Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Control the Sense with Voice sleep device with, what else, your voice

Meet Sense with Voice
Getting a better night’s sleep now starts and ends with your voice. The newest product to emerge from consumer electronics company Hello is the Sense with Voice, a new iteration of the company’s previous sleep device that we first
Recommended Videos
reviewed back in July. But now, Sense is back and promises to be better than ever as the “first voice controlled sleep and health system on the market.”

Heralded as “the natural evolution of sleep-improving technology,” this distinctive orb-like device promises to help users better understand their sleep patterns and remove distractions that may hinder getting the rest they need. “We created Sense with Voice to help you better understand and improve your sleep in the most effortless way,” said James Proud, CEO of Hello. “All you need to say is “Okay Sense” and you can control, maintain, and understand your entire sleeping environment, all without touching your phone.”

That means no more getting up when you’re already half asleep to fiddle with electronics, or having to look at a bright blue screen when you’re trying to get some shuteye. Moreover, the new Sense works with a number of smart home products, beginning with Nest and Phillips Hue, so you can “set your ideal room temperature for when you awake and be gently awoken by your lighting, letting you wake up to your perfect morning every time.”

And finally, Sense has upgraded all its sensors, so you can not only monitor factors like light, humidity, temperature, air quality, and noise, but also UV light, carbon dioxide (CO2), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), light temperature, and barometric pressure, which can provide further insights into how your room affects your quality of sleep. And of course, the Sleep Pill itself has undergone a redesign, and promises to be “completely indestructible” with a battery life of over two years.

So if you’ve been looking for a better way to get some rest, the new Sense may just be the device for you.

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
WhatsApp now lets you make voice and video calls from your computer
WhatsApp messaging app

WhatsApp is now rolling out voice and video calling to desktop users, the company announced today. The messaging service, used by over a billion people worldwide, is improving the feature set of its desktop apps to match both its Facebook Messenger counterpart, as well as rivals from Apple's FaceTime and Microsoft's Skype.

WhatsApp says it is making this change due to a growth in voice and video calling that has happened over the past year. Due to the ongoing pandemic, a mix of social isolation, and lockdowns, more and more people have used the app to stay in touch in place of face-to-face communication. WhatsApp says this has reflected in "significant" growth, citing 1.4 billion voice and video calls made on New Year's Eve alone.

Read more
Dolby Voice is here to make your conference calls suck less
Dolby Voice

Dolby, the audio giant known for making your viewing experiences look and sound cinematic, has now set its sights on something that people spend an increasingly large amount of time on: Conference calls. The company's new tech for laptops, called Dolby Voice, will boost your microphone and speaker performance to help you sound and hear other voices better on calls.

Dolby Voice takes advantage of several of the company’s existing enterprise products to bring them to the wider consumer market. Most importantly, this new tech can automatically cut down on any background noise or echo that may be hampering your voice quality -- irrespective of the audio hardware you’re on.

Read more
What the lights on your Amazon Echo device mean
best cyber monday echo deals get a dot for just 22 and show 5 50 1

Have you ever walked into your room to find your Amazon Echo device flashing yellow? What about during a big thunderstorm, when your whole house loses power -- when the electricity restores, a blue light starts pulsing on your Echo. One thing we love about Amazon Echo gear is that, in addition to Alexa, your smart speaker employs a coded language of pulsing and solid colors to communicate device status and other pertinent notifications. What those colors and lights mean, though, isn't obvious at first.

We've put together a helpful guide to help you understand what each of the colored lights means. If you ever forget what a certain color represents and your device is lit up, you can say, "Alexa, what does your light mean," and she will explain what her current status light represents.
Blue
Powering up and command responses

Read more