Sendy Audio isn’t trying to be subtle about where it sits in the Sivga family tree. Based in Dongguan, China, Sendy operates as the more upmarket sibling to Sivga, leaning harder into premium materials, higher prices, and a design language that clearly aims above the mainstream. Even its most affordable current over-ear model, the Aiva 2, lands at $599—hardly entry level by any definition.
We reviewed the Aiva 2 last year and came away impressed by both its sound quality and the level of fit and finish, which already hinted at where Sendy wanted to go next. That next step is the Sendy Audio Egret, priced at $799 USD before tax and currently available exclusively via AliExpress, where the platform applies a mandatory 20 percent tax at checkout, pushing the displayed total higher, though store and platform discounts can reduce the final price.
Sendy has positioned the Egret as a more refined, more ambitious planar magnetic headphone for the international market. I first heard the Egret briefly at CanJam London, in conditions that are about as far from ideal as it gets for evaluating open-back headphones, but the initial impression was strong enough to warrant a proper review.
Now that the Egret is in the office—thanks to Lily at Sivga—it’s time to find out whether that early promise holds up in a quieter room, with familiar gear, and without the trade-show noise floor getting in the way.
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The Sendy Egret lands squarely in the middle of the planar magnetic pool which is definitely getting quite crowded. It’s not swinging at flagship pricing, but it’s also nowhere near entry-level, which is exactly where things get uncomfortable for established brands. Sendy doesn’t have the name recognition in North America or the EU that HiFiMAN, Audeze, Dan Clark Audio, or Meze Audio enjoy, but that lack of visibility shouldn’t be confused with a lack of capability.
Writing the Egret off because it doesn’t come from one of the usual heavy hitters would be a mistake. It’s also walking into a more crowded field than even a year ago, with fresh competition from products like FiiO’s FT-7, which I’ve just finished reviewing, and which targets the same buyer who wants serious planar performance without crossing into four-figure territory.
Technology & Specifications
Sendy Audio have clearly invested serious time and resources into developing new driver technology for the Egret. The planar magnetic diaphragm measures 98x84mm, but the more notable detail is its thickness: just 800nm. That places it among the thinnest diaphragms currently used in consumer headphones, at least on paper.
The diaphragm is coated using electron beam evaporation, a process Sendy says allows for extremely precise aluminium circuit patterning. In theory, this level of control should improve layering and allow for more deliberate tuning across the frequency range, though any real-world benefit will be addressed in the listening section rather than taken at face value.
Beyond the driver itself, Sendy is relatively restrained with published specifications. The Egret is rated for a frequency response of 20Hz to 40kHz, with a nominal impedance of 24 ohms and a sensitivity of approximately 95 dB/mW. On paper, that suggests a headphone that may benefit from a capable amplifier rather than casual portable use, something I’ll address in more detail when discussing drivability and system matching later in the review.
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Design & Comfort
Included with the Egret is Sendy’s now-familiar hard leather carry case, often described as the “baby butt” case. The shape may invite a raised eyebrow, but there’s no arguing with the execution—it’s well made, rigid, and genuinely luxurious, not the sort of afterthought case that usually gets tossed into a closet.
Inside, you’ll find a hemp storage bag containing two adapters: 4.4mm to 3.5mm and 3.5mm to quarter-inch. You’ll also find what is, without exaggeration, one of the highest-quality stock cables I’ve seen included with a headphone at this price. The cable construction is unusually elaborate, using 30 strands of Furukawa OFC, 10 strands of silver-plated OFC, and 10 strands of gold-enamelled OFC, each measuring 0.05mm in thickness. These are wrapped in copper and silver-plated mesh, finished with a PVC outer jacket, and hand-braided in a way that looks deliberate rather than decorative.
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In practical terms, the cable behaves as well as it looks. Microphonics are essentially nonexistent, it drapes naturally, and it stubbornly refuses to tangle no matter how much you try to mistreat it. The connectors are machined from solid aluminium, while the splitters are made from real wood—because of course they are. I don’t subscribe to the idea that cables meaningfully alter sound, but craftsmanship still counts, and the cable included with the Egret feels like a deliberate statement rather than an obligatory accessory.
That level of attention to detail carries over to the headphones themselves, which both look and feel properly premium. The ear cups are crafted from black walnut sourced from North American forests, and the aluminium hardware—finished in anodised gunmetal—moves smoothly and silently. Hinges and pivots operate with the kind of resistance you want, not the kind that reminds you where corners were cut.
At a glance, some may argue that the Egret doesn’t look radically different from the less expensive Aiva 2. The overall silhouette is similar, but the execution is not. The Egret is physically larger, and the grille design on the outer cups is considerably more intricate. Sendy says the pattern is inspired by an egret in flight, and while I’ll leave the poetry to the marketing department, the result is undeniably more refined and upscale than what you get on the cheaper model.
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All contact points are treated with equal care. Lambskin is used for the headband and the outer sections of the earpads, while the ear-facing surfaces employ a softer, more breathable fabric. The result is a headphone that remains comfortable over long listening sessions, with no noticeable pressure points or heat buildup. The pads are subtly angled to follow the natural contours of the head and neck, helping maintain a consistent seal around the ears without clamping force becoming an issue.
Despite a listed weight of 443 grams, the Egret never felt burdensome during extended use. There was no sense of neck fatigue, no constant urge to take them off after an hour. At this price point, it’s genuinely difficult to think of another headphone that feels as well built and as carefully finished as the Egret below $1,000.
My only minor complaint concerns the headband adjustment mechanism. It’s solid and confidence-inspiring, but also a bit too stiff to adjust while wearing the headphones. Any size changes were best handled before putting them on, which isn’t a deal-breaker, but it’s worth noting.
Listening
Before getting into the listening impressions, there is one issue that needs to be addressed: pronounced driver crinkling on my review unit. It’s not something you can ignore once you notice it, and pretending it didn’t happen wouldn’t be useful to anyone considering a purchase.
For those unfamiliar, some planar magnetic headphones can be sensitive to rapid changes in air pressure. With the Egret’s extremely thin diaphragms, I experienced audible driver movement whenever I adjusted the headphones on my head or pressed the cups more firmly against my ears. The sound is hard to miss and best described as similar to crushing a plastic bottle underfoot—brief, but unmistakable.
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After raising the issue with Lily and Sendy’s R&D team, I was told this was isolated to my specific unit and, importantly, the first reported case of driver crinkling they had encountered with the Egret. Assuming that’s accurate, it’s unlikely to be a widespread issue, but it’s still worth documenting. In any case, driver crinkling is generally a nuisance rather than a failure point and does not cause long-term damage to the drivers themselves.
With that out of the way, I was able to continue the review without further issue. And once the music starts, the Egret quickly reminds you why it exists. To my ears, the sound is simply magnificent. The overall tuning and technical presentation align very closely with my personal preferences. That doesn’t mean it will be perfect for everyone—no headphone is—but you’d need a fairly unusual set of sonic priorities to find the Egret’s presentation genuinely objectionable.
Bass
What stood out immediately with the Egret, especially coming from long-term use of HiFiMAN’s over-ear lineup—was the presence of a subtle but clearly intentional midbass lift. It’s not heavy-handed, but it’s there, and it gives vocals along with instruments like drums and bass guitar a welcome sense of body and punch without sacrificing speed or control.
Just as importantly, that added weight doesn’t come at the expense of texture or transient performance. Bass notes remain well defined, with clean leading edges and convincing decay, avoiding the soft or pillowy presentation that can creep in when midbass is overcooked. The Egret keeps things lively and grounded without blurring the lines.
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Subbass extension is also impressive. The Egret digs deep, delivering an audible and physical 20Hz rumble on tracks like “Why So Serious?” by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard—more convincingly so than the similarly priced and recently reviewed FiiO FT7. That low-end presence adds drama where it’s called for, without turning the presentation into a blunt instrument.
That said, the Egret is not a basshead’s headphone. The low-frequency emphasis is restrained and deliberate rather than indulgent. Even Sendy’s own Aiva 2 offers more outright bass quantity, and listeners chasing maximum low-end impact may find more satisfaction elsewhere. Still, compared to competitors like the HiFiMAN Arya Unveiled, the Egret delivers noticeably more slam and weight, striking a balance that feels purposeful rather than polite.
Midrange
With neither the lowest lows nor the highest highs being overly emphasised, it’s no surprise that the Egret’s midrange ends up being the star of the show. The tuning leaves plenty of room for the mids to breathe, and the result is a presentation that feels lively, expressive, and consistently engaging.
Both male and female vocals carry real weight and tonal richness without losing clarity. There’s a natural density to voices that avoids sounding thick or veiled, and placement is noticeably more intimate than on more overtly V-shaped competitors like the FiiO FT7. The Egret brings performers a step closer, which works particularly well for vocal-centric recordings.
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A standout example was “Diamonds” by Sam Smith. Smith’s voice had a convincing sense of body and presence, carrying appreciable heft despite the naturally higher register. It’s the kind of midrange performance that draws attention to phrasing and emotion rather than just detail, and it plays directly to the Egret’s strengths.
Treble
Moving into the treble, the Egret doesn’t try to grab your attention with exaggerated sparkle or showy brilliance. Its upper-frequency tuning is restrained and measured, very much in keeping with the overall balance of the headphone. In that sense, it’s reminiscent of familiar reference points like the Sennheiser HD600 or the Audio-Technica ATH-R70x; headphones that prioritise tonal balance over treble theatrics.
That approach won’t thrill listeners who equate excitement with brightness, but it will appeal to those who value long-term listenability and even-handed tuning. The treble is smooth and controlled, never straying into harshness or fatigue, and it integrates naturally with the midrange rather than sitting on top of it.
Crucially, that smoothness doesn’t come at the cost of resolution. Fine details are still present and easy to follow, which speaks to the technical competence of the Egret’s ultra-thin planar drivers. You’re not dazzled by treble emphasis, but you’re also never left feeling that information is being withheld.
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Technicalities & Soundstage
This is where the Egret really separates itself. Given its upper mid-fi pricing and the obvious emphasis on materials and build, I didn’t expect its technical performance to be genuinely competitive with far more expensive planars—but it was. And not by a small margin.
I directly compared the Egret’s detail retrieval, imaging, and layering to the significantly more expensive HiFiMAN HE1000 Unveiled, fully expecting the gap to be obvious. Instead, what stood out was just how close the Egret managed to get in all three areas. Low-level detail was easy to follow, spatial cues were clearly defined, and complex passages remained well organized rather than collapsing into a blur.
Imaging was pinpoint accurate, and the sense of spatial holography is among the best I’ve heard under $1,000. The one clear area where the Egret concedes ground to the HE1000 Unveiled is soundstage scale. The Egret doesn’t sound closed-in, but it also doesn’t deliver the same expansive, open presentation. Some degree of damping behind the drivers likely plays a role here, trading outright size for control.
Both microdynamics and macrodynamics were excellent. Subtle shifts in intensity were rendered convincingly, while larger dynamic swings carried real physical impact. Importantly, this sense of drive and weight never tipped into fatigue, thanks to the Egret’s smoother treble balance and overall tonal richness. It’s an impressive combination of technical performance and long-term listenability and not something you expect to find this easily below a kilobuck.
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Drivability
I made a point of testing the Egret with a wide range of amplifiers and source gear, from full-size desktop stacks down to compact dongle DACs, to get a clear sense of how demanding it really is in day-to-day use.
On paper, the numbers already tell most of the story. With a rated impedance of 24 ohms and a sensitivity of 95 dB/mW, the Egret doesn’t present a difficult load. In practice, that translated exactly as expected. Using the FiiO JM21, which delivers 700 mW into 32 ohms, I reached a comfortable listening level of roughly 65–70 dB at around 40 percent volume on high gain. That left plenty of headroom, even without approaching a full watt of output.
Stepping up to more capable gear did bring incremental gains. My personal SMSL DO400 paired with the Aune S17 Pro, along with the JDS Labs Element IVDAC/amp and the ONIX Beta Xi2 dongle DAC, all delivered small but noticeable improvements. Dynamics felt a touch stronger, transients were cleaner, and the leading and trailing edges of notes were more clearly defined.
In short, the Egret doesn’t demand serious amplification to sound good, but it does scale with higher-quality power. You won’t need a monster amp to enjoy it, yet better gear rewards you with more authority and refinement rather than simply louder playback.
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The Bottom Line
Sendy Audio doesn’t flood the market with new over-ear models, and the Egret makes a strong case for why that restraint works in their favor. At $799, it delivers exceptional build quality, standout materials, and a tuning that balances refinement with just enough energy to stay engaging. The custom 800nm planar drivers aren’t just marketing fodder either—they underpin a level of detail, imaging, and layering that comfortably competes with far more expensive headphones, even if absolute soundstage scale falls short of true flagships.
The Egret is not aimed at bassheads or treble thrill-seekers, nor is it trying to be a hyper-analytical studio tool. Instead, it’s for listeners who value tonal balance, midrange presence, long-term comfort, and real technical competence without needing a nuclear-powered amplifier. If you’re shopping in the sub-$1,000 planar space and assume the conversation begins and ends with the usual North American and European brands, the Egret is proof that assumption would be a mistake.
Pros:
Excellent build quality with premium materials throughout
One of the best stock cables included with any headphone at this price
Comfortable fit suitable for long listening sessions
Tasteful, mass-appealing tuning with a subtle bass lift
Strong technical performance with impressive detail, imaging, and layering
Easy to drive and scales sensibly with better amplification
Cons:
Headband adjustment mechanism is stiffer than it needs to be
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Since Andrej Karpathy coined the term “vibe coding” just over a year ago, we’ve seen a rapid increase in both the capabilities and popularity of using AI models to throw together quick programming projects with less human time and effort than ever before. One such vibe-coded project, Gaming Alexandria Researcher, launched over the weekend as what coder Dustin Hubbard called an effort to help organize the hundreds of scanned Japanese gaming magazines he’s helped maintain at clearinghouse Gaming Alexandria over the years, alongside machine translations of their OCR text.
A day after that project went public, though, Hubbard was issuing an apology to many members of the Gaming Alexandria community who loudly objected to the use of Patreon funds for an error-prone AI-powered translation effort. The hubbub highlights just how controversial AI tools remain for many online communities, even as many see them as ways to maximize limited funds and man-hours. “I sincerely apologize,” Hubbard wrote in his apology post. “My entire preservation philosophy has been to get people access to things we’ve never had access to before. I felt this project was a good step towards that, but I should have taken more into consideration the issues with AI.” “I’m very, very disappointed to see [Gaming Alexandria], one of the foremost organizations for preserving game history, promoting the use of AI translation and using Patreon funds to pay for AI licenses,” game designer and Legend of Zelda historian Max Nichols wrote in a post on Bluesky over the weekend. “I have cancelled my Patreon membership and will no longer promote the organization.”
Nichols later deleted his original message (archived here), saying he was “uncomfortable with the scale of reposts and anger” it had generated in the community. However, he maintained his core criticism: that Gemini-generated translations inevitably introduce inaccuracies that make them unreliable for scholarly use.
In a follow-up, he also objected to Patreon funds being used to pay for AI tools that produce what he called “untrustworthy” translations, arguing they distort history and are not valid sources for research. “… It’s worthless and destructive: these translations are like looking at history through a clownhouse mirror,” he added.
Denon has introduced the DP-500BT Bluetooth turntable, a semi-automatic belt-drive model designed to bring vinyl playback into wireless listening systems. The new turntable allows records to be played through traditional analog outputs or streamed directly to Bluetooth speakers and headphones, offering a flexible option for listeners who want the warmth of vinyl without giving up modern convenience.
Vinyl’s resurgence shows no signs of slowing. U.S. vinyl sales rose for the 19th consecutive year to 47.9 million units, with independent record stores accounting for roughly four out of every ten purchases. Buying habits across physical formats are also shifting as direct-to-consumer sales now represent 13.6% of all physical album purchases, according to Luminate. The continued demand for physical media helps explain why companies like Denon are expanding their turntable lineups.
Although Denon is perhaps best known for its AV receivers, the company has a long history of producing turntables. Its current range includes the DP-450USB ($799), DP-400 ($599), DP-300F ($499), DP-29F ($219), and the flagship DP-3000NE ($2,799). The new DP-500BT joins that lineup as a belt-drive design that blends classic analog playback with the convenience of Bluetooth connectivity.
Inside the Denon DP-500BT Bluetooth Turntable
The Denon DP-500BT is a semi-automatic belt-drive turntable that combines traditional analog playback with built-in Bluetooth connectivity. It can be used with modern wireless audio systems or connected to conventional Hi-Fi setups through its analog outputs. The turntable includes an integrated moving magnet phono preamp that can be bypassed if you prefer to use an external phono stage. Wireless playback is supported via Bluetooth with compatibility for aptX, aptX HD, and aptX Adaptive codecs.
Lyle Smith, President of Sound United at HARMAN, explained, “The DP-500BT brings timeless analog and modern wireless freedom together in a way only Denon can. Whether someone is building their first vinyl setup or expanding an existing system, this turntable delivers a premium experience with simple, flexible Bluetooth streaming that carries the depth and detail of vinyl into any room.”
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The DP-500BT uses a precision belt-drive system designed to maintain stable platter rotation. It includes a die-cast aluminum platter that adds mass for smoother operation and improved speed stability. Denon also equips the turntable with its balanced S-shaped tonearm, intended to support accurate tracking and help reduce distortion during playback.
A pre installed moving magnet (MM) cartridge and a built in switchable phono preamp are included, allowing the DP-500BT to connect to a wide range of audio systems, including powered speakers and traditional Hi-Fi components.
However, what sets the DP-500BT apart from many turntables is its built-in Bluetooth transmitter, which supports aptX, aptX HD, and aptX Adaptive codecs. This allows users to play vinyl records wirelessly through compatible Bluetooth devices, including headphones, receivers, and powered speakers. In addition, semi-automatic operation with auto lift and playback stop helps protect records while making everyday listening easier and more convenient.
Cast metal feet and vibration-resistant construction maintain stability. A removable dust cover preserves the matte finish. Every element supports both the visual identity and the performance standard expected from Denon.
The design of the DP-500BT reflects Denon’s refined, modern aesthetic with a two-tone finish and minimalist design that fits with a wide range of interiors.
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Denon DP-500BT Key Features
Pure Vinyl Playback: Stable platter rotation and careful mechanical design help preserve the character and detail of vinyl records while minimizing distortion.
Bluetooth Streaming: Vinyl records can be played wirelessly through compatible Bluetooth speakers or headphones throughout the home.
Precision Engineered Construction: A die cast aluminum platter, vibration resistant chassis, and balanced S shaped tonearm are designed to reduce resonance and support stable playback.
Belt Drive System: The belt drive design helps isolate motor vibration from the platter, contributing to consistent rotation and cleaner playback.
Semi Automatic Operation: Automatic tonearm lift and playback stop help protect the stylus and records while making operation easier.
Built In Phono Preamp: A switchable phono preamp allows the DP-500BT to connect directly to powered speakers, receivers, or amplifiers that do not include a dedicated phono input.
Streaming is undoubtedly the most popular way to listen to music, but physical media hasn’t quite lost its magic yet. CDs and audio cassettes are making comebacks, but vinyl records have an extra special place in the music listening landscape.
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As a result, there are an increasing number of turntables that also include Bluetooth as a way to stream vinyl record listening all around the house, whether it be on Bluetooth speakers, wireless headphones, or earbuds, without having to have a turntable in every room.
Denon is the latest to integrate Bluetooth in its turntable line with DP-500BT, but there is also a lot of competition from noted brands, such as the Technics SL-40CBT and Sony PS-LX5BT. The question is, has Denon entered the Bluetooth Turntable game too late to be competitive? Or is this just the right time to unite the old world and the new? We shall soon find out.
Price & Availability
The Denon DP-500BT Bluetooth turntable is priced at $899 at Crutchfield and can be purchased through Denon and authorized retailers in select global markets.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inside Climate News: Republican lawmakers in multiple states and Congress are advancing proposals to shield polluters from climate accountability and prevent any type of liability for climate change harms — even as these harms and their associated costs continue to mount. It’s the latest in a counter-offensive that has unfolded on multiple fronts, from the halls of Congress and the White House to courts and state attorneys general offices across the country.
Dozens of local communities, states and individuals are suing major oil and gas companies and their trade associations over rising climate costs and for allegedly lying to consumers about climate change risks and solutions. At the same time, some states are enacting or considering laws modeled after the federal Superfund program that would impose retroactive liability on large fossil fuel producers and levy a one-time charge on them to help fund climate adaptation and resiliency measures. But many of these cases and climate superfund laws could be stopped in their tracks, either by the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court or by the Republican-controlled Congress.
Last month the court decided to take up a petition lodged by oil companies Suncor and ExxonMobil in a climate-damages case brought against the companies by Boulder, Colorado. The petition argues that Boulder’s claims are barred by federal law, and if the justices agree, it could knock out not only Boulder’s lawsuit but also many others like it. The court is expected to hear the case during its upcoming term that starts in October. There is also a possibility that Republicans in Congress will take action before then to gift the fossil fuel industry legal immunity, similar to that granted to gun manufacturers with the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Sixteen Republican attorneys general wrote (PDF) to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in June suggesting that the Department of Justice could recommend legislation creating precisely this type of liability shield. And last month, one Republican congresswoman announced that such legislation is indeed in the works. “The ultimate democratic institution in America is the jury,” said former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. Enacting policies that prevent or block climate-related lawsuits against polluters, he said, would effectively shutter “the doors of the courthouse to Americans that have been injured by oil and gas company pollution and by their lies and deceit about that pollution.”
“I really think it’s an un-American effort to deny Americans the traditional right of access to a jury,” Inslee said. Oil and gas executives are “terrified” by the prospect of having to stand before a jury and face evidence of their climate-change lies and deception, he added. “You’ll see the steam coming out of the jury’s ears when they hear about how they’ve been lied to for decades. [Oil companies] understand why juries will be outraged by it, and they are shaking in their boots. The day of reckoning is coming, and that’s why they’re afraid.”
The Pittsburgh startup’s AI platform will create digital twins of Pacific Fleet vessels, starting with 18 ships, as the Navy races to fix a maintenance crisis costing up to $20 billion a year.
Roughly 40% of the United States Navy’s fleet is unavailable at any given time. Ships are queued in dry dock. Maintenance cycles stretch across months. The cost of the backlog, according to Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian, runs somewhere between $13 billion and $20 billion annually. And as he puts it, “at a time when you need every asset you can get, that’s pretty critical.”
On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh startup announced it had signed a five-year IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) contract with the US Navy and the General Services Administration, with a ceiling of $71 million.
The initial award stands at $54 million. It is the largest contract the Navy has ever awarded Gecko Robotics , and the largest robotics deal the Navy has signed to date.
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The work begins immediately with 18 ships in the US Pacific Fleet, destroyers, amphibious warships, and littoral combat ships, over the next nine months. Gecko’s wall-climbing robots, drones, and sensors will crawl across hulls, decks, and welds, gathering data points that would take human inspectors weeks to collect.
That raw data feeds into Cantilever, the company’s AI-powered operating platform, which converts it into a detailed digital twin of each vessel: a living, updatable model of the ship’s structural health.
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The company says its technology can identify necessary repairs up to 50 times faster and more accurately than manual inspection techniques. Critically, the inspection can happen before a ship even reaches dry dock, meaning the right parts and personnel can be staged in advance, rather than the process beginning only once the vessel is already out of service.
Defense One reported that just 41% of ships completed repairs on time in 2025, well short of the Navy’s 71% goal. The Navy has since reset its target to above 60%, with the broader ambition of reaching 80% fleet combat surge readiness by 2027.
Gecko’s contract structure is also notable for its scope: because it runs through the GSA, any branch of the Department of Defense can access the company’s AI and robotics under the agreement, not just the Navy.
“Readiness isn’t just a metric. It’s all that matters,” Loosararian said in a statement. “This growing partnership is about the unfair advantages Gecko is deploying to our Navy and how prediction, through our robotics and AI products, ensures our brave men and women are the most advantaged in the world in their fight to defend freedom.”
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The contract arrives at a moment of heightened urgency around US shipbuilding capacity. The Trump administration released a multi-page plan in February to revive the sector, which has fallen significantly behind China. Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick, in a statement, said the deal demonstrated how “engineers, researchers, and skilled tradesmen from a great Pennsylvania company are leading advances in technology, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and robotics and giving our military the capabilities it needs for the next generation of American defence.”
Gecko is not new to the Navy. The company, co-founded by Loosararian and Troy Demmer, now its president, has previously deployed its TOKA series robots on destroyers, amphibious vessels, and aircraft carriers, and has worked with defence prime contractor L3Harris on digital twins for military aircraft.
Earlier this year it partnered with BPMI, a contractor for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Programme, to cut inspection times on nuclear carrier and submarine components by up to 90%.
The company was last valued at $1.25 billion following a Series D round led by Cox Enterprises in June 2025, which brought its total funding to $173 million. It remains private. The TOKA robots that will crawl the Pacific Fleet’s hulls are the same ones Gecko has been deploying in power generation, oil and gas, and heavy manufacturing for years, the argument being that the physical world, whether it’s a coal boiler or a guided-missile destroyer, yields its secrets the same way: slowly, and only to whoever has the patience to look closely enough.
Full-color 3D printing is something of a holy grail, if nothing else just because of how much it impresses the normies. We’ve seen a lot of multi-material units the past few years, and with Snapmaker’s U1 and the Prusa XL it looks like tool changers are coming back into vogue. Just in time, [Radoux] has a fork of OrcaSlicer called FullSpectrum that brings HueForge-like color mixing to tool changing printers.
The hook behind FullSpectrum is very simple: stacking thin layers of colors, preferably with semi-translucent filament, allows for a surprising degree of mixing. The towers in the image above have only three colors: red, blue, and yellow. It’s not literally full-spectrum, but you can generate surprisingly large palettes this way. You aren’t limited to single-layer mixes, either: A-A-B repeats and even arbitrary patterns of four colors are possible, assuming you have a four-head tool changing printer like the Snapmaker U1 this is being developed for.
FullSpectrum is in fact a fork of Snapmaker’s fork of OrcaSlicer, which is itself forked from Bambu Slicer, which forked off of PrusaSlicer, which originated as a fork of Slic3r. Some complain about the open-source chaos of endless forking, but you can see in that chain how much innovation it gets us — including this technique of color mixing by alternating layers.
[Wombly Wonders] shows the limits of this in his video: you really want layer heights of 0.8 mm to 0.12 mm, as the standard 0.2 mm height introduces striping, particularly with opaque filaments. Depending on the colors and the overhang, you might get away with it, but thinner layers generally going to be a safer bet. Fully translucent filaments can blend a little too well at the edges, but the HueForge community — that we’ve covered previously — has already got a good handle on characterizing translucency and we’ll likely see a lot of that knowledge applied to FullSpectrum OrcaSlicer as time goes on.
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Now, you could probably use this technique with an multi-material unit (MMU), but the tool-changing printers are where it is going to shine because they’re so much faster at it. With the right tool-changer, it’s actually faster to run off a model mixing colors from the cyan-yellow-magenta color space that it is to print the same model with the exact colors needed loaded on an MMU. That’s unexpected, but [Wombly] does demonstrate in his video with a chicken that’s listed as taking nineteen hours on Bambu’s MakerWorld as taking under seven hours.
Could this be the killer app that pushes tool-change printers into the spotlight? Maybe! Tool changing printers are nothing new, after all. We’ve even seen it done with a delta, and lots of other DIY options if you don’t fancy buying the big Prusa. If you’ve been lusting after such a beast, though, you might finally have your excuse.
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: 30-second review
Unveiled at IFA 2025 in Berlin, the Oukitel WP61 Plus is the brand’s flagship all-in-one rugged smartphone, featuring a 20,000 mAh battery, an integrated 2W DMR walkie-talkie, and a high-powered camping flashlight.
But what is likely to confuse people is that the WP60 and WP62 have been available for some time, but Oukitel held the WP61 Plus back.
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Built for outdoor professionals, search-and-rescue workers, or those who routinely find themselves in the great outdoors, the WP61 Plus is entering a highly competitive market.
There are four versions of the WP61 that all share the same SoC, memory, and storage model but differ in the special features included. There is a base model, the Plus model reviewed here, that has a 2W DMR walkie-talkie, the WP61 Ultra with thermal imaging, and the WP61 Ti with NTN Skylo Satellite communications.
All of them use the Dimensity 7025 processor, have 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and the same 108MP primary camera.
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The large 6.8-inch FHD+ display runs at 120Hz, which is a welcome touch for a rugged device, and Android 16 puts it on the cutting edge for that platform
Where the WP61 Plus truly distinguishes itself, however, is in its extended utility features. The built-in DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) walkie-talkie operates at 2W and is designed to maintain group communications in areas where cellular coverage fails.
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Oukitel quotes a range of 5.5km (3.4 miles) for DMR communications, but this will work without any cell service.
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Combined with the camping light and the ability to act as a power bank for smaller devices, this phone is positioned less as a smartphone and more as a portable field communications and survival tool.
The only significant downside of this design is its physical scale; at over 650g, this isn’t a small or lightweight design, and with the walkie-talkie antenna attached, it becomes even more unwieldy.
The WP61 Plus might not break into our best rugged smartphone selection, but if you are looking for a general-purpose rugged phone for an adventure trek, then it could be an option.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: price and availability
How much does it cost? $370/£280/€323
When is it out? Available soon
Where can you get it? You can get it directly from Oukitel or via online retailers such as Amazon.
Direct from Oukitel, the asking price for the WP61 Plus is $369.99/£279.99/€322.68, which is a good deal if you accept the view that this is a discount from $499.99/£378.37/€436.06, a price at which this product has never been sold.
You read that correctly. At the time of writing, while Oukitel are promoting this product, it remains out of stock. Also, it’s not available via online retailers, but that’s probably right around the corner.
The Plus model is $50 more than the base model, but $60 less than the Ultra option. There is no price yet for the Satellite model.
There are lots of phones that use the same or similar SoCs, like the Blackview Oscal Tank 1, RugOne Xever 7 Pro, Doogee S200 and Oukitel WP300. All these are cheaper, but lack the DMR walkie-talkie technology.
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Blackview has the Xplore 1 Walkie Talkie that sells for €383.95 direct from the makers, a good amount more than the WP61 Plus.
The Unihertz Atom XL is a much smaller phone with the same DMR technology, priced at $289.99 at the official Unihertz outlet. However, I’d avoid this phone because there are no US or Global models.
A better choice is the Armour 26 Ultra Walkie-Talkie, but its base price is $649.99, making it substantially more expensive.
For a DMR-capable phone, the WP61 Plus is reasonably priced, though it might seem a little expensive for the platform specification.
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(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Oukitel WP61 Plus: Specs
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Item
Spec
CPU:
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MediaTek Dimensity 7025 (6nm)
GPU:
IMG BXM-8-256
NPU:
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MediaTek’s APU 780
RAM:
12GB
Storage:
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512GB
Screen:
6.8-inch FHD+ LCD
Resolution:
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1080 x 2460 pixels 650nits
SIM:
2x Nano SIM + TF (one shared position)
Weight:
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651.6 grams
Dimensions:
179.5 x 85 x 27.5 mm
Rugged Spec:
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IP68 IP69K dust/water resistant (up to 2m for 30 minutes), MIL-STD-810H Certification
Rear cameras:
108MP Camera + 8MP Night vision +2MP macro
Front camera:
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32MP Sony IMX616
Networking:
5G bands, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.2
Audio:
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130 dB 5W speaker
OS:
Android 16
Battery:
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20000 mAh (45W wired, 5W reverse charge)
Colours:
Black
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: design
Built for the field, not the pocket
DMR Antenna
Standard layout
The WP61 Plus makes no apologies for its bulk. At 179.5 x 85 x 27.5 mm, it is a substantial device, and one that is clearly engineered to accommodate its enormous 20,000mAh battery alongside the walkie-talkie antenna hardware and camping light module. The extra 27.5 mm of depth alone sets it apart as a very different prospect from a standard smartphone, and not one you can easily fit in a pocket.
What can make this design even more challenging to store is that in the box is a 92mm antenna for the DMR walkie-talkie that screws into the top right of the phone. You can choose not to attach that, but I presume that will impact the ability to communicate using that functionality.
The Oukitel WP series devices have traditionally used a combination of reinforced polycarbonate and aluminium alloy framing, and the WP61 doesn’t deviate from that, making it a device that can withstand heavy abuse.
The device supports a ‘seat charger’, a docking cradle that allows the phone to be mounted and charged in a fixed location, such as a vehicle dashboard or on a desk. This is a thoughtful addition for fleet operators or those who need their device always charged and ready. The dock isn’t included as standard, and its arrival date and price haven’t been released yet.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
In terms of the general aesthetics and layout, there isn’t anything especially surprising about the WP61 Plus. The button arrangement is the one most rugged phones use, with the power (doubling as a fingerprint reader) and volume buttons on the right, the custom button on the left, where the SIM tray is also placed.
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The buttons are all metal, and the sides of the chassis are all machined aluminium, making this phone feel both comfortable to hold and seemingly indestructible.
Both the top and bottom edges feature a waterproof plug: one for the antenna on the top and another covering the USB port on the bottom. Both of these are held in place with screws, suggesting they could be replaced when they wear out if Oukitel makes replacements available.
To avoid wearing out the USB-C cover, the dock has four metal contact points on its bottom face, allowing it to be charged without inserting a cable.
The rear has three noticeable features: a camping light, a 5W speaker, and the camera cluster. The 1200-lumen camping light is obscured by a reference sticker that contains important information you don’t want to misplace by peeling it off and throwing it away, annoyingly.
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According to Oukitel, the speaker is rated at 130 dB, which would undoubtedly damage your hearing if you held it against your ear while it was making noise. The top-centre placement of that speaker also pushes the three rear camera lenses to the phone’s outer edge, which isn’t ideal.
While I’ve seen worse, the WP61 Plus seems to try to be many things at once and has slightly compromised some of its features in the process.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Design score: 3.5/5
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: hardware
MediaTek Dimensity 7025
20000 mAh battery
Walkie-talkie
This is the third phone I’ve covered that uses the MediaTek Dimensity 7025, and I haven’t changed my opinion of it.
Instead of this being a new and exciting SoC, it’s a renaming of the older Dimensity 930, a chip from May 2022. If you research this silicon, you will find that the Dimensity 7025 was launched in 2024, but the underlying chip is at least two years older.
That explains why all the 70XX SoCs are made using a 6nm process, whereas all the 73XX and 74XX chips use the new and superior 4nm process.
Ironically, that’s not the biggest issue with this platform, since, as SoCs go, the Dimensity 7025 is an effective power-efficient system that delivers a good user experience for the most part.
A bigger problem is that the CPU is coupled with the IMG BXM-8-256 GPU, one of those PowerVR IMG designs that is poor by modern standards. It drives the Android 16 interface reasonably, but it’s not a game-friendly GPU. Critically, it lacks some of the OpenGL and Vulkan functionality that interactive graphics apps often use.
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For the WP61 Plus’s intended use cases, it is a sensible and efficient choice, but more modern MediaTek designs, such as the Dimensity 7300 and 7400, offer far more potential.
In large, rugged phones, a 20000 mAh battery isn’t exceptional, but this device helps because it supports a 45W charger, which is included. That enables the phone to charge from zero to full capacity in about four hours, and get more than half of a charge in ninety minutes.
This is dramatically better than the WP60 offered with the same battery capacity, as that phone could only charge at 33W. Though, as I recall, the WP60 did reverse charge at 7W, where the WP61 Plus only puts out 5W.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
You can get a similar platform and battery in a wide range of rugged phones, but the final feature I’ll talk about here is something that is in relatively few: a DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) walkie-talkie.
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The radio in the WP61 Plus transmits at 2W, which is a meaningful output for direct device-to-device communication. DMR is a professional-grade digital radio standard, typically used in construction, security, and emergency services, making this a genuine productivity tool rather than a novelty. And, the hardware here can also work with Analogue technologies, alongside DMR-capable handsets.
As I only have one WP61 Plus, I wasn’t able to test the assertion that communication of over 5.5km was possible, but the technology is capable of that, so I don’t doubt it could work at that range in theory. The beauty of this technology is that it doesn’t rely on any other infrastructure to operate, though the practical range may be limited by terrain.
For those working together off the grid or at a building site, the range seems enough to be practical, even if it won’t work if you travel beyond the potential range, or put a mountain between those talking.
The custom button opens the DMR app to initiate a call, and you can select a channel to communicate over. While you can add custom channels, the app includes the standard DMR-approved channels for a range of countries, including Europe, the USA, Australia, and Taiwan. Iran, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, Japan and China.
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As a matter of interest, I researched the DMR frequencies for various countries, and discovered that for some, like India, for higher power transmitters like this one, using 5W and with better range, a WPC license is required. So if you are not in any of the countries I previously listed, it might be worth researching which DMR channels you can use and any other clearances required before purchasing.
Even with those potential caveats, the DMR part of this device is undoubtedly the best aspect, should you have more than one of these or other DMR handsets to hand.
Oukitel WP61 Plus: cameras
108MP, 8MP night vision and 2MP Macro on the rear
32MP on the front
Four cameras in total
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
The Oukitel WP61 Plus has four cameras:
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Rear camera: 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM6 (S5KHM6), 8MP SK Hynix Hi-846 night vision IR sensor, 2MP BYD BF2257CS Macro Front camera: 32MP Sony IMX616 Sensor
Oddly, this camera arrangement is remarkably similar to a range of phones I’ve recently reviewed, except that many of them use a GalaxyCore sensor for the 2MP macro function, whereas the WP61 Plus uses the BYD BF2257CS for the same job.
The combination of the 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM6 (S5KHM6) and the 8MP SK Hynix Hi-846 night-vision IR sensor was seen on the Oukitel WP60 Pro. But that phone didn’t use the Sony IMX616 front-facing sensor, and it used a GalaxyCore GC02M1 for the Macro.
The Sony IMX616 is better than the 32MP GalaxyCore GC32E1, but the 2MP Macro sensors don’t make a huge difference to the close-up shooting you can do.
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The weakness of this layout is that the 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM6 (S5KHM6) is used to avoid the need for zoom optics by providing a high-resolution sensor that can be cropped or pixel-binned. It offers a range of zoom settings from 1.0x to 4.0x. But it’s still not as good as having actual zoom optics, as the zoom jumps between settings, and the results for some digital zoom factors are better than for others.
The SK Hynix Hi-846 night vision sensor delivers impressive results in complete darkness, although it captures only in monochrome. And the Macro sensor is exceptionally grainy and requires excessive amounts of light to produce passable results.
Probably the biggest disappointment of this camera is that the primary Samsung ISOCELL has a resolution of 108MP, and you can shoot at that full resolution, but incredibly, the best video resolution available is only 1440p. That this phone, with a 108MP sensor, can’t offer 4K video is embarrassing.
The hardware is rated for 8K at 24 frames per second (fps) and 4K at 120fps, so the video resolution is down to the choices Oukitel made about the SoC and the Android camera application.
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This camera can take some excellent still images, but if I were to drag a phone this big and heavy about the wilderness, I would at least expect it to shoot 4K video.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Oukitel WP61 Plus Camera samples
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: performance
Older 6nm SoC
GPU issues with OpenGL 3.1 and Vulkan 1.3
Great battery life
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Phone
Oukitel WP61 Plus
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Blackview Oscal Tank 1
SoC
MediaTek Dimensity 7025
MediaTek Dimensity 7050
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GPU
IMG BXM-8-256
Mali‑G68 MC4
NPU
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MediaTek’s APU 780
MediaTek NPU 550
Memory
12GB/512GB
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12GB/256GB
Weight
656g
640g
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Battery
20000
20000
Geekbench
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Single
959
920
Multi
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2362
2466
OpenCL
failed
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2471
Vulkan
failed
3036
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PCMark
3.0 Score
13080
11684
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Battery
40h 9m Est.
33h 57m Est.
Charge 30
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%
28
13
Passmark
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Score
6620
6861
CPU
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5284
5285
3DMark
Slingshot OGL
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3741
5293
Slingshot Ex. OGL
3738
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4150
Slingshot Ex. Vulkan
2614
3940
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Wildlife
Failed
2232
Row 19 – Cell 0
Nomad Lite
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Failed
266
Rather than putting the WP61 Plus against another phone with the same SoC, I thought it might be appropriate to compare it with a marginally better chip, so I chose the Blackview Oscal Tank 1. It uses the MediaTek Dimensity 7050, slightly better than the 7025.
Both of these phones have the same battery capacity and RAM, which makes them closer to each other than many other rugged phones. size
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What these results show is that the Dimensity 7025 is modestly slower than the 7050 used in the Tank 1, until you test it with a graphics benchmark. The IMG BXM-8-256 GPU can’t run the OpenGL and Vulkan APIs used by GeekBench and is required for 3DMark Wildlife and Nomad Lite.
But the upside of poor GPU performance is that the battery lasts much longer, with the WP61 Plus running for more than 40 hours. However, that result is a predicted endpoint because, like the Oscal Tank 1, the WP61 Plus crashed PCMark before exhausting the battery. Not sure if this is an issue with the benchmark or how both these phone makers are managing their batteries.
The overall performance of the WP61 Plus is fine for most uses, but it’s not a phone that gamers or anyone who uses VR will embrace. However, with curation, the battery could easily last six days or more, which could be useful off-grid.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: Final verdict
The Oukitel WP61 Plus is a device that sets out to do something genuinely different in a crowded market. Rather than competing solely on processing power or camera resolution, it bundles a professional-grade walkie-talkie, an enormous battery, and a camping light into a package that could plausibly replace multiple pieces of equipment for an outdoor professional or expedition team.
The Dimensity 7025 is not the most exciting chipset, and the physical dimensions mean this is not a device you will comfortably carry in a trouser pocket. But if your priorities are extended endurance, off-grid communications, and resilience in harsh environments, the WP61 Plus presents a compelling case at the asking price.
How useful DMR technology is to you will depend on whether you already use it or intend to buy multiple phones for walkie-talkie use. If it’s not something you’ll use immediately, you could save yourself $50 by buying the base model, since it has everything else I’ve mentioned here.
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Should I buy a Oukitel WP61 Plus?
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Oukitel WP61 Plus Score Card
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Value
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Reasonable cost for a well-made device
4/5
Design
Substantial but purpose-built for outdoor use
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3.5/5
Hardware
Unique walkie-talkie, 20,000mAh battery and mid-range SoC
4/5
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Camera
Good for still images, but the lack of 4K video is poor
Liquid Glass first arrived across Apple’s recent platforms, including iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe. This brought a translucent, layered look to menus, widgets and system UI elements. While the redesign sparked mixed reactions from users, it appears Apple is committed to refining the style. They are refining it rather than replacing it.
The report says internal versions of iOS 27 and macOS 27 largely stick with the same design direction. That’s partly because the interface has strong backing internally. Apple’s new software design chief Steve Lemay — who took over the role after Alan Dye departed for Meta — was closely involved in developing Liquid Glass. In fact, he is expected to continue evolving the concept rather than replacing it outright.
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That approach mirrors how Apple handled another major visual shift in the past. When iOS 7 abandoned skeuomorphic textures for a flat design, Apple spent several years gradually refining the look. Instead of dramatically changing it again, they chose to refine it.
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In the meantime, Apple has already started offering small tweaks for users who find the effect too strong. Updates like iOS 26.1 introduced a “Tinted” option that increases the opacity of Liquid Glass elements across the system. Additionally, iOS 26.2 added a slider to adjust the transparency of the Lock Screen clock.
Apple had reportedly explored a system-wide Liquid Glass opacity slider during the development of iOS 26. However, they ran into engineering challenges when trying to apply the setting consistently across the entire interface. According to Gurman, the company could revisit that idea in a future version of iOS 27.
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For now, though, the direction seems clear: Liquid Glass isn’t a short-lived experiment; it’s the foundation of Apple’s next generation of software design.
No matter how much we don’t like and oppose it, personal data is now a commodity. Our phone numbers, addresses, shopping habits, or employment history details are collected, analyzed, and traded among data brokers, marketers, recruiters, insurers, and countless other buyers, not to mention frauds and thieves.
However, trying to remove your online presence manually means tracking down every single company that holds your data (which can be hundreds), submitting legal deletion requests, and repeating the process when your data reappears or your request is ignored. This can easily become a full-time job.
That’s why data broker removal services exist: to automate, manage, and repeat those requests on your behalf.
But how to choose the best provider? Below, you will find a 2026 evaluation of the most recognized names in the industry.
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Top Data Broker Removal Services at a Glance
Category
Incogni
Aura
DeleteMe
Optery
OneRep
Pricing (monthly when billed annually)
From $7.99
From $9.99
From $6.97
From $3.25
From $8.33
Free option
30-day money-back guarantee
14-day free trial, 60-day money-back guarantee
Free scan
Basicself-service, 30-day money-back guarantee
5-day trial, 30-day money-back guarantee
Automation Level
High
Medium-High
Medium-Low
Medium
Medium-High
Broker coverage
420+ public and private brokers
200+ brokers, mainly private
up to 850+ brokers (varies by plan), mainly public
120-640+sites (varies by plan)
310+ sites, mainly public
Verification
Dashboard, Deloitte Limited Assurance Report
App alerts and screenshots
Quarterly reports and screenshots
Screenshots and exposure scans
Dashboard and monthly reports
Best for
Long-term, low-effort privacy
Identity + privacy bundle
Detailed proof and control
Data exposure prediction
Public removals, Families
Incogni: Best for Balanced Automation, Coverage, and Accountability
Overview and Pricing
Incogni focuses on the continuous removal of personal data from data brokers, including both public people-search sites and private commercial databases.
Incogni’s plans start at $7.99/month when billed annually, and even the basic option contains all you need for effective data removal. Higher-tier plans only change prioritization and scope. There’s no free option, but you can take advantage of its 30-day money-back guarantee to see if the service suits your needs.
Features
Fully-automated opt-out and deletion requests across 420+ data brokers
Recurring removal cycles: 60 days for public, 90 days for private brokers
Supported by Deloitte’s limited assurance assessment, Incogni officially reports that it has processed 245+ million removal requests from 2022 to mid-2025, indicating sustained operations rather than one-time cleanups. As data brokers can reacquire information and their databases refresh regularly, the recurring cycle is vital if you want to protect your online footprint in the long run.
Transparency and Reputation
Apart from a limited assurance report by Deloitte, the service also holds Editors’ Choice Awards from PCMag and PCWorld, which praise its automation system and wide coverage.
On Trustpilot, Incogni has generally positive feedback, with an average rating of 4.4 based on over 2,000 reviews. Users often note actual reductions in spam and visible listings.
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User Experience
Once you set up your account, you need to verify your identity. After that, Incogni will handle most data removal activity in the background without involving you directly. The clear, straightforward dashboard will show you all the brokers Incogni has contacted, confirmed removals, responses, and next scheduled cycles. You can peek into it whenever you like, but you don’t have to engage to make the process effective.
Advantages
Disadvantages
High automation
No screenshots
Broad coverage
No free trial
Deloitte Limited Assurance Report
Basic reporting
30-day money-back guarantee
Phone support only on Unlimited plans
Industry recognition
Recurring cycles and resubmitted requests
Clear interface, straightforward user experience
Aura: Best All-in-One Identity and Privacy Suite
Overview and Pricing
Aura is not a provider like others on this list, as it combines data removal service with broader digital protection features, including credit alerts, antivirus, VPN, device security, and identity theft monitoring.
Aura’s prices begin at $9.99/month when billed annually. What’s more, you get a 14-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee for risk-free testing.
Features
Automated data removal across 200+ data brokers (mainly private)
Identity theft monitoring
Dark web monitoring
Credit score and breach alerts
Antivirus/anti-malware protection
VPN
Family and multi-device plans
Effectiveness
When it comes to data removal itself, this Aura functionality is automated. The platform first scans broker and people-search sites, submits deletion requests whenever finding your
information, and re-checks for reappearances. However, as it’s not its main focus, its data removal coverage is quite narrow compared to dedicated solutions. Aura’s value is the strongest only if combined with the whole toolkit.
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Transparency and Reputation
Aura has been widely described in the identity protection space with overall positive sentiments. You can find Aura reviews on PCMag, Forbes, and NerdWallet. On Trustpilot, it holds an average rating of 4.2 based on almost 1,000 reviews. Users appreciate its all-in-one service, but broker removal results themselves don’t match those ensured by services focused exclusively on that problem.
User Experience
Aura’s interface contains all the features offered by the providers, showing alerts, scans, security postures, removal status, and more. This holistic view appeals to people who seek central management of their online presence, but for many users, it can be overwhelming.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Privacy+security bundle
Narrower coverage
Insurance
Manual approval steps
60-day money-back guarantee
Overwhelming user experience
14-day free trial
No third-party verification
Comprehensive alerts
DeleteMe: Strong for Proved Public People-Search Listing Deletion
Overview and Pricing
DeleteMe focuses on public people-search sites and background information databases. These are mentions that usually appear in search results when someone Googles your name.
The cheapest DeleteMe plan is $6.97/month when billed annually and can be used by 1 person.
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Features
Automated scans of people-search sites (up to 850+, depending on the plan)
Expert manual handling
Quarterly detailed reports
Coverage for individuals, couples, and families
Limited custom removal requests (40-60 per year, plan-dependent)
DIY opt-out tutorials
Effectiveness
DeleteMe is quite effective at removing visible information from many major public listings. The company was a pioneer when, in 2010, it entered the industry with its
part-automatic, part-human-assisted approach. The team submits requests and tracks
progress, then provides you with scheduled, detailed reports that include, for example, even screenshots.
Transparency and Reputation
DeleteMe has been in the industry since 2010, which says a lot about its reliability. It has generally positive user reviews, especially when it comes to its detailed reporting system and exhaustive explanations about what was removed. There have been no third-party assessments of its services, but the provider has a good reputation in the industry, as seen in the review in PCMag or praise from Forbes. When it comes to user feedback, it has a rating of
4.0 on Trustpilot, though based only on 180+ reviews.
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User Experience
Contrary to Incogni’s live and always-on progress monitoring, which you can check but don’t have to, DeleteMe is more report-centric. Users receive quarterly PDF summaries that show what sites were contacted, where their information was removed, and what remains pending.
Many people appreciate their human approach.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Clear, detailed reporting
Slower cycles
Long-standing service
Less automation
Human expertise
Narrower broker reach
30-day money-back guarantee
US-mainly coverage
Optery: Best for Exposure Visibility
Overview and Pricing
Optery’s main field of expertise is discovering where your personal data exists, providing users with insight into exposures before and during removal attempts.
Optery’s offer starts at $3.25/month when billed annually. The company also has a free, self-service version. Apart from that, you get a free scan and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
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Features
Exposure dashboard displaying where your personal data exists
Automated removal from up to 630+ brokers with paid plans
Initial free scan across 120+ sites and free self-service plan
Guided removal request sending process
Custom removal submissions
Manual tracking of opt-outs and their status
Effectiveness
Optery is most effective at identifying where your personal data has been exposed. Then, for its removal, it blends automatic attempts with user-guided actions and manual tracking.
It doesn’t have the same automated recurring cycles as, for example, Incogni, but it may be helpful if you want to truly understand data exposures.
Transparency and Reputation
Optery is often highlighted for its exposure insights and transparency. Users appreciate the “seeing where my data lives” model, but many note that broader coverage comes only with more expensive plans, while manual user input is still needed.
On Trustpilot, Optery has 171 reviews with an average rating of 4.1. It has also been reviewed by PCMagquite enthusiastically, though they mentioned that the service doesn’t distinguish between removed data and never-found data. TechRadarpraised it for its ease of use.
User Experience
Optery is more interactive and gives you more control of the process (which can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, depending on how much time you’re willing to sacrifice). Its dashboard clearly shows where your personal data is, and then you need to decide which removals are more important and what to do next. You also get before and after screenshots as visual proof, while reports are AI-improved to make them more accurate and detailed.
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Advantages
Disadvantages
Free scan
Broader coverage with more expensive plans
Free self-service
US-focused
30-day money-back guarantee
Slower with cheaper plans
Clear interface & control
No phone support
Onerep: Best for Public Listing Removal and Families
What It Does
OneRep automates removal requests issued to public people-search sites. Its focus is on high-risk databases like Intelius and Whitepages. The service also ensures quarterly recurring checks to combat resurfacing of your data.
However, there’s significant controversy around the company (more of that below).
Onerep’s prices start at $8.33/month when billed annually. It also offers a 5-day free trial. What makes it attractive and more affordable is its family plans that cover up to 6 members.
Features
Automated scans and removal requests across 310+ data brokers
Quarterly re-scanning
Great family value
Clear and straightforward dashboard tracking
Effectiveness
Optery is effective when it comes to reducing online visibility on many public sites, including those deemed high-risk. However, this provider doesn’t focus on private commercial
brokers that are responsible for a large portion of the spam. It makes Optery’s reach much narrower.
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Transparency and Reputation
OneRep has a mixed reputation in the privacy protection community.
User reviews vary: some praise successful public listing removals, while others complain about slow relisting or only partial effects. Still, it holds a quite impressive average rating of
However, it’s essential to know that Krebs on Security revealed that in March 2024, Mozilladecided to drop OneRep from its list of recommendations due to the company’s CEO’s involvement in running people-search networks. This raised serious questions about conflict of interest in the industry. While the provider stated that Onerep operates completely independently and never sells user information, it is still often referenced in privacy circles.
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User Experience
Onerep’s dashboard is pretty simple to manage. It shows progress on targeted sites and all removal requests, though it’s not really an automated model, so it only suits users who don’t mind handling the process.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Great family value
Industry controversies
5-day free trial
30-day money-back guarantee highly conditioned
Quarterly re-scans
US focus
Public listing coverage
Little customization
No third-party verification
Narrower scope
Final Perspective for 2026
When it comes to choosing a data removal service, the main difference is usually in scope and depth. Some providers focus on visible people-search listings, while others dig deeper to find your personal information in harder-to-find databases. They also vary in the recurring cycles they offer (or not).
Managing your overall online visibility is vital, but if you really want to reduce the amount of your information circulating on the web, you need to focus on less visible broker networks. Or rather, choose a provider built around large-scale broker coverage. Only then will you be able to enjoy more sustained results.
In 2026, Incogni stands out among its competition, as it combines a wide broker reach, continuous removal cycles, and a streamlined, low-maintenance experience. Not to mention that it was independently assessed. While other providers are not to be altogether dismissed, Incogni’s focused, automated approach offers the most comprehensive way out.
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FAQ
Why can’t I just remove my data from brokers myself?
Manual removal means identifying hundreds of brokers, submitting individual opt-out requests, repeatedly verifying your identity, and rechecking when your data reappears. For most people, that quickly becomes too time-consuming to manage consistently.
How often does my data reappear after removal?
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Data brokers regularly refresh and repurchase data, which means listings can resurface even after deletion. That’s why recurring removal cycles are critical for long-term results.
What’s the difference between public and private data brokers?
Public brokers (like people-search sites) display your information in search results, while private brokers trade data behind the scenes with marketers, insurers, and other businesses. Private databases often contribute more to spam and profiling, even if you don’t see them.
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Do all services provide proof that removals were completed?
No. Some providers offer screenshots or quarterly reports, while others rely on dashboards or summary updates. The level of transparency varies significantly by service.
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Is a bundled identity protection service enough for data removal?
All-in-one tools can help, but their broker coverage is often narrower than services dedicated specifically to data removal. If reducing online exposure is your main goal, specialized coverage may deliver stronger results.
Recycling plastic at home using 3D printed molds is relatively accessible these days, but if you do not wish to invest a lot of money into specialized equipment, what’s the most minimal setup that you can get away with? In a recent [future things] video DIY plastic recycling is explored using only equipment that the average home is likely to have around.
Lest anyone complain, you should always wear PPE such as gloves and a suitable respirator whenever you’re dealing with hot plastic in this manner, just to avoid a trip to the emergency room. Once taken care of that issue, there are a few ways of doing molding, with compression molding being one of the most straightforward types.
With compression molding you got two halves of a mold, of which one compresses the material inside the other half. This means that you do not require any complex devices like with injection molding, just a toaster oven or equivalent to melt the plastic, which is LDPE in this example. The scrap plastic is placed in a silicone cup before it’s heated so that it doesn’t stick to the container.
The wad of goopy plastic is then put inside the bottom part of the mold before the top part is put in place and squeezed by hand until molten plastic comes out of the overflow opening(s). After letting it fully cool down, the mold is opened and the part released. Although the demonstrated process can be improved upon, it seems to work well enough if you are aware of the limitations. In terms of costs and parts required it’s definitely hard to come up with a cheaper way to do plastic molding.
While the traditional discrete sound card has largely become a niche product for enthusiasts and hardware obsessives, Creative is attempting to attract new customers with a fresh model. The newly launched Sound Blaster Audigy Fx Pro can significantly upgrade the audio experience, the company says, and includes an additional layer… Read Entire Article Source link
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