Kalakshar US

Samsung is making a bigger push into healthcare. It is buying Xealth, a platform focused on digital health tools and care programs. Terms of the deal, such as the purchase price, haven’t been disclosed. Samsung expects the acquisition to be wrapped up by the end of the calendar year, pending closing conditions (such as any necessary regulatory approvals).

Samsung says the deal will help to advance its “transformation into a connected care platform that bridges wellness and medical care bringing a seamless and holistic approach to preventative care to as many people as possible.” That involves creating “synergy” between its wearable tech and Xealth’s platform by bringing together health data measured on its devices and clinical records at hospitals. Samsung says the integration can “create a link between home health monitoring and clinical decision-making through enhancements to Xealth’s platform, with the provider-patient relationship at the center of that effort.”

Xealth enables doctors to monitor and schedule care for patients at scale. More than 500 hospitals in the US and 70-plus “digital health solution partners” use Xealth, which spun out of the Providence health system. All of those will be able to access Samsung’s platform.

News of the Xealth acquisition comes just a couple of weeks after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr spoke of his desire to have every American sporting a wearable within the next four years, a vision that led to raised eyebrows from critics. While Samsung may be sniffing an opportunity there, its acquisition of Xealth may have been in the works for some time. In any case, it’s clear that Samsung is looking to diversify beyond its core businesses.

What’s more, Samsung announced the Xealth deal on the same day it projected a 56 percent drop in operating profit for the second quarter (compared with the same April-June period in 2024). This is, in large part, because of poor sales of its AI chips.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/samsung-buys-xealth-to-integrate-its-wearables-into-the-healthcare-system-120502530.html?src=rss 

Now that the world is saturated with big screens, phone makers are turning again to thinness to stand out from the pack. Samsung introduced its take on an ultra-thin phone, the Galaxy S25 Edge, in May and for Prime Day, you can get it for $800, $300 off its usual $1,100 starting price.

The Galaxy S25 Edge includes the best of Samsung’s Galaxy S25+ in a thinner and sturdier package. The S25 Edge is just 0.23 inches (5..8mm) thick, with a titanium frame, IP68 water and dust resistance and a Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 panel covering its OLED screen. The phone is also fast and performant, with a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. Really, the main ways the S25 Edge is a compromise are in the omissions Samsung made to keep it slim and light.

For example, the S25 Edge doesn’t have a telephoto lens, so zoomed in photographs have to happen entirely digitally. The phone also has a noticeably smaller battery at 3,900 mAh, which in our tests meant the phone lasted for a little over 25 hours on a single charge, shorter than both the base S25 and the S25 Ultra. Samsung also cut corners with wireless charging. The S25 Edge is “Qi2 ready” but doesn’t actually include the magnetic coils necessary to take advantage of the charging standard’s main features. Instead, if you want to wirelessly charge the S25 Edge at Qi2 speeds, you need to put it in a case, taking away some of its thinness in the process.

For $300 off, those compromises could be very easy to set aside, though. In Engadget’s review of the Galaxy S25 Edge, the phone made the most sense as a way to make Samsung’s mid-tier phones interesting. It costs the same $1,100 as the Samsung Galaxy S25+ and features many of the same components, but looks and feels different to use. At $800, the Galaxy S25 Edge is now the same price as the base S25 was at launch, and an even more compelling purchase.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/you-can-get-300-off-the-samsung-galaxy-s25-edge-for-prime-day-104557419.html?src=rss 

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is on sale for just $160 as part of the Amazon Prime Day celebration. This is a discount of 46 percent and represents a record-low price for the smartwatch.

This is the company’s latest watch and was released back in February, so it’s nice to see a massive discount this early in the release cycle. We appreciated the Galaxy Watch 7 in our official review, calling it a “capable companion for Samsung phones.” It features an old-school design that recalls classic timepieces and not modern smart devices.

The performance is zippy, thanks to an upgraded processor, and the storage has doubled when compared to its predecessor. There are also many more sensors when measured against the Galaxy Watch 6. For instance, there are now 13 heart rate sensor LEDs. This leads to the ability to assess more complex health metrics, like sleep apnea detection. All of this is data viewable via the fun and intuitive Samsung Health app.

We also appreciated that this watch will automatically track workouts when you start, without asking if you’re exercising like with the Apple Watch. There are even some AI-assisted tools here that offer light coaching as you workout or engage in physical activities.

There are a couple of little quirks here. First of all, this watch is primarily for those already tied into Samsung’s ecosystem. If you use an iPhone, this might not be the best match. Also, the always-on display is a notorious battery hog. Still, this is a lot of smartwatch for the money.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-samsung-galaxy-watch-7-drops-to-a-record-low-price-for-prime-day-110001063.html?src=rss 

The latest Amazon Kindle is on sale for $85 as part of a Prime Day promotion. This is a discount of $25 and represents a record-low price for the ereader. This is the model that was released in 2024 and the sale includes both colorways.

The iconic Kindle easily found a spot on our list of the best ereaders. The entry-level device is not filled with modern bells and whistles, but it gets the job done. It’s light and compact, which makes it easy to pack or stow away in a bag, and the battery lasts around six full weeks before requiring a recharge. The 16GB capacity is enough for thousands of books.

It also allows access to Kindle Unlimited, which is sort of like Netflix for books. This platform offers the widest selection of any subscription-based reading service, though results will vary depending on the genre.

The Kindle is also a good choice for people who like to switch between ebooks and audiobooks. The Whispersync feature keeps everything lined up, so readers can hop back and forth at will. This does require the purchase of both formats, but there’s typically a discount.

This model does include a backlight, but we found the light to be on the harsher side when compared to some rival ereaders. It’s still easier on the eyes than a phone or tablet screen. Like many entry-level Amazon devices, this Kindle shows ads on the lockscreen. However, these are fairly innocuous and mostly promote books.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-latest-amazon-kindle-drops-to-a-record-low-price-for-prime-day-111558197.html?src=rss 

Prime Day is basically Black Friday for Amazon’s own devices. For almost as long as the shopping event has taken place (it started in July 2015, if you forgot), it’s been one of the most reliable days of the year to snag Amazon gadgets like Kindles Echo speakers and Fire tablets at dirt-cheap prices. Amazon has regular sales all the time, but if you still shell out $139 annually for Prime, it’s in your best interest to wait until mid-July to grab gear that Amazon makes itself. That’s still accurate this year, too — for the most part.

But not for the Echo Dot. Yes, it’s on sale this year for $32. But that discounted price offends me personally — and it should offend you, too. The humble little orb of a smart speaker got the short end of the stick for Prime Day 2025. For reference, the latest edition of the Echo Dot was $23 last July Prime Day, and $23 again during the Black Friday period in 2024.

While a $9 difference may not seem like much, it’s a slap in the face for Prime subscribers who have come to expect the exclusive deals available to them during this arbitrary shopping event to be just as much of a perk of their membership as access to Prime Video, free two-day delivery and the like. It’s worse that Amazon devices are the usual suspects when it comes to Hella Good Deals on Prime Day. If the Prime Day deal on the Echo Dot sucks, that means we can’t reliably expect any of Amazon’s devices to be down to record-low prices during this event.

This, of course, matters not one bit to Amazon. Why the company decided to punish would-be Echo Dot purchasers this time around and not Kindle or Fire TV buyers will likely remain a mystery to us. But considering the uncertainty surrounding tariffs in the US and the steady flow of rising prices on tech as a direct result of that, one theory I have is that Amazon is testing its customers.

If Engadget’s historical Prime Day data is anything to go on, the Echo Dot is an extremely popular purchase — and Amazon likely knows that. If enough customers OK this objectively bad deal by purchasing the Echo Dot at $32 a pop, that signals to Amazon that it can continue to offer bad discounts on its devices without repercussions. I hesitate to say the days of a $23 Echo Dot are totally behind us, but they could be depending on how things go this summer.

That said, the best alternative to the Echo Dot this Prime Day is the Echo Spot for $45. Amazon revived that smart alarm clock last year and, while I don’t think it will boot the Echo Dot out of the speaker lineup any time soon, there’s an argument for such a replacement considering Amazon now also has the ultra-cheap Echo Pop. Regardless, if you were hoping to buy an Echo Dot on discount during Prime Day, I recommend skipping it and opting for the Spot or the Pop instead.

In addition, here are some Prime Day deals that are actually worth your time and money that all come in at $32 or less:

This $23 handheld fan that has already saved me from melting this year in the New York City summer heat.

The $18 Amazon Fire TV Stick HD that we recently named our favorite budget streaming device.

A $16 Samsung Galaxy SmartTag 2, a favorite Bluetooth tracker of ours if you’re a Samsung fan but also have a habit of losing things like your wallet or keys.

A $20 AirTag, if you’re also prone to losing things but identify as an iOS stan.

This $14 Anker wireless charging stand that’s super basic, gets the job done and lets you power up your phone in either portrait or landscape mode.

This $19 Soundcore speaker that’s a little larger than palm-sized and sounds pretty decent for its size.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/you-absolutely-should-not-buy-an-echo-dot-on-prime-day-113023843.html?src=rss 

Prime Day is upon us, and right now you can pick up both the Google Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro for a sizable discount in Amazon’s annual summer sale. The Pixel 10 might be just around the corner, but $250 off two of the very best Android phones you can buy right now is well worth considering.

The Pixel 9 is down to $549 while Prime Day deals are live, and you can grab the Pixel 9 Pro for $749. Again, that’s a whopping $250 saving on either device. We’ve never seen the Pixel 9 cheaper than it right now when purchased from Amazon.

When Engadget’s Sam Rutherford reviewed Google’s non-Pro flagship last year, he called it the go-to Android phone, praising its slick redesign, excellent 6.3-inch OLED display, and solid performance from Google’s Tensor G4 chip. As tends to be the case with Pixel phones, the cameras got a big upgrade, too, with the new 50MP main sensor consistently outperforming the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in situations where plenty of light was available. There isn’t a lot to dislike about this phone, barring the omnipresence of AI bloat in Google phones.

The Pixel 9 Pro is rated as the best overall Android phone available right now in our guide; its a Pro-grade Pixel that can be wielded by those with smaller hands thanks to its 6.3-inch display (those who want the biggest possible pocketable canvas will need to stump up for the 6.8-inch Pixel 9 Pro XL). An upgraded 48MP telephoto sensor improves what is already an excellent array of cameras, while the 5,060mAh battery is pretty superb, running for nearly 25 hours in our looped video rundown test.

This year’s Prime Day sale is Amazon’s longest one yet, running from July 8 (today) through July 11.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/prime-day-deals-include-up-to-250-off-google-pixel-phones-113049357.html?src=rss 

One of the simplest and most pleasurable gadgets you can purchase is a digital photo frame, and luckily, Engadget’s favorite option is on sale for Prime Day. You can purchase the Aura Carver Mat for 20 percent off, bringing the normally $179 frame down to $141.

While many digital photo frames are a mixed bag at best, the Aura Carver Mat topped Engadget’s best digital frames list because it’s simple to set up and looks great. The 10.1-inch frame is made of plastic and designed to be used in landscape, and it makes for a convincing copy of traditional mat photo frames. Aura’s designed the Carver to rotate through the photos you upload on its own, but there’s also a built-in touch bar that can be used to swipe forwards and backwards through your collection, if you want.

Buying into Aura’s system means committing to a device that has to be connected to the internet to work, but Aura’s app for adding photos is easy-enough to use that it should more than make up for it. You can even set the app to automatically upload new photos from a specific album if you want. That feature, along with the ability for multiple accounts to add photos to a single frame, makes the Aura Carver Mat perfect for families who might not all live in the same place. Speaking from experience, grandparents love being able to receive fresh photos of their grandkids without having to lift a finger.

A $150 Amazon Echo Show 8 could make for a formidable alternative to the Aura Carver Mat, especially if you’re interested in having a voice assistant on-call to control your smart home. The single-minded focus of Aura’s device — especially at $141, within spitting distance of last year’s $139 low — is its real charm, though, something you just won’t get from an Echo Show.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/our-favorite-digital-photo-frame-is-20-percent-off-for-prime-day-101539661.html?src=rss