These Were August’s Coolest and Weirdest Gadgets

August brought with it … not a lot of funky and/or cool gadgets, but there were a few that caught our attention. We reviewed a bunch of things we , so let’s get stuck into the 33 gadgets (and things) that caught our attention last month. August included a heap of news and reveals for handheld gaming devices.

This was , a $US200 (Australian price pending) companion device for the PS5 that allows users to play games from anywhere within the house, streamed from the PS5 – however, it doesn’t come with Bluetooth, and you’ll need to use Sony’s if you don’t want to use the internal speakers. Additionally, AYN revealed its newest Android-powered gaming handheld, , 8BitDo that weighs less than an AA battery, we started seeing leaked images of Lenovo’s upcoming , and Gulikit showed off a . Samsung at its in July.

There were two models – the Watch 6 and the Watch 6 Classic – but I , given the size of my wrist. The focus for Samsung with the Watch 6 is its health abilities: There are upgrades to heart tracking, including a new irregular heart rhythm notification and a personalised heart rate zone, and new sleep features, including sleep score factor, sleep analysis, and sleep coaching. I spent a little over a week with it and it was .

Speaking of Samsung phones… We included both the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 in last month’s round up, but this time we’ve gone hands on with both. The Fold 5 is a and will charge you a cool $3,000 for the pleasure. The Flip, meanwhile, .

We . Options for foldable phones are expanding, but this type of phone has been available overseas for several years now. Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone brand, has been carrying the torch for some time.

The Android phone maker revealed the last month, and it’s got a leg up on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 as far as build and camera capabilities. You can’t buy it, though. With Samsung pouring its marketing money into those latest foldable phones, the company is trying to by showing them all the fun and weirdness of using two screens, so long as they have an additional iPhone on hand and they’re easily distracted by playing a dull game of air hockey.

Ahead of its Australian launch, we got to take the MG4 for a spin from Sydney down to the Southern Highlands. is set to be Australia’s second-cheapest car at $38,990. It drove soundly, and it’s not a particularly huge EV (which is notable, considering most EVs are SUVs), but drivers may not like the infotainment system and the lack of space.

Hasbro of the new generation of , toys, with a very clear target of millennials who want to relive their childhood (and who now have adult money and/or kids they want to share the of owning a Furby with). They’re on sale now, for $99. 99.

The Elon regime put a couple of last month. This was our favourite. Google researchers may have finally for the laborious task of training stubborn dogs to listen to commands.

That is, of course, if you’re willing to opt for a robot dog. Samsung’s new gaming monitor, , is a 57-inch QLED monster. It’s for the type of gamer that wants the most extra tech possible, including an 8K resolution and a 240hz refresh rate with a 1ms response rate.

It’s yet to go on sale yet, but you can expect to spend – in the U. S. , it’s priced at $US2500, so expect to spend around $4,000 when it comes down under.

I guarantee that you haven’t seen pet tech quite like this. with her sweet friend Pearl (the cat), and found it to be quite a worthwhile device if scooping out kitty litter is not something you particularly enjoy or like the smell of. The integrated app is easy to use, and the self-emptying process works soundly, though it does remove quite a lot of litter.

If you’re after a litterbox that looks like a sci-fi prop, and you reckon you can convince your furry friend to use it, then the Litter Robot 4 is worth considering. On TikTok, between the “get ready with me” videos, life hacks, and memes, a few robots are working on a challenge that many of us have faced at some point in our lives: beating . Last month, users were live streaming an AI’s attempts to learn to play Mario, and for , it went great.

. Rupert, although not a gadget, gets some spotlight in this month’s wrap up. Here’s a .

Wiglett is one of the new Pokemon that was recently introduced in Pokemon: Scarlet and Violet, a cousin to Diglett, and oddly Phallic-shaped in plushy form. At 10-inches long, this girthy bastard haunts my dreams. Another one of the Samsung gadgets we reviewed in August, the is an expensive way to have your home feeling less stuffy.

It’s good, great, actually, but it’s $699 and we’re not sure we can sit here and say it’s not worth sussing out cheaper brands. The saga of Cardi B’s microphone retaliation in Las Vegas came to an end last month. An audio technician sold the mic the rapper threw at a fan , with the proceeds being split between two charities.

Razer has done an impressive job with its mechanical gaming keyboards, is no exception. Nokia’s latest phones have this great new trick. .

It doesn’t matter how old you get. Planting your butt into a faux NASA cockpit is bound to excite the senses and imagination of any who once put a checkmark next to “astronaut” when asked what they want to be when they grow up. Now, Xbox and Tempur have their own fake cockpit setup that’s giving select players the opportunity to move around space with twin joystick controls.

However, you’ll have to travel all the way to Germany (and eventually the U. K. ) to .

is absolutely gorgeous. But it’s made me realise bigger isn’t always better. Instead of fully immersing myself in the tablet, I constantly considered if it would just lay unusable to anyone who doesn’t use tablets like they would a laptop or second screen.

Cherry, a leading company behind mechanical keyboard tactility (you might be familiar with the term ‘Cherry’ switches when buying a keyboard), announced with an eye on the competition. As mechanical keyboards grow in popularity, and in the years since its original patents expired, Cherry is looking to find the edge to maintain the relevance it once did in the niche gaming communities. It’s expected that these updated designs will cost about 10 per cent more than the current range.

A recurring friend on this list is the thing. But now, the Dyson Zone can be yours, with the for sale from Dyson for $999/$1,099 depending on your choice of colour. The funny thing about this is now Dyson is going hard with the message it’s about noise-cancellation, not air purification.

. The Australian Capital Territory unveiled its first , with it set to join the fleet in 2024. It’s unlike any emergency vehicle I’ve ever seen, and not because it’s electric, but because it’s .

Which is great – it’ll be easier to spot in an emergency situation. It’s also not going to fill the standard fire truck role – instead, its primary purpose is to supply oxygen to people when the air is thin. Modern smartphones have become incredibly water resistant, so much so that even foldables are boasting they can survive a 30-minute bath without crapping out.

The one issue is that wet touchscreens are still a pain to control, and holding a phone out in the rain guarantees you’re not scrolling until you dry it off. Phone brand OnePlus now with a phone that responds just as well in a storm as under a dry, summer sun. Alienware, the Dell gaming subsidiary famous for its otherworldly aesthetic and high-performance computers, has announced a new PC with a chassis that… , to be honest.

That’s a compliment, as Alienware’s previous computers were quite heavily focused on their strong aesthetics, often . It’s set to ship with RTX 40 series GPUs and run 20 per cent quieter than previous models, so you’d hope that the build quality is as good as possible. While less tech and more fashion, Google sent us its in August – a $300 titanium link strap.

It definitely looks and feels more premium than the rest of Google’s straps, especially the rubber strap that the Pixel Watch comes with, however, it’s difficult to see the value in a band that’s about five times the cost of the cheapest option. If you want to make your Pixel Watch more of a status symbol, though, this is certainly one way to do it, as it effectively makes the price of the Watch between $850 and $950 all-up. Mini to convert a 1995 Mini Rover to electric, with the end-product producing go-kart-like handling, 175km top speed, and the classic Mini aesthetic everyone loves.

It’s a pretty thing, with a performance bump from the conversion process (a 72kW electric motor was crammed into it), and it can be charged at any Type 2 charger. Fellten specialises with EV conversions, so to see the company officially team up with Mini Australia was very cool. We originally wrote about the Dyson v15s Detect Submarine back in July’s gadget round-up, but this time around, Alice has .

It’s a very good vacuum cleaner and mop, one that’s easy to use and not a particularly unattractive device to have in a home, however, the trigger, the older tech inside it, and the difficulty in cleaning the mop roller definitely take away from it. It’s priced at $1,549 ($1,649 for the ‘complete’ version), and although it’s not perfect, it does what it says it will powerfully and efficiently. Less gadget and more AI – Spotify’s latest push makes a .

The kids don’t seem to love it, but for those of us who grew up only having radio, this thing rocks. testing how many times users are willing to pay for that nostalgic, faux woodgrain-panelled game console, this time coming out with what seems like the most detailed recreation of its original Atari 2600 console since it first debuted close to 46 years ago. The last entry from Samsung in this uber Samsung-heavy month is the , which allows you to lay on your back and indulge in your favourite cozy game projected on the ceiling above.

The walks a fine line under premium laptop prices, but its value is definitely well-gauged. Aimed towards students and designed for lighter workloads, with a touch screen and a fairly standard CPU, Dell’s new $1,090 device is quite feature-packed. You can definitely pick up a slimmer or even nicer-looking device, but Dell’s 2-in-1 covers a lot of ground for a very reasonable price.

We got to give , and although it wasn’t an electric-only EV, which is what we typically review, it was certainly an eye-opener in terms of figuring out what a sandstone carmaker like Audi offers. Audi’s AWD feeling is unmatched, with a road presence on tight roads that’s just incredible. With 2033 marked as the year Audi wants to go all-electric in most markets, this is also likely to be one of the last PHEVs the company produces.

Meta, the benevolent maker of Facebook, is solving the most important problem in the tech industry, one that every person on the internet definitely knows and cares about. , the characters in Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse are getting legs. (Sort of).

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