Among a series of new phones, Google has also announced the Pixel Watch 5 overnight, promising more precise sensors and AI-powered health guidance.
The health and wellness space is an area that tech companies want an increasingly bigger piece of. For a while, they’ve provided wearable gadgets to help track heart rate, sleep quality, and various other metrics. With all that data, the next step is to offer more proactive health advice.
Like the new Samsung Galaxy Watch range, the Pixel Watch 5 uses your metrics to provide a daily score to advise how hard you should push during any given workout. Google also advertises more on-device coaching, including an update coming in September for strength training that lets the wearable guide you through each interval and rest period.
A greater range of health-tracking options is coming, too. Like the strength training guidance, several of the new additions won’t arrive until next month, however. Blood pressure patterns and insulin resistance levels are among the upcoming features, designed to help you identify when it’s time to see a GP.
Image: Google.
Another feature scheduled for September is ‘Sleep Breathing Quality’, which measures your blood oxygen levels while snoozing. It’ll add to the existing sleep quality scoring the Pixel Watches provide, on top of a personalised alarm system that aims to gently wake you.
Google also claims that the Pixel Watch 5 has the best GPS tracking of its wearables range so far. Like the built-in health sensors, the GPS operates from your wrist, so there’s no need to lug your phone around.
All of the above should feel a bit snappier, with Google citing 20 per cent faster processing speeds courtesy of the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 Accelerated chipset.
Google Pixel Watch 5 price in Australia
Google’s latest wearable continues the company’s trend of releasing in two sizes: 41mm and 45mm. In Australia, the 41mm Pixel Watch 5 starts at $649, while the 45mm model starts at $699.
Compared to the Pixel Watch 4 from last year, you’re looking at $70 more for the smaller size, and a $20 increase for the bigger variant.
Garmin has always been at the forefront of sports and GPS watches. For years, they’ve catered to everyone, from entry-level watches all the way to their premium multisport GPS wearables, and everything in between. I have used a Garmin for so long it feels unnatural to not be wearing one.
Recently, I have seen a trend of health and sports-tracking products that don’t require a screen. I guess this follows the logic that we always have our phones with us, so why have another screen to look at? Whoop has cut through the market with its screenless wristbands designed to be worn 24/7, tracking things like sleep, stress and recovery. I’m seeing them more and more these days, and it was only a matter of time before others responded.
Garmin’s new smart band is the company’s first screenless wearable. Image: Jay Marshall.
Garmin’s response is the newly launched Cirqa Smart Band, its first-ever wearable without a screen. An answer to the Whoop, it has a similar form factor, being slim and light, with a comfortable velcro strap.
The Cirqa has some cool functionality as well. It comes with one button on the side, yet it will detect your workouts automatically. The idea here is for it to record your data — including sleep and health vitals — in the background while you go about your day, and you can analyse it later. No distracting you from your business, just the information you want, when you want it. And with a 10-day battery life, you won’t get sick of constantly having to charge it.
One noticeable difference is that Whoop is a subscription-based product, which may turn away a fair few prospective customers. On the other hand, the Garmin Cirqa is a one-off $299 payment for the device, and you are all set. No ongoing fees.
Garmin Recharge Lounge. Image: Jay Marshall.
I recently attended the Garmin Recharge Lounge in Sydney to see the Cirqa in person and try it out. Already being a Garmin user made it easy to connect the device to the app and begin using it.
Fairly understated, the Cirqa blends into outfits seamlessly. Image: Jay Marshall.
Although I am sure many people will use the Cirqa as their main device, I realised I don’t want to stop using my beloved Garmin Fenix 8. So, I had one big question: how can I use the Cirqa with my existing Garmin watch? My major concern was receiving duplicate data from the two devices. I don’t want a run recorded twice, or the app to think I sleep 16 hours a night. Speaking with Garmin, they assured me there is an ideal way to use both in conjunction, and it’s rather clever.
Images: Jay Marshall.
Within the Garmin Connect app settings, you can control your device priority. In this case, I can set the Cirqa as the ‘Primary Wearable’, meaning it will be the main device to track your daily health stats like steps, sleep, body battery and stress. I can then set my Fenix watch as the ‘Primary Training Device’, which will look after my proper workouts as well as training status and load focus.
Screenshots: Jay Marshall.
I didn’t know these settings existed, but it makes total sense. I can keep the Garmin Cirqa on all the time so my data is always tracked, and only use my watch during the day or when I work out. It seems like they work in harmony, and I will be testing this out over the next few months.
If there’s one type of gadget I have reviewed more than any other, it’s portable power stations. Like a turbo-charged power bank, these gadgets are all-in-one boxes with a built-in battery that supplies 240-volt, 12-volt, and USB power, allowing you to power your appliances off-grid or during a power outage. The most common trade-off is always weight versus battery capacity. As the Anker Solix C2000 Gen 2 shows, this balance between portability and power is improving.
Weighing in at under 19kg, the C2000 has 2,048Wh of capacity, which would run a household refrigerator for around a day or a camping fridge for more than two days. In comparison, some competing models weigh over 24kg with the same capacity. For those wanting more power, a 2,048Wh expansion battery can be plugged in to double the capacity.
The trade-off for this lighter battery is a reduced lifespan of around 4,000 recharge cycles, which is still 11 years if you recharge the unit every day. The battery output is up to 2,400 watts, matching the output limit of a household 240-volt outlet, so running a kettle or hair dryer is no problem. You could not, however, run them both at the same time. But the Solix will allow a surge of up to 4,000W, which might be required if you were using it to power an RV air conditioner.
Charging and power options
Other power outlets include a 12-volt car/cigarette lighter outlet, two USB-C outlets rated at 140W each, one USB-C at 15W, and one USB-A at 12W. It is nice to see the high-wattage USB-C, which means you will have no trouble powering and recharging a laptop. All the DC outlets will work when the unit is turned on, but the AC power will only work when you press a separate button or switch it on via the Anker app. The app lets you monitor the capacity and see what output wattage is being consumed. If within Wi-Fi range, the C2000 can be controlled from anywhere; otherwise, a Bluetooth connection lets you control the power station from your camp chair.
Image: Angus Jones.
To charge the power station, you have several options. When plugged into the mains, you can charge faster than with any other similarly sized power station, taking the unit from empty to 80% in 45 minutes. You can also charge concurrently via a solar panel at up to 800W. You will be more likely to charge from a 400W panel, which would give you a full charge on a sunny summer day. The unit does ship with a 12-volt car charger, but at only 100W, this will take up to 24 hours of driving. Instead, Anker sells an alternator charger for $799, which will charge your battery at up to 800W, reducing the charge time to about 2.5 hours of driving. Power comes directly from your car’s alternator and will require you or an expert to run cables.
Power inputs. Image: Angus Jones.
Quiet operation
Something I have noticed in my testing is how quiet the unit is. I am used to some power stations with noisy fans, and this unit is super quiet at a quoted 35dB. If you use the power station as a UPS to keep critical devices powered, the unit will switch over in 10 milliseconds, which is fast enough that a battery-less PC will not power off.
Screenshots: Angus Jones.
Anker’s app is quite good, too. The ability to vary how fast the power station charges from mains, from 200W up to 2300W, can be handy if you need to adjust based on your power source, such as a generator or a car inverter. Also, the ability to time when the power station recharges (time-of-use mode), which means you can take advantage of cheaper power if you are on a time-of-use plan or have home solar panels.
The Anker Solix C2000 Gen 2 Portable Power Station costs $2,699 directly from Anker’s website in Australia. But watch for specials: it has been on sale for less than $2,000 before, which is excellent value.
How much jank is too much jank? Pro Jank Footy doesn’t concern itself with accurately depicting the great game of Australian rules football. For the benefit of entertainment, it portrays what footy feels like, as both a player and a spectator. Perhaps it’s a strange thing to say about a game that can transform all players into seagulls. On the contrary, Aussie rules often looks like a flock fighting over a hot chip. Therefore, Pro Jank Footy is, in its own way, true to the source material.
Aussie rules is a notoriously difficult sport to translate into a video game. Played on a large field with 360-degree action and infamously ambiguous rules, it’s a bloody complex code.
Without the global appeal of soccer or basketball, there aren’t the mass resources to compete with the juggernauts of EA Sports FC and NBA 2K. Still, the cult-like following of footy games is dedicated; AFL Live 2004 on the PlayStation 2 is still regarded on footy forums with reverence.
I think one team might have a height advantage… Screenshot: Chris Button.
So, Pro Jank Footy makes perfect sense. It’s an imperfect adaptation of an imperfect but fervently beloved sport. Conjuring nostalgia from its retro visuals and ‘bring back the biff’ gameplay, Pro Jank encapsulates Australiana sports culture (minus the deluge of gambling ads) and humour better than any game before it.
Putting the jank in footy
Pro Jank Footy isn’t a complex game at its core. Like the real sport, all you need to do is kick an egg-shaped ball through two big sticks and prevent the opposing team from doing the same. Simple. Kicking and handballing use the same button, with little else to commit to memory. Like I said, simple.
But, also like the real sport, Pro Jank Footy doesn’t make this objective easy. However, instead of navigating forward presses, spare men down back, and zone defences, you face dimension-altering portals, fake blue screens of death, and a muscle-bound football mascot who thirsts for violence.
Yes, that DVD logo is meant to be there. Screenshot: Chris Button.
After one team scores a goal, the opponent chooses one of three randomly presented power-ups. Some boost your performance, like increasing how long your sprint lasts, while others inhibit the other team, like removing their arms so they can’t mark the ball. You can also collect power-ups during play by picking up one of the many meat pies with legs that run onto the field.
Pro Jank Footy is extremely silly. It also leans heavily into the ‘jank’ in its name. Swapping between players on the field is unreliable, often changing automatically at inopportune moments or picking the wrong player. There’s no way to back out of team selection without exiting the game entirely, nor was it possible to manually select a stadium (which consists of a legally distinct version of the MCG, a random shopping centre car park, and the literal beach at Christies Beach). Other little details grate, too, like scoring a point when hitting the behind post, instead of awarding a free kick.
Mr Footy will haunt my nightmares. Screenshot: Chris Button.
Most of these annoyances don’t account for much, though. It might not look it on the surface, but Pro Jank Footy is smart. If it can’t recreate the sport precisely, it may as well be damn funny.
Footy with friends
Pre-launch, online multiplayer was harder to sit through than a contest between Essendon and Richmond. Lag, latency, and non-stop free kicks prevented any sort of flow. One match crashed before completion, leaving its result forever in limbo. Steam’s Remote Play Together feature, which simulates a local multiplayer session over the internet, fared much better.
On the single-player side of things, Pro Jank’s season mode is fairly limited, loading you up with some power-ups to play against a series of automated opponents. Without human opponents to riff on, the chaos loses some of its spontaneity — this is a game best enjoyed with mates.
Dad’s car is quite the power-up. Screenshot: Chris Button.
On the couch, though, with a group of footy-loving friends, Pro Jank Footy soared higher than Tony Modra. Part of this stems from the sheer absurdity of the gameplay. Running down players in a beat-up sedan while your opponent drifts around as a shopping trolley is outrageously funny.
Pro Jank’s power-ups level the playing field better than any AFL equalisation policy could hope to achieve. No matter the margin, you’re only ever one meat pie away from resetting the scores to zero, tripling the value of goals, or jumping into a game of Pong to decide the outcome.
Screenshot: Chris Button.
Both the utility and hilarity of each power-up feels like playing an elaborate sports-themed improv game of ‘yes, and’. Most abilities are helpful (or detrimental for opponents), but more importantly, every ability is wildly entertaining. It’s hard to care about winning and losing when you’re doubled over with laughter, which Pro Jank Footy has a knack for.
Broden Kelly’s (of Aunty Donna fame) full-throated performance as the game’s commentator compounds the silliness twofold. I haven’t heard such unhinged commentary since hearing complaints about alimony payments in a copy of Cricket 96 I got for free in a box of Weet-Bix.
Screenshot: Chris Button.
Jank by name and jank by nature, Pro Jank Footy succeeds as both a work of comedy and as a cultural reflection of Australia’s unique sport. Just as importantly, it makes me want to bounce that pill.
Pro Jank Footy was reviewed on PC with a code supplied by the publisher.
Pro Jank Footy
Able to capture Australia's zany sporting culture better than many straight-faced attempts before it, Pro Jank Footy is a riot.
Positives
Hilarious power-ups keep everyone in the contest up to the final siren
Broden Kelly's full-throated commentary is inspired
A cleverly comedic reflection of Australian sports culture
Negatives
Online multiplayer was unreliable pre-launch
Eponymous jank extends to menu navigation and some gameplay quirks
It boggles me that there aren’t more strategy games set in the Star Wars universe. Naturally, people want to experience the thrills of piloting an X-Wing or swinging a lightsaber, but the franchise’s many warring factions seem ripe for armchair tacticians, as Empire at War proved in the mid-2000s. It’s a void Star Wars Zero Company could potentially fill, bringing some XCOM flavour to a galaxy far, far away.
Set during the Clone Wars, Zero Company sees you operating on the edges of the conflict as a rag-tag group of mercenaries drawn into taking down a cult-like group known as the Infinite Coil. After I played several hours of a preview build on PC, it feels distinctly XCOM in a lot of ways, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that Bit Reactor, the studio behind Zero Company, is led by ex-XCOM developers.
On the surface, this is classic turn-based tactical fare. Battlefields littered with cover points host opposing squads taking turns to beam each other in the head with lasers. It’s not a revolutionary concept, but it’s a well-executed one at first look.
Screenshot: Chris Button.
Star Wars Zero Company isn’t just XCOM with another franchise pasted on top. Gameplay-wise, it strikes a balance between the calculated risk-taking combat of XCOM and the freeform movement of Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
This combination results in a slick-looking tactics game with plenty of strategic depth, accompanied by the audiovisual aesthetic of a Star Wars film. Sometimes, though, the grander strategy elements lack the bite promised by the high-stakes setting.
Welcome to Zero Company
Setting a game parallel to an existing story is a tightrope act of balancing consequences within established boundaries. Star Wars fans already know how the Clone Wars ended, so how can you tell an impactful story that sits on the periphery? Zero Company’s solution is to give you authorship within a grander narrative.
While XCOM set the stage for an overarching plot about a world-ending alien threat, it let you fill in the blanks with blank slate characters. Half the appeal was naming squadmates after your friends and creating organic stories about their wartime heroics or tragic deaths. Characters didn’t have much of a life of their own; it was like playing make-believe with Barbie dolls, except the Barbie dolls were battle-hardened soldiers ready for war.
By comparison, Star Wars Zero Company meets you halfway, providing you with a mix of fully realised characters and fresh canvases waiting for your narrative paintbrush. Hawks, whose space boots you inhabit, leads Zero Company, a rag-tag group of mercenaries operating beyond the bounds of the Republic or Separatist factions. Although Hawks has a clearly defined role, you can transform them into whoever you want, with a wide range of customisation options, including gender and species.
Screenshot: Chris Button.
Along the way, Hawks recruits various pre-defined characters, replete with backstories and story quests to complete. Decisions you make, including who you take on missions and what you choose at pivotal story moments, impact your bonds, thereby increasing characters’ combat proficiency.
It doesn’t matter that these characters aren’t Jedi Masters. Their stories haven’t been finished yet, which is where you step in. In addition to the pre-existing characters, you can also recruit fully customisable characters to round out your crew.
They all congregate at the Den, your base of operations, where you upgrade abilities, acquire new combat items, and plan your next moves. It’s a nice change of pace from the stress of battle, and an opportunity to learn more about your teammates. But most of my time during the preview was spent with a weapon in hand.
Screenshot: Chris Button.
It doesn’t matter who shot first
The best stories to come out of tactics games emerge naturally. You’ll always remember the one unit who held off enemy reinforcements while everyone else dropped like flies. You’ll mourn the loss of the teammate who survived right up until the final hurdle. These are the narrative beats that stay with you.
Star Wars Zero Company promises many of those moments on and off the battlefield. In combat, there’s enough variation between different types of soldiers and weapons to justify spending time with each character, which, in turn, unlocks upgrades to their abilities.
On your turn, it’s up to you who moves first. Each unit has three action points, spent on a combination of moving, attacking, or various battle-turning abilities. Because you can use these points and swap between units in any sequence, every encounter encourages creative solutions to dealing with thugs and droids.
Screenshot: Chris Button.
Depending on who you bring on any given mission, different synergies present themselves along the way. Close combat specialists can punch an enemy out of cover and into other foes, causing them both damage. Then, a long-ranged unit can finish them off with some well-placed blaster fire. Just remember, a 90 per cent chance to hit is not a guarantee of success.
Every mission I played during the preview adhered to familiar formats, like escorting VIPs, sabotaging enemy structures, and clearing a map of foes. While the different mission types required a bit of flexibility in terms of approach, most of the variety came from the satisfying interplay between Zero Company’s diverse crew.
‘Assault’ units thrive on the frontlines, while ‘Medics’ patch up squadmates in strife, and ‘Heavies’ absorb plenty of hits. Who you take into battle is important, but the way you use them matters the most. I got a real kick out of wheeling an astromech droid into the arena. They can’t engage in combat directly, but can give teammates more action points, and can hold more combat items. Once you see an astromech exploding a crew of enemies with a grenade, you’ll never go back.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes
Permadeath, where killed characters are gone for good, is simultaneously a hallmark of the tactics genre and considered a deterrent for newcomers. Star Wars Zero Company offers permadeath as a toggleable option, but it’s best to leave it on for the truest experience.
Rather than the one-and-done approach of XCOM, Zero Company employs a three-strikes-and-you’re-out approach to permadeath. Once a character’s health hits zero, they acquire an injury. Another character can revive them to resume combat, but copping three injuries means they’re down for the count.
For Hawks, and any character tied to a mission’s objectives, dying is an instant game over. Beyond this, all other deaths are irreversible — unless you’re a save-scumming scoundrel. There’s always a lingering sense of tension that any miscue could wipe out a character you’ve grown attached to, especially as the injuries build up.
Screenshot: Chris Button.
But the three-injury system adds a bit of leniency — perhaps too much — in an attempt to make the tactics genre less daunting for a mass audience. Further undercutting Zero Company’s permadeath is the medbay at the Den. Any injured characters can be prescribed bed rest or a bacta tank to reset their injury count to zero.
This limits the stress and depth of personnel management between battles. In combat, a wounded soldier is cause for alarm, forcing you to strategise accordingly, lest they end up on the memorial wall. As soon as the fighting stops, though, it doesn’t matter how banged-up they are; a trip to the medbay will see them right as rain as if nothing happened.
On the bright side, Zero Company’s approach to permadeath encourages more aggressive tactics. Risk-taking is essential to victory, with melee opponents able to flush you out of cover, while a literal factory line of battle droids can quickly overwhelm you if not taken care of quickly.
Screenshot: Chris Button.
I’ve seen enough of Star Wars Zero Company to know that I want to dive deeper into its tactical combat when it launches into hyperdrive on 27 August. Like XCOM, there’s plenty of room for organic storytelling. But it’s the scope for creative combat combinations that I’m most keen to explore.
Star Wars Zero Company was previewed on PC using a code provided by the publisher.
Alexa+, Amazon’s major AI upgrade of its smart home assistant, has started rolling out to Australian users, and I recently had a firsthand look at the technology in action. It’s definitely smarter than the original Alexa, and even had some fashion tips for me.
Joining a growing list of LLM-powered smart assistants, Alexa+ can provide answers to your questions based on contextual information. To put it to the test, I stood in front of an Echo Show 11 display and asked if I was dressed appropriately for the occasion.
Alexa then used the device’s built-in camera to snap a photo to analyse my outfit. It correctly identified my maroon sweater, including the colour, labelling the look as “smart casual”. I asked how I could dress up a bit, to which the smart assistant suggested adding a blazer or structured jacket.
It’s a pretty niche example, but it made me keen to see how AI-based assistants could play a larger role beyond just managing your smart home.
It’s not long now until Apple’s traditional iPhone launch window in September. Aside from all the talk of a heavily-rumoured foldable iPhone, the biggest talking point is how much the new iPhones will cost. Ongoing memory shortages and component price increases have driven technology prices up, with a new report taking a stab at just how much more an iPhone 18 Pro could cost to manufacture.
According to tech analyst firm TrendForce, the core components of Apple’s upcoming ‘Pro’ iPhone cost roughly 38 per cent more than those of last year’s iPhone 17 Pro. This is an estimate based on the expected bill of materials (BOM) cost of a 256GB iPhone 18 Pro, with memory the biggest cost driver.
A bill of materials refers to all of the parts that go into a device. For a phone, it includes the memory, display, processor, and every other component within the handset. Based on TrendForce’s estimates, where the processor and screen were once a phone’s costliest parts, memory is now well and truly the most expensive component.
But how much will this reported increased manufacturing cost impact retail prices? TrendForce suggests that Apple might absorb some of the costs by “sacrificing part of its gross margin to soften price increases for the iPhone 18 lineup”.
However, this move likely won’t shield customers from the checkout come new iPhone season. Outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook previously claimed that “unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable”, citing an “unsustainable” supply chain situation.
Cook’s comments were backed up by an analysis published in The Wall Street Journal, which pointed to a potential US$200 price increase for the iPhone 18 Pro. For Australians, everything likely points to a starting price well above $2,000. We’ll know for certain once Apple confirms its new range in the coming weeks.
