes the ecosystem, and the crypto ecosystem expands, also potentially catalyzed by legislation,” the report highlighted, citing the bank’s research paper from August 20.

Payments are the most obvious source of (total accessible market) expansion for stablecoins over the longer term. This opportunity is largely untapped so far, with the majority of stablecoin activity being driven by crypto trading activity and demand for dollar exposure outside of the U.S.

Nonetheless, not everyone in the financial sector believes that the sector will boost the demand for US government bonds. Global Chief Economist at financial services firm UBS, Paul Donovan, shared a more skeptical approach with clients on Wednesday morning.

According to Fortune, Donovan noted that the Treasury Secretary is “reportedly getting excited that stablecoins might increase demand for short-dated U.S. Treasuries, helping finance the unsustainable U.S. fiscal position. However, stablecoins are more about redistributing money supply.”

“Someone selling Treasury bills to buy stablecoins, which invest the money in Treasury bills, does not change demand for U.S. debt instruments,” he concluded.

Bitcoin (BTC) trades at $114,184 in the one-week chart. Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView

Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com

Editorial Process for bitcoinist is centered on delivering thoroughly researched, accurate, and unbiased content. We uphold strict sourcing standards, and each page undergoes diligent review by our team of top technology experts and seasoned editors. This process ensures the integrity, relevance, and value of our content for our readers.



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Google’s Gemini Live AI assistant will show you what it’s talking about
Gaming Gear

Google’s Gemini Live AI assistant will show you what it’s talking about

by admin August 21, 2025


Google is bringing a bundle of new features to Gemini Live, its AI assistant that you can have real-time conversations with. Next week, Gemini Live will be able to highlight things directly on your screen while sharing your camera, making it easier for the AI assistant to point out a specific item.

If you’re trying to find the right tool for a project, for example, you can point your smartphone’s camera at a collection of tools, and Gemini Live will highlight the correct one on your screen. This feature will be available on the newly announced Pixel 10 devices when they launch on August 28th. Google will begin rolling out visual guidance to other Android devices at the same time before expanding to iOS “in the coming weeks.”

Google is also launching new integrations that will soon allow Gemini Live to interact with more apps, including Messages, Phone, and Clock. Say you’re in the middle of a conversation with Gemini about directions to your destination, but you realize you’re running late. Google says you’ll be able to interrupt the chatbot with something like: “This route looks good. Now, send a message to Alex that I’m running about 10 minutes late.” From there, Google can draft a text to your friend for you.

Lastly, Google is launching an updated audio model for Gemini Live that the company says will “dramatically improve” how the chatbot “uses the key elements of human speech, like intonation, rhythm and pitch.” Soon, Gemini will change its tone based on what you’re speaking about, such as using a calmer voice if you’re asking about a stressful topic.

You’ll also be able to change how fast — or slow — Gemini talks, which sounds a bit similar to how users can now tweak the style of ChatGPT’s voice mode. And, if you ask Gemini for a dramatic retelling of a story from the perspective of a particular character or historical figure, the chatbot may adopt an accent for a “rich, engaging narrative.”



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Cloud Chamber lays off "unspecified" number of staff as Rod Fergusson is parachuted in to lead troubled BioShock 4 production
Esports

Cloud Chamber lays off “unspecified” number of staff as Rod Fergusson is parachuted in to lead troubled BioShock 4 production

by admin August 21, 2025


Update, Wednesday August 20, 2025: 2K Games has confirmed it has “reduced the size of the development team” working on BioShock 4.

Sharing an internal Cloud Chamber memo with our sister site, Eurogamer, 2K president David Ismailer told staff “we’ve made the decision with studio leadership to rework certain aspects that are core to a BioShock game, and in doing so are reducing the size of the development team to focus on this work.”

“BioShock is woven deeply into the fabric of 2K,” Ismailer wrote. “It’s one of our most beloved franchises and respecting its legacy and meeting our fans’ expectations is critical to its future success.

“Work on the next BioShock game has been underway for several years. While we’re excited about the foundational gameplay elements of the project, we’ve made the decision with studio leadership to rework certain aspects that are core to a BioShock game, and in doing so are reducing the size of the development team to focus on this work and give the game more time in development.

“I know this is tough news for everyone. If your role is being affected, you’ll hear from your manager or studio leadership today with details on severance, career services and support resources. There is no easy way to do this, but we hope to do whatever we can to support you through this. I want to thank each of you for your dedication and hard work.”

“I recognise that today is a day of mixed emotions,” Ismailer concluded. “We’re excited to have Rod [Fergusson] joining us, and are equally grateful to everyone at Cloud Chamber who has helped us get this far. These changes are rooted in 2K’s firm confidence in BioShock as one of the most beloved franchises, and our commitment to deliver the best game in franchise history.”

2K did not confirm how many developers have been impacted by the cuts.

Original story:BioShock 4 developer Cloud Chamber has reportedly appointed former Diablo boss Rod Fergusson as studio head and laid off an “unspecified number of staff.”

Firaxis veteran Kelley Gilmore departed earlier this month after Take-Two Interactive reportedly overhauled parts of the upcoming BioShock and reshuffled its leadership team following a failed internal review by publisher 2K Games.

At the time, “people familiar with the situation” claimed the next entry in the BioShock series “recently failed a review by executives at 2K Games,” with the game’s narrative highlighted as needing improvement.

Now, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reports layoffs at the BioShock 4 developer as Rod Fergusson takes over as Cloud Chamber’s new studio head.

Fergusson announced his departure from Blizzard on August 8. While there’s been no formal confirmation that he has joined the BioShock production, he was similarly parachuted in to lead the troubled BioShock Infinite project, staying at Irrational just eight months before moving on.

In a post on social media, Fergusson wrote: “Would you kindly allow me to share some news? Some of you guessed it, I’m returning to 2K to lead a series that means a lot to me as the new Head of the BioShock Franchise. I’ll be heading up Cloud Chamber and overseeing development of the next BioShock game, along with franchise extensions like the in-development Netflix movie.

“While I’m excited to get started in the coming weeks, I recognize the studio restructuring is a difficult time for the team. I’m deeply grateful for the work done so far, and I’m committed to building a BioShock game we’ll be proud of and that our players will love. For now, the firehose of onboarding awaits, and I look forward to sharing more when I can.”

The fourth mainline entry in the BioShock series was confirmed to be in development at 2K Games-owned studio, Cloud Chamber, back in 2019. This upcoming entry will be the series’s first new entry since BioShock Infinite’s release in 2013.



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August 21, 2025 0 comments
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A top-down view of the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni with the robot exiting the base station
Product Reviews

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review: a chatty but effective robot vacuum that shows off how well a roller can mop

by admin August 21, 2025



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Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni: Two-minute review

I’ll say one thing about Ecovacs Robotics: the brand might make too many robot vacuums that I, as a reviewer, can’t keep up with, but they all seem well thought out and catering to different needs and budgets. In 2024, it released a good-value robovac that I really liked in my Ecovacs Deebot T30 Omni review, and it’s impressed again with a higher-end model in the Deebot X8 Pro Omni reviewed here.

The X8 has plenty of smarts on board, with Ecovacs’ voice assistant Yiko now better at understanding commands and having a more conversational interaction than its previous iterations on older Deebots. Even if you don’t interact with Yiko, the X8 has plenty of automated voice prompts that I very quickly found to be annoying – there’s only so many times you can hear it say “don’t worry” when its auto-emptying. While you can’t switch these off, you can mute the volume entirely and depend on the app notifications to find out if the robot needs help at any time (like if it’s stuck somewhere).

There’s Google Assistant and Alexa support as well, but Yiko can handle a few extra commands that I found the other two voice assistants couldn’t handle. To futureproof your smart home, the X8 Pro Omni also has Matter support, so you can control several smart devices via a single hub.

There’s a camera on board that the bot uses to ‘see’ its surroundings for better navigation and obstacle avoidance, but it also provides a live feed that requires a passcode to be set up for access. There’s a Patrol mode here that turns the X8 Pro Omni bot into a security unit and it saves a bunch of photos for you to view whenever you like. You can also speak to your pets or kids if you need to check in on them (spy?) while you’re at work. I’ve asked Ecovacs for clarification on how secure the camera is from hackers and will update this review as soon as I hear back.

These smart bells and whistles are all great, but this robot vacuum shines at its most important function: cleaning. It’s arguably one of the best automated cleaners I’ve tested in 2025, with edge cleaning its biggest asset thanks to an extending side brush and wet roller while vacuuming and mopping respectively. In fact, I’ve seen the X8 Pro Omni travel far closer to walls and furniture than many of its competitors, thus allowing its extendable parts to do their job effectively.

The Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni can get very close to walls and furniture to clean, much closer than other bots I’ve tested previously (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

  • Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni at ECOVACS for $1,169.99

It puts its 18,000Pa of suction power to good use, with my carpets looking fresh and clean after a single run on its highest suction setting. It did a better job than what I saw in my Roborock Qrevo Edge review despite 18,500Pa of suction. And its roller mop was quite impressive compared to the mops pads I’d gotten used to previously, and that’s despite Ecovacs saying there’s no pressure applied by the roller on the floor.

There’s also a detergent dispenser on board and use of the soap is automatic provided you toggle it on in the app – Ecovacs says there’s always a ratio of 200:1 detergent and water mix in the pipeline to ensure the correct usage. Even without detergent I found my floors were left stain-free after every mop – in fact, it was better than I experienced in my Narwal Freo Z10 review that, at the time, I said had excellent mopping skills.

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In four weeks of testing, the X8 Pro Omni got entangled in a cable just once because the side brush pulled a low-hanging wire towards the bumper, but otherwise its obstacle avoidance is very good. Even more impressive is its overall navigation – it invariably took the path of least resistance in my apartment, which meant it got its tasks done relatively quickly and, importantly, without consuming too much battery life.

Even the base station performance is top notch, with the onboard bin getting cleaned quite well each time it empties, and the wet-roller cleaning is impeccable. Water consumption is also lower than any other robovac I’ve tested before – I’ve previously had to refill the clean water after every full cleaning cycle in my small inner-city apartment, but this time I’ve had to do so once every four or five sessions (depending on its routine).

All in all, this was excellent performance from not just the robot vacuum, but I commend Ecovacs for streamlining its app experience as well. It’s much nicer to use, with plenty of customization options to suit your personal cleaning needs. Importantly, these custom routines are now very easy to access.

It’s relatively noisier than some of its newer competitors, and it can’t perform the climbing feats of the more expensive Dreame X50 Ultra, but if you value excellent cleaning performance above all else, I’d find it very easy to recommend the Deebot X8 Pro Omni – and it’s often discounted.

It doesn’t necessarily stand out visually, but the gold accents lend the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni some class (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review: price & availability

  • Available since March 2025
  • List price: $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$2,499
  • Incurs ongoing costs for dust bags and detergent

There are quite a few all-in-one robot vacuum cleaners at the same price point that Ecovacs Robotics is selling the X8 Pro Omni, but I think the Deebot can justify its premium cost on its feature set and performance.

It’s listed for $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$2,499 at full price but, at the time of writing, US and UK customers could pick it up for $899.99 / £999 respectively directly from the Ecovacs website. In Australia, it has dropped to AU$2,199 previously, but I suspect there’ll be better discounts around the world during major shopping events like Black Friday sales. It’s also available from select third-party retailers, including Amazon.

This price gets you not just excellent performance (explained below in detail), but you also get an impressive set of features, including voice assistant and Matter integration for a smarter home setup. With that in mind, I think the X8 Pro Omni is well priced compared to some of the other robovacs on the market, although Ecovacs has cheaper models that clean really well, as proved by the Deebot T30 Omni.

As an example of competitor pricing, the Narwal Freo Z Ultra cost $1,499/ AU$2,499 (unavailable in the UK) and is a good machine, but has 12,000Pa of suction compared to the Deebot’s 18,000Pa. Matching the suction power at 18,500Pa is the Roborock Qrevo Edge, but I found it hard to recommend at its list price of $1,599.99 / AU$2,799 (unavailable in the UK) based on its performance alone. On the other hand, Ecovacs’ own Deebot T50 Max Pro Omni has 18,500Pa suction, the Yiko voice assistant and promises good cleaning at a lower price point of $799.99 / £799 / AU$1,799.

If you want more suction power, you’ll have to pay a lot more. For example, the Roborock Saros 10 with its whopping 22,000Pa of power will set you back $1,599.99 / £1,499.99 / AU$2,999 at full price, but is often discounted to match the X8’s retail cost. The Dreame X50 Ultra Complete with 20,000Pa of suction is also expensive compared to the X8 Pro Omni, coming in at a list price of $1,699.99 / £1,299 / AU$2,999, but it can climb low steps that many of the newer machines can’t.

As with any other hybrid robot vacuum, there is the ongoing cost of purchasing dust bags and detergent to take into consideration, although the latter is an optional add-on but I can see the need for it in homes with toddlers and pets. Unlike other brands, though, Ecovacs doesn’t supply a bottle of detergent in the box – at least not in Australia, where the testing for this review was conducted, due to “customs issues with international shipments” – so that’s $49.98 / £44 right off the bat for two 1L bottles in the US and UK (frequently discounted), but the same two-pack isn’t available in Australia where a 1L bottle retails for AU$37.50.

The antibacterial dust bags come in packs of three and are available directly from Ecovacs Robotics for $24.99 / £17.99 / AU$29.90 at the time of writing.

Despite the ongoing cost, I think the Deebot X8 Pro Omni balances its feature set, performance and price well, but I’d recommend picking it up during a sale as it’s frequently discounted.

• Value score: 4 / 5

The three-prong button on the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni doesn’t look functional, but it has three tasks it can perform when needed (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review: specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Suction power:

18,000Pa

Onboard bin capacity:

220ml

Dust bag capacity:

3L

Clean water tank capacity:

4L

Dirty water tank capacity:

4L

Reservoir capacity:

110ml clean; 95ml dirty

Mop lift:

10mm

Noise level:

up to 75dB

Battery capacity:

6,400mAh

Runtime:

up to 228 minutes / up to 240sqm (2,580 sq ft)

Charging time:

4.6 hours

Dimensions:

Robot = 353 x 351.5 x 98 mm; base station = 350 x 477 x 533 mm

Weight:

Robot = 5.3kg; base station = 7.6kg

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review: Design

  • Gold accents give it a classy look
  • Extending side brush and wet roller mop
  • Taller than the average robot but lacks a turret; tall but slim base station

I only had to take the robot out to see that Deebot X8 Pro Omni exudes class, thanks to some gold-colored accents on the otherwise black machine. Unlike the Narwal Freo Z10 that I reviewed prior to the X8 (which was a 11kg weight straight out of the box), the Deebot comes packed in layers, which makes it very easy to set up.

Robot design

Once you remove the wash tray from the top of the box, the next item to emerge is the X8 robot. The first thing that distinguishes it from many other robovacs is the lack of a top turret that typically houses the navigation tech. In the X8 Pro Omni, though, all the necessary sensors are on the front and the sides.

The lack of a turret means the X8 can roll under many low-lying pieces of furniture, although it’s doesn’t have the slimline form factor of the Roborock Saros 10R – it’s a little taller, standing at 9.8cm/3.8in compared to the Saros at 8cm/3in, so there needs to be a minimum clearance of 10cm/4in for the Deebot to clean where many other robovacs can’t.

A black plastic disc with the Ecovacs logo in gold covers the top of the robot, with a cutout to show off a gold three-pronged button. There’s a tiny power icon in the center of the button to indicate that it’s functional, but it’s easy to miss and can appear purely decorative, although it lights up when in use and charging. Its functionality is listed on a large piece of cardboard inside the packaging: a short press to start or pause, a double press to extend or retract the wet roller, and a three-second long press to send the bot back to its dock. In the four weeks I spent with the machine, I never found the need to use the button – the robot does everything seamlessly.

Also under the top cover is a removable 220ml/7.4oz dustbin whose filter can be taken out for regular cleaning, plus a toggle switch for power, a Wi-Fi indicator light and a QR code to begin your app setup.

Image 1 of 3

After four weeks of use, there was barely any hair tangled anywhere (just one strand around a large wheel)(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)The V-shaped bristles of the central brush are very effective at avoiding entanglements(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)The wet roller was a lot more effective at streak-free mopping than circular mop pads(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

On the front of the robot are LiDAR sensors that it uses for mapping your home, while a camera also peeping through the same front window adds visual information that’s paired with artificial intelligence (AIVI) to navigate around obstacles. Along the sides are edge sensors that prevent it from banging into a wall or furniture, yet allowing the bot to get really close for effective cleaning. A mic and speaker are also housed within the front window.

The back of the robot has two charging points, but there’s also a water compartment inside with a clean capacity of 110ml and 95ml for dirty mop water. While you never have to worry about the water reservoir after setup, it can be released using an inset lever.

The side brush extends, but given the Deebot X8 Pro Omni travels very close to obstacles, it even managed to clean corners (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

As with nearly every other Deebot I’ve tested (and many other brands besides), the underside of the robot houses the central bar brush that sports bristles arranged in a V shape to help it gather hair and fur without itself getting entangled. A single side brush towards the front of the bot rotates at varying speeds automatically depending on the size of the debris it senses – it slows down for larger pieces, similar to some of the high-end Roborocks. It can also extend out to reach into corners and clean along edges – both of which it manages to do better than many of its competitors because the robot itself gets really close to walls.

The rear of the undercarriage is dominated by a wet roller rather than circular mop pads which, according to Ecovacs, spins at a speed of 200rpm and has a scraper in its holder that constantly cleans out the dirty water as it rotates. 16 nozzles keep it supplied with clean water (and detergent if you’re using any).

The main wheels are quite large and, for the first time in any robot vacuum I’ve tested, I found them to be quite noisy when traveling over the tiles in my home. The sound was akin to very hard or brittle plastic moving over a rough surface, but in my time testing the X8 Pro Omni, I didn’t notice too much wear and tear on the wheels to account for the sound. A small omnidirectional caster wheel completes the robot’s physical setup.

It’s easy to remove the onboard bin in the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni to clean out the filter regularly (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Base station design

The base station itself isn’t much to write home about and is quite similar to several other models on the market. However, the gold accents on the lids of the two water tanks and branding on the front of the dock makes it look quite smart. The tanks have a 4L capacity each and are very easy to lift up, refill or clean out, then replace back on the dock.

Image 1 of 3

Water tanks are easy to access and fill or clean(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)There are plenty of parts you can wash out if you want to, including the soap dispenser (on top of the tanks) and the wash trays(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)Even the robot’s onboard water compartment comes off easily of you want to give it a quick rinse (the inside filter can get grimy)(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Below the tanks is a covered nook that houses the detergent dispenser and a 3L dust bag. The dispenser is very easy to slide out and refill, while changing the dust bag is also very intuitive. It’s the cover for this nook that takes a little effort to remove each time you need access to either of its two inmates – it clips in very tightly indeed and you’ll need to pull it with some force from the bottom of the panel.

Under the covered nook is the cavity for the robot, which sits on a washing tray. Inside the cavity, on the rear wall of the base station, you’ll notice nozzles and charging points that keep the robot doing what it needs to do.

The base station is about as tall as many other brands offer, but it’s a little slimmer than, say, a Narwal dock. It will still need a decent amount of space to house, with enough clearance on the top to allow you to remove and replace the tanks.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review: Performance

  • Excellent vacuuming on high suction; top-notch mopping at most waterflow levels
  • Arguably one of the best edge cleaners in the business
  • Very good navigation and obstacle avoidance

The X8 Pro Omni for this review was tested in a 40sqm/430sqft inner-city apartment in Sydney, Australia, with the single bedroom fully carpeted, but the rest of the rooms featuring matte-finish tiles. The bathroom, however, has smoother tiles than the rest of the hard floors and it was part of the full map that the X8 had to clean. There are no stairs in the apartment to test cliff sensors, but there are a couple of low thresholds that were useful to test the X8 Pro Omni’s ability to clear some obstacles.

It’s also important for me to mention that I have no pets, but I’ve always found my bedroom carpet covered in my own (long) hair within 3-4 days of cleaning it, and is usually a very good test for any vacuum cleaner that I review.

Before starting the first cleaning session, I not only set up some custom routines (called Scenario Cleans in the Ecovacs Home app), but I also went through the advanced settings to toggle on some key features, including the carpet-first option as I have mixed flooring. This ensured that no matter what custom cleaning routine I might use, carpets were always vacuumed first to minimize the risk of them getting wet (more on the app experience later).

Overall performance of the X8 Pro Omni was excellent, but it’s important to note that it’s best used for the regular maintenance cleaning sessions that you might need on a daily or a weekly basis. It can’t replace the best cordless vacuum cleaners, but it definitely reduces the human effort and time spent on keeping your floors spick and span.

Water usage in the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni is not a lot compared to other models I’ve tested (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Vacuuming

Let’s start the performance section with the most basic function: vacuuming. I’ve already mentioned earlier in this review that the X8 Pro Omni was one of the best cleaning machines I’ve tested recently, exceeding the vacuuming performance I got from a Roborock and a Narwal that I tested prior to the Deebot. It really does put the 18,000Pa – which is in no way class-leading now – to very good use, particularly at its higher suction settings.

I usually have to set most robovacs to their maximum suction setting to get a decent clean on the bedroom carpet which, as I’ve described above, can get covered in my own hair within days. It’s been rare for me to see that carpet completely hair free after a single session even using the highest power level on other robovacs, but the X8 Pro Omni was been able to do just that each and every time it’s done a bedroom clean on its Max setting.

The Deebot’s got four suction settings and while I wasn’t particularly keen on the Quiet option which reduces the power significantly, I found the Standard and Strong settings to be perfect for hard floors, not once needing to step it up to Max on tiles.

The Deebot X8 Pro Omni repeatedly does 360º rotations around furniture legs to ensure good cleaning (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

The X8 Pro Omni has a suction-boost option which, as the name suggests, automatically increases power when it detects carpets, but I wasn’t able to notice the dynamic suction from sound alone when it went from hard floor to the mid-pile rug in my living room, although it seemed to do a very good job anyway. The audible change in suction was heard when it was vacuuming tiles in my kitchen, just under a cabinet – go figure.

To check its vacuuming abilities further, I conducted TechRadar’s standard tests of sprinkling tea dust and oats (representing two different-sized debris) on both hard floors and carpets. Doing a Zone clean and set at Strong suction, you can see from the video clip below that the X8 Pro Omni did a fantastic job on the tiles, even sucking up the tea dust from along the edge of the room.

If you look closely, you’ll also notice that the side brush slows down when it detects larger debris (oats) to make sure they all get pulled towards the bar brush.

On the carpet, which was also just a Zone clean done as a separate test, I set the robot to Max suction and found it cleared up the oats very well indeed, although tea dust that went deep into the fibers remained, and is visible in the video clip as a dark patch. I used my finger to loosen the carpet fibers and let the X8 run over it again, and voila, it was all cleaned up.

For both tests, I had the X8 Pro Omni set at moving in the Deep Clean pattern, which covers maximum floor space but time consuming, and I didn’t find the need to go over either of the spots with my Dyson V15s Detect Submarine.

Mopping

This is the first robot vacuum I’ve tested that features a wet roller rather than a pair of rotating mop pads and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Needless to say, the X8 Pro Omni exceeded my expectations and then some with the way it tackled my hard floors. I will go so far as to say this was arguably the best mopping I’ve seen in a while by a robot vacuum.

From shaved Toblerone on the kitchen floor (I was making Toblerone cheesecake at the time) to a partially dried dollop of coriander-mint chutney, I was very impressed with how well it mopped up different (dry) spills.

I specify dry because you really don’t want a robot vacuum to clean a wet spill like cereal milk or curry sauce as everything in the undercarriage will get wet with the sticky liquid or the sauce, including the wheels and side brush. Cleaning the bot after that will be a chore in itself.

It’s fun to watch the wet roller slide in and out from under the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni bot (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

As with many other robot vacuums like itself, the X8 Pro Omni has three waterflow settings (Low, Medium and High) with a total of 50 levels. The lowest settings would be good for sensitive wood floors but, for me, I’ve always found higher waterflow rates better for my tiles, so I had the Deebot set at level 40 most of the time as I found 45 and 50 made my tiles very wet indeed, while 30 and lower barely left a damp streak.

My kitchen floors, in particular, need regular mopping and, given it’s right beside the dining room, this area of my apartment was a good test for the X8 Pro Omni. I found that in its Deep Cleaning speed and water level set to 45 but no detergent, there was a visible difference on my floor after its first run compared to what the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine had done prior to switching to the Deebot.

In fact, I’m not sure how much difference adding the detergent has done to my floors because it mopped up dusty footprints and dried, dusty water stains very well without any soap, and it did just as good a job with.

The stress test I put the X8 under was mopping up a partially dried dollop of coriander and mint chutney – it took a couple of passes at water level 40 with detergent in the dispenser to mop it up entirely, no stain left on the floor. The issue here was that the rotating side brush scattered a tiny bit of dry chutney away, but given it was set to Deep Clean, the bot moved over the entire zone twice (more on this below in the navigation section), running perpendicular to its initial path, which meant that scattered bit got mopped up later.

I enjoyed watching the extendable roller sneak in and out of the robot as soon as it sensed something on its side. This could be a wall or a furniture leg, but I found that it hardly left a dry spot.

On the product listing page on the Ecovacs website, the brand says there’s no pressure applied by the wet roller on the floor, but given how well I saw it mop, I’d be surprised if this spec listing is correct. There’s surely some pressure being applied for such effective mopping.

Another thing I love about the roller is that it’s streak-free, particularly on the lower or mid waterflow rates. The only time I saw streaks (and not dirty ones, mind, just marks to show a mop has passed) was when the roller was saturated with clean water.

Navigation & obstacle avoidance

With the sole exception of one Zone cleaning session when it took the wrong path out of its dock to get to where it needed to in a different room, the Deebot X8 Pro Omni never once strayed from the path of least resistance.

It’s impressive navigation extends to doing full 360º rotations around furniture legs, and while the side brush didn’t always extend when I expected it to, the robot itself got so close to walls and furniture that I never had cause for complaint when it came to its navigation just millimeters from what is essentially an obstacle.

It’s three different “cleaning speeds” (or its movement pattern in a given space) are a little hit and miss if you really want a thorough job done. The best movement pattern I found was the Deep Cleaning, which means the robot cleans a space twice, first running in parallel lines just centimeters apart, then traveling perpendicular to ensure no spot is missed.

The other two cleaning speeds – Standard and Quick – aren’t bad, but because the parallel pathways are slightly more spread out compared to Deep Cleaning, I found that the occasional hair strand or speck of debris got missed. That said, “cleaning speed” as Ecovacs calls it is apt as these determine how quickly the X8 Pro Omni finishes its cleaning task.

Obstacle avoidance is also fantastic, as you can see from the video above when I conducted TechRadar’s standard test – creating an obstacle course of a slipper, shoe, a cable, socks and a tissue box. It avoided every single one of them without a hiccup, a feat I’ve not yet seen from any robot vacuum I’ve tested to date.

The only time the Deebot X8 Pro Omni got entangled with a cable, it was the side brush that pulled it into the bumper (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

However, during one vacuum-only session in my bedroom, it got entangled in a USB-C cable that had one end dangling close to the floor and the side brush pulled it lower (see above image). I could hear Yiko complaining and a notification popped up on my phone that the X8 Pro Omni needed help. I disentangled it and it carried on with its work after I used a voice command to “restart cleaning”.

During a full-house clean, I shut a door to one room to see how it would react to its map not quite being accurate and it had no issues. It got close to the door, pivoted a little on an axis to see if it could spot an opening, but carried on doing what it needed to in the rest of the apartment without any complaints.

Base station performance

Whether it’s sucking out all the dirt and debris from the onboard dustbin or cleaning the wet roller, the X8 Pro Omni base station performance is so good that it justifies the high price tag this machine demands.

Only the tiniest amount of dirt remains inside the onboard dustbin after each vacuuming run that you, honestly, never have to worry about. The only time you’ll need to remove the small onboard bin is when the filter needs cleaning or replacing, or if something gets stuck inside that requires manual removal (never once happened during my testing).

The dustbag inside the base station has a 3L capacity, so it will last you a long while, albeit that will depend on how often you clean, how large your home is and whether you have pets.

Image 1 of 2

Using the detergent dispenser is optional, and the 3L dust bag could last a while(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)With use, the inside of the base station can begin to look a little worse for wear, but it doesn’t hamper performace(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Dispensing detergent happened as required, as did filling up the robot’s onboard 110ml clean water compartment. Even pumping out dirty water from the 90ml partition worked well during my testing – you can remove this compartment to clean out the filter inside.

The washing of the roller was impeccable. It looked nearly new after my running it a few times a week for four weeks and the shortest two-hour hot-air drying is more than enough to ensure there’s no trace of dampness that could encourage bacterial or fungal growth. In fact, at the end of my four-week trial period, I found the roller soft to the touch as it was on day one.

The wash tray can also be cleaned out automatically by the machine from time to time, so the only hands-on task you’ll have to do regularly is clean out the dirty water and refill the fresh water. Every couple of months or so, you’ll also need to swap out the dust bag or refill the detergent dispenser if you’ve been using soap for mopping. The ‘health’ of all the accessories and parts is listed in the app, so you’ll know when to do what anyway.

Battery life

Ecovacs says there’s a 6,400mAh battery pack powering the X8 Pro Omni robot, which is rated for up to 228 minutes or a maximum area coverage of 240sqm / 2,580sq ft. In my testing – which admittedly was done in a much smaller space – I found that a number like that is nigh impossible to achieve unless you run the robot at the lowest settings possible, which I doubt anyone will want to do.

In Standard suction and medium waterflow levels during a full 40sqm clean doing a single vacuum-and-mop pass, the X8’s battery dropped to 20%. Bumping it up to Max suction and high waterflow rates, I found the robot needed to go back for a top up at the mains after completing five out of the six rooms in its map – about 78 minutes. Both these tests were conducted at the Deep Clean speed, so more time consuming.

Extrapolating that for Standard or Quiet cleans, you will be able to run the X8 Pro Omni for around 150 minutes, but keep in mind that it boasts dynamic suction as well, so total battery life will depend on how many carpets it encounters or how tough the cleaning job is.

That’s not bad battery life, but it’s not class-leading as models like the Narwal Freo Z10 and Dreame X40 Ultra can outdo the X8. Larger homes will find that a full cleaning task may well require recharging to complete. That said, the X8 is smart enough to learn how much battery it needs to finish a job, so a full-home clean may not necessarily take all day.

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

No matter the cleaning task, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni performs it well (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review: app control

  • Improved Ecovacs Home app
  • More streamlined setup for robot and base station settings
  • Map might need extensive editing, but is easy to do

I’ve previously not been very impressed with the Ecovacs Home app as it wasn’t as streamlined as I would have liked, but that’s changed now – the updated version of the app that I used with the X8 Pro Omni is a significant improvement.

It’s now easier to access the custom cleaning routines – renamed Scenario Cleans from just plain ol’ Scenarios – as they’re listed on the homepage of the device, and each of these are also very easy to customize and set up.

To access more settings options, the Ecovacs Home app has always allowed you to ‘Enter’ a more detailed page with your home’s map laid out, but now the robot and base station advanced settings are right there on that same screen – the robot stuff is right at the bottom while switching tabs gives you the base station setup. This is a much better app experience than I encountered only a few months ago from the time of publication of this review.

Mapping with the Deebot X8 Pro Omni is quick and it’s remarkably easy to edit the final map (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

As I’ve already mentioned, there’s the Yiko voice assistant on board and, in all honesty, I really don’t see the need for verbal communication with the device, but my inner lazy self took a shine to it for a very short time. All routines and settings work so well, that Yiko doesn’t need to be there, but it was nice to see that it can understand commands better than before.

During my testing, it didn’t comprehend its own name (see the screenshot below where it hears its name as “you go”), but that didn’t stop it from performing the task I asked it to do (pause cleaning). I immediately asked it to restart again – no problem whatsoever.

You can give Yiko back-to-back commands and you’ll hear its voice prompts very often, so much so that it can get annoying (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

You’ll also hear a lot of oral prompts every time the robot has to perform a task. This can quickly get very annoying, particularly when the self-empty of the bin takes place because it’s a long, drawn-out message telling you “don’t worry” about the loud noises. There’s sadly no way to turn these off, but you can drop the volume right down to ‘mute’, but this also means you won’t hear when the bot needs help. Thankfully there are app notifications to help with that. The volume is also associated with a ‘ding’ sound the robot makes every time you adjust a setting – these too will be muted if you turn the volume slider right down.

There’s plenty of control via the Ecovacs Home app, which has evolved to become more streamlined than before (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Every setting on the app is well explained and easy to understand in case you want to use it, but I would advise that you take some time to go through all options before you begin using the X8 Pro Omni so that you get the best results possible.

For example, you can set and forget the cleaning sequence for the whole house and, no matter which rooms you choose for whatever custom routine you might have, the X8 Pro Omni will follow that. This can be edited at any time too. As I’ve mentioned before, you can also toggle on carpet-first cleaning in the robot settings, set how you want the auto-empty to take place or how often you want the wet roller washed. You even get control over how long you want the base station to spend drying it with hot air. You’ll also need to toggle on auto detergent use, otherwise the base station won’t use soap even if you’ve filled the dispenser.

There is a lot of control here, although it would be nice to see Ecovacs allow the user to choose how many passes the X8 will do when on an automatic AI-powered cleaning run (it’s always just one in this mode).

• App score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni?

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Attribute

Notes

Score

Value

Compared to other similarly specced models, the X8 Pro Omni is very competitively priced, balancing feature set, power, performance and cost quite well – plus it’s often discounted.

4 / 5

Design

It’s a very low-maintenance design with several parts that can be taken out to wash if necessary. And it exudes class. The lack of a turret means it can even roll under some low-lying furniture.

4.5 / 5

Performance

As long as you avoid using the X8 to clean wet spills, it will handle your regular cleaning with aplomb. It will even maintain itself well without too much intervention from you.

4.5 / 5

App control

The updated Ecovacs Home app is a lot more streamlined now and easier to use.

4 / 5

Don’t buy it if…

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review: Also consider

How I tested the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni

  • Used three to four times a week for four weeks
  • Tried various suction and waterflow levels in a 40sqm test space with mixed flooring
  • Experimented with the Yiko voice assistant and tweaked various advanced settings

It’s very easy to recommend the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni, despite its higher price tag (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

I received my review unit of the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni in the third of week of July 2025 and spent the next four weeks running it on various settings and custom routines mostly three times a week, but it has done more sessions during the last week when I conducted my obstacle course test.

I found that once all the settings were as I’d want them, the X8 Pro Omni just did what it needed to do without any fuss. During that time, I found it didn’t use as much clean water as other robot vacuums (especially compared to the Narwal Freo Z10 I tested prior to it) and, hence, found I didn’t need to keep refilling the clean-water tank as much. Of course, that’s also because the test space is small (just 40sqm/430sqft) and has mixed flooring with carpet in the bedroom and a large rug in the living room.

I set up four different custom routines, or Shortcut Cleans as the app labels them, and tested each one 2-3 times over the course of the four-week testing period. I also ran single-room and zone cleaning sessions to see how the X8 Pro Omni performs in its auto-cleaning mode.

While I began testing the X8 without any detergent for the first week, I added a small quantity to the dispenser on week 2 of testing.

I put it through TechRadar’s usual tests for vacuuming and mopping (using oats and tea from a bag for the former, and a dollop of chutney for the latter). I also conducted our standard obstacle avoidance test, but threw in two types of socks and a tissue box for good measure.

As you’ve probably already read, the X8 Pro Omni passed all its tests with flying colors, with only the one hiccup when it got entangled in a low-hanging cable during a vacuum-only session.

Read more about how we test vacuum cleaners

[First reviewed August 2025]

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni: Price Comparison



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Oh No, There Are Way Too Many Games Launching In October
Game Reviews

Oh No, There Are Way Too Many Games Launching In October

by admin August 21, 2025


There’s a large storm forming on the horizon. This October, around 40 games across all kinds of genres, franchises, and scales are set to launch on every major platform under the sun. There’s no escaping it. There are likely at least two games (or more!) in October that you’ll want to play, including stuff like Battlefield 6 and Moonlighter 2. So batten down the hatches and get ready to ride out the video game super storm that is coming in just a few short months.

Here’s the full list of planned October releases as of August 20:

  • Ghost of Yotei – October 2
  • Gigasword – October 2
  • Neon Inferno – October 2
  • Borderlands 4 on Switch 2 – October 3
  • Digimon Story: Time Stranger – October 3
  • Absolum – October 9
  • Painkiller – October 9
  • Barbie Horse Trails – October 10
  • Battlefield 6 – October 10
  • Little Nightmares 3 – October 10
  • Nascar 25 – October 14
  • Just Dance 2026 – October 14
  • Ball x Pit – October 15
  • Pokemon Legends: Z-A – October 16
  • Keeper – October 17
  • The Elf on the Shelf: Christmas Heroes – October 17
  • Escape Simulator 2 – October 21
  • Bloodlines 2 – Oct 21
  • Jurassic World Evolution 3 – October 21
  • Ninja Gaiden 4 – October 21
  • Double Dragon Revive – October 23
  • Moonlighter 2 – Oct 23
  • Plants Vs. Zombies: Replanted – October 23
  • The Crazy Hyper-Dungeon Chronicles – October 23
  • Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition – October 24
  • Once Upon a Katamari – October 24
  • Ire: A Prologue – October 28
  • The Outer Worlds 2 – October 29
  • Arc Raiders – October 30
  • Terminator 2D: No Fate – October 31
  • Mina the Hollower – October 31

On Tuesday, during Gamescom Opening Night Live, I noticed a few games received October launch dates. I wondered to myself how many other games were arriving in that same month. Checking online, I discovered a giant list of October releases. This is one of the most jam-packed months I’ve seen in some time. It’s not just that a lot of games are arriving in a short window, but how varied the list is. We have big open-world AAA games, like Ghost of Yotei and, on Switch 2, Borderlands 4. But we also have smaller games like Ball X Pit and Moonlighter 2. There’s a park builder courtesy of Jurassic World Evolution 3 and a massive online shooter in the form of Battlefield 6. New Pokémon and Digimon games, a fresh Ninja Gaiden, a big Obsidian RPG, a creepy horror game, vampires, and even a fucking Christmas game. Heck, the new Double Fine game, Keeper, is out in October, and I’ve been waiting years for that studio’s next project. Now it’s coming, but sandwiched between, like, six other games I want to play.

What’s going on here? Well, some of this is just normal video game industry stuff. Studios want to get their games out before the holiday shopping season. But I bet some of these games were holding off until they knew what Rockstar was planning with Grand Theft Auto 6. And once it became clear October and November wouldn’t be dominated by GTA 6, as Rockstar delayed the open-world game to May 2026, some publishers and devs likely committed to launching in the spookiest month of the year.

Sure, maybe a few of these get delayed, but I’m not holding my breath. October isn’t that far away, so I’d expect most of these games to be locked in and not budge to November or later. That’s a scary thought as someone who works at a video game website. While I’m excited to have new stuff to play and write about, I wish it were a bit more spread out. Such is life. Good luck out there, folks, and remember: You can’t play it all, so play what you can and enjoy the ride.



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