Google’s next smartphone will be the price-conscious Pixel 10a, and it will be available for preorder on February 18. The company posted a video on YouTube this week, teasing the phone and announcing a launch date, but stopped short of offering more details about the smartphone.
What we do know is that it sticks to the same design language of the Pixel 9a, with no camera bump on the back. The color in the video resembles the iris color of the 9a, but it’s slightly different. The Pixel A-series smartphones often utilize the same processor as their flagship siblings, but rumors suggest the company may end up sticking with the same Tensor G4 as its predecessor instead. Leaks point to a familiar 6.3-inch screen with a 120-Hz refresh rate, a 5,100-mAh battery, and a 48-MP main camera. That’s very close to what the Pixel 9a offers already.
We’ll likely see some very minor improvements to the overall hardware, like a slightly brighter screen, and perhaps a few new software tricks. But if Google sticks to the $499 price, you might be better off just snagging the Pixel 9a on sale.
Valve Delays Its Steam Hardware
Valve, known primarily as the maker of PC gaming store Steam, announced three pieces of new hardware last November. These include a new VR headset, a mini gaming PC, and a controller. But now it appears that the uncertainty around the memory shortage is causing issues with pricing and release date.
In an update on its blog, Valve says its goal is still to ship the Steam Frame, Steam Controller, and Steam Machine in the “first half of the year.” But it also indicates that specifics around pricing and launch dates are in flux, saying that “limited availability and growing prices” on storage and memory are forcing Valve to “revisit” these issues. That sounds a lot like price increases, something that nearly every PC manufacturer has already warned about in new products coming in 2026. Companies like Dell and HP are doing everything they can to secure supply, including working with Chinese memory manufacturers for the first time.
The memory shortage has been caused by a huge spike in demand for AI in data centers. The three primary memory manufacturers in the world, Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix, have all but abandoned the consumer market in favor of supporting AI data centers. Prices on off-the-shelf PC memory began to rise in September and October, and really ramped up in the following months, now up to four times the retail price (especially with DDR5 RAM). Now we’re seeing the fallout in just about every product imaginable. There’s no clear path forward to how this will resolve, but we’re still waiting to see how big the impact will really be on PCs and new products like the Steam Frame and Steam Machine. —Luke Larsen
Fitbit Founders Launch Luffu, a Family Caregiving App
Yes, that’s right—it’s pronounced “loo-foo,” like “love.” After founding (and selling) Fitbit, James Park and Eric Friedman realized that in addition to safeguarding their own personal health, they were also taking care of everyone else’s, too. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimated that in 2025, nearly one in four adults was a caregiver of either school-aged children or older parents. Luffu is a new platform that lets caregivers easily access all the health information they need—prescriptions, lab tests, and more—without having to sort through different devices, calendars, or portals.
Gear Roundup
All the top gear news of the week in one place. Here’s more you may have missed this week:
Nintendo’s Virtual Boy Is a Silly but Fun Blast From the PastI Infiltrated Moltbook, the AI-Only Social Network Where Humans Aren’t AllowedWaymo Hits a Rough Patch in Washington, DC
Luffu is AI-powered (because of course it is), but the founders insist that the AI experience will go way deeper than being just a health chatbot. Luffu’s AI will scope through your family’s data, learn patterns, and proactively offer personalized guidance and easy-to-understand advice. It will also let everyone in your family log medications, diets, or other health information in one platform for sharing across health portals with doctors. Luffu assures us that privacy and security of your data will be the top priority, and users can control how much information is shared.
We’ll need to keep privacy top-of-mind, because as befits the founders of the hugely popular wearable, Luffu will start as an app experience before expanding into hardware. I’m very curious to see what a fitness tracker that keeps track of your family as a unit, instead of just you, will look like. —Adrienne So
Dexcom Redesigns Its App With AI-Enabled Features
Monitoring your glucose spikes is one of the easiest (well, cheapest) ways of nudging you towards healthier behaviors without having to take medication. Dexcom, which makes one of the two most popular commercially available continuous glucose monitors, is continuing to improve its own proprietary experience within the Dexcom app.
Last year, Dexcom launched smart food logging in the Dexcom app, where you can just take a picture of what you’re eating, and the app will log what it is. This year, the company is expanding the feature by breaking down calories, carbohydrates, protein, fat, and dietary fiber in your meals and including text search and barcode scanning. The app will also offer Daily Insights with three personalized, actionable recommendation cards and contextual understanding.
I used to worry that monitoring your glucose was part of a larger trend (along with protein powders and GLP-1s) that reflected a broader shift in body ideals and could lead to disordered eating. However, as Dr. Diane Stadler, a dietitian and professor at Oregon Health & Science University, pointed out, patients with disordered eating have a disorder. There are a lot worse ways to lose weight than by prioritizing lean protein and fiber and walking around after every meal. —Adrienne So
Blink’s Outdoor Security Camera Goes 2K
The latest security camera from Amazon’s budget brand is the Blink Outdoor 2K+. The main jump for this fifth-generation camera compared to the Blink Outdoor 4 is a higher resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. Support for 2K is fast becoming the standard now, and we’ve seen Google’s Nest cams, among others, step up recently. It’s good news for home security fans because sharper footage makes it easier to recognize subjects, packages, pets, and vehicles.
The Blink Outdoor 2K+ also supports 4x zoom, so you can get a close-up of that face or license plate. It also brings enhanced low-light performance, providing color footage even when light is fading and managing for a bit longer before switching to infrared black and white when it’s really dark. This camera is IP65 rated, so no need to worry about weather, and the battery can last up to two years, though that’s based on recording at 1080p.
Snag a Blink Subscription Plan from $4 a month, and you can unlock smarter detection, cloud storage, and a host of other features. This camera can also record locally if you have the Sync Module 2 and a USB drive. The Blink Outdoor 2K+ has a list price of $100, but we’re already seeing it discounted to $65. —Simon Hill
The post Gear News of the Week: Google’s Pixel 10a Arrives Soon, and Valve Delays Its Steam Hardware appeared first on Wired.
