After watching me stand on the Withings Body Scan scales for a few mornings, my wife said, “I’m not getting on that.” The next day, she weighed herself, and the day after that, she did a full body scan. Next, she explained that her vascular age is below her actual age, whilst mine is six years older.
Yes, this device does tell you how much you weigh, but so much more. Health products are hot sellers in retailers today, and Australians are becoming more health-conscious, seeking to understand what they might need to improve their health.
With that in mind, the Withings Body Scan ($799 in Australia) can weigh you to two decimal places (within 50g), and provide your segmental body composition, which measures fat percentage, muscle weight, and water percentage. An ECG will be taken to detect whether your heart has atrial fibrillation. The apparent age of your arteries is measured to determine vascular age.
How does the Body Scan differ from regular scales?
Now I must admit that a few times a year, I would jump on the old dumb scales, then take my weight and enter it into Google Fit. With the Withings, all your stats are automatically transferred to the cloud. From here, you can sync the data with both the Google and Apple Health apps. You can even send your stats to a medical practitioner or perhaps a fitness trainer. Your standing heart rate is also measured to round out your heart functions
Through the sweat glands in your bare feet, the Body Scan will measure your nerve health before wrapping up testing with the ‘Visceral Fat Index’, which measures fat around organs, BMR, which is a measure of how many calories you burn at rest and BMI, which compares your height, which you enter separately, with your weight.
To get you ready for your day, and because the unit is connected to the internet, you will receive the day’s weather report and a pollution index.
Image: Angus Jones.
The testing requires you to stand on the scales whilst holding an attached handle. A series of tests is then completed over 90 seconds. A reasonably large screen displays your results as you go, or you can choose to see motivational messages instead. I would have liked to have seen an even larger screen, as those with deteriorating eyesight may have trouble reading it.
Information is power
The real magic, however, is the data analysis via the Withings app. Here, your data is recorded with trends shown. In my case, I know I need to lose some weight, and so far, so good. However, according to my BMI, I have a ways to go, and hopefully I can also lower my vascular age. The Body Scan can support up to eight different users, and each morning as I weigh myself, it greets me by name, I assume based on my weight.
A neat feature is that it can differentiate fat in your arms, torso, and legs and compare your figures with the average population, so you really know where you need to do some work.
Screenshots: Angus Jones.
To gain additional insights, you can add other Withings products that track sleep, exercise, and other metrics to deepen the analysis. A Withings+ subscription at $180 a year will add more advanced interpretation of your results and advice based on your health objectives. The subscription also allows you to print a detailed report that you can share with your GP, providing access to action plans and coaching on specific habits, such as sleeping better.
This subscription price, plus the purchase price, puts you at $1,000, which is a lot from one perspective. But can you put a price on your health?
For those looking for rewards, you get virtual badges for completing milestones, such as weighing yourself a specific number of times. I also like that there are special modes for pregnancy, baby weights (by holding the baby) and athletes.
Let me put it out there upfront: this is a different sort of camera drone. I have suffered from muscle memory with this new DJI Avata 360 drone compared to my regular drive of a DJI Mini. More on that later.
360-degree cameras are not new; they have been around for a decade. They haven’t really taken off yet, but they can now, literally! Indeed, DJI has strapped one to a drone. I recently took the DJI Avata 360 drone for a spin to see how it handles Australian conditions.
In the camera world, when talking about a lens, its ability to see what is in front of it is measured in degrees from side to side or top to bottom. Known as the ‘field of view’, it’s also commonly measured diagonally. If a lens can see from left to right or essentially everything in front of the camera, then the field of view would be 180 degrees. For comparison, a smartphone camera has a field of vision of 65 to 85 degrees. With two human eyes, we can see 180 to 210 degrees.
Back in the camera world, a fisheye lens can capture up to 200 degrees. If you use two fish-eye lenses opposite each other and some clever software to process the images of the two lenses, you can stitch together the two images to effectively make a 360-degree view.
A 360-degree image looks pretty funny when you represent it as a traditional photo. So, other than some fancy photography, what is the advantage of a 360-degree photo? Here, technology has taken another step forward, allowing the everyday user, through photo-editing software, to select an area from the all-around view and use that subset as the image they want to capture.
Image: Angus Jones
Think of it as a way to capture every angle of the action, just like at a football game, multiple cameras are used and pieced together to make a broadcast more interesting. Modern software can pick a subject, and no matter where that subject moves around the 360-degree camera, it will stay at the centre of the video being played back.
I cannot tell you if this will change how we use cameras and whether we all end up using 360-degree cameras. Still, technology has made it easy to capture every angle and extract the images we want, whether as a single image or a video.
We then strap this 360 camera to a drone, so you no longer need to worry about pointing the drone at the video subject, since everything around you is captured. With a traditional drone, you only get the shot if the drone and camera are pointing at the subject you want to capture.
DJI Avata 360 features
The DJI Avata 360 is a 360-degree 8K camera drone with up to 23 minutes of flight time and obstacle avoidance. The drone can be purchased in Australia as a drone-only model for $799, including one battery.
Other combos include the drone with the DJI RC 2 remote controller for $1,159, or the DJI Avata 360 Fly More Combo, which has the RC 2 controller, three batteries, a battery charging dock, and a bag to store everything for $1,619.
DJI Avata 360 Fly More box contents. Image: Angus Jones.
According to Australia’s civil aviation laws, you must be able to see a drone to fly it. So, although the remote control range is quoted as 20 km and the drone could fly 13.5 km on a single battery charge, legally, you’d probably be able to fly this drone a few hundred metres if you have good eyesight.
DJI also offers a fourth package, which includes the drone, three batteries, a battery dock, a bag, and goggles. These first-person view goggles have screens that block any external light. Using them, you see what the drone sees, and you fly in almost a virtual-reality environment. One problem is that in Australia, it is illegal to fly outdoors using the goggles. You can, however, use the goggles indoors.
Optional DJI goggles and spare lens kit. Image: Angus Jones.
The drone does not offer any zoom and instead records at up to 8K resolution using a one-inch sensor, capturing up to 60 frames per second, supporting High Dynamic Range (HDR). This means images are captured in super high definition, so if you want to zoom in, you can do so digitally during editing and still have a good image.
To protect your drone, the Avata incorporates DJI’s obstacle avoidance system, which works day and night and is especially useful when tracking a subject, such as a person jogging through the bush. Further peace of mind is provided by sturdy propeller guards built into the drone’s frame. For storage, a lens or gimbal protector is included, and if you damage a propeller, spare blades are included with each kit.
If you wish to use your drone in the traditional sense of one camera capturing what the drone is pointing at, that is also possible by switching from 360-degree mode to single-lens mode. In single-lens mode, resolution drops to 4K. Note that while the drone supports omnidirectional obstruction sensing and will avoid them in 360 mode, in single-lens mode, only obstructions in front will be avoided.
Flying this drone is almost identical to flying DJI’s other drones, using the preferred RC 2 controller with a built-in screen. Because of the ability to record 360-degree footage, you need to consider that the drone is catching all the action, so you need to do less maneuvering. Your flight time is also potentially shorter to capture all the images you want.
DJI RC 2 controller. Image: Angus Jones.
The drone certainly seems sturdier with the solid propeller guards, but the lens itself is prone to scratching, and any dust or water on the screen will degrade image quality. DJI sent me a replacement lens kit to demonstrate how easy it was to replace a lens, which is great, but it also suggests you will likely need to replace a lens during its life.
The Fly More packages come with an orange landing pad, which I also suggest using to help protect the lens. The use of the 360-degree image in obstacle avoidance also helps protect the drone from crashing, doing a better job than purely sensor-based drones. The forward-facing collision sensors are needed on the 360 to avoid collisions in low light when the camera system fails to correctly identify obstacles.
Compared to what I am used to, I found the 360 noisier to fly, drawing more attention to the drone. Editing will take longer unless you use the single lens function, which also lets you share an image without editing.
A handy new feature from DJI is a free mode function that lets you select an object on your RC 2 remote screen. When you come to edit, that selected subject is already the centre of your footage, speeding up the editing process. When you digitally zoom in on a subject, the more you zoom, the lower the resolution of the final output, which is a disadvantage compared to traditional drones with a zoomable lens. Having two cameras means the image needs to be stitched together.
Rarely, in some shots, I could see this stitch line, but halfway through testing, DJI released a software upgrade that greatly improved it. Expect further upgrades to continue to fix this.
DJI Studio editing software. Image: Angus Jones.
Editing the footage is best done via the downloadable DJI Studio app on your PC. Alternatively, you can also use the editing function in the DJI Fly app for your smartphone. A neat feature of using your phone is that you can rotate it to adjust the image, essentially giving you a gimbal to select the view you want in your edited footage.
As an example of editing, I used DJI Studio’s Intelligent Tracking feature. Here, I selected a sailboat, and the software automatically kept it in the centre frame even as the drone flew up towards the sunset. After I released the tracking, the image returned to the direction the drone was actually flying. I could have selected anything in the 360-degree view and also zoomed in on it.
Whilst I did try the first-person view goggles when flying the drone inside my home, this is not an accessory I would advise for the everyday user, given its outdoor restrictions. You can get a special license to overcome this. I found it uncomfortable that I could not see the drone, only what it saw.
If you look at the DJI Avata 360 with the RC 2 controller, the Mini Pro 5 ($1,119) is priced very similarly in Australia. If I were to choose, I probably would stick with the Mini, as that is what I am used to. However, I would probably choose the Avata 360 if I were prepared to do more editing.
Who is the DJI Avata 360 for?
The DJI Avata 360 drone is for travellers, action adventurers, and creators who want to capture video in one take and decide on the framing of the final output during editing. With its advanced avoidance system, this drone is ideal for beginners.
I see this drone as ideal for capturing action sports with multiple participants, and by simply flying it amongst the action, you can pan between participants in editing.
DJI Avata 360
Capable of recording footage from all angles, the DJI Avata 360 drone gives you plenty of flexibility with a bit of time in the edit suite.
Features
9
Value for money
8
Performance
8
Ease of use
9
Design
9
Positives
360-degree camera captures images in one take
Excellent obstacle avoidance
Great drone for beginners and to capture action sports
Aqara has launched the G400 wired doorbell camera in Australia, with the $199 device one of the few to support Apple HomeKit Secure Video locally.
Devices that work with Apple’s secure smart home platform can save encrypted recordings to recent Apple TVs or HomePods, and upload them to iCloud. Apple Home users can also access further integration, including facial recognition of people saved in the Photos app.
Outside of the Apple ecosystem, the Aqara G400 — shown at IFA last year — also works with Amazon, Samsung, and Google smart home platforms. It may not quite have the Matter support of its Aqara G350 camera hub sibling, but it still works with a decent range of ecosystems.
From a hardware perspective, the video doorbell captures 2K footage with a 165-degree field of view. As a wired device, it needs either a power over Ethernet (PoE) or an 8-24V doorbell connection. As such, it runs 24/7 without the need for recharging, while supplying a Wi-Fi 6 wireless connection to other smart devices.
Included with the G400 are various standard smart home features, ranging from local processing of motion and person detection to customisable detection zones. There’s also two-way communication when someone presses the doorbell button, letting you respond via your phone.
More advanced features, like package and vehicle detection, plus AI summaries of footage, require a paid HomeGuardian subscription, which starts at $4.99 per month in Australia. Storage doesn’t necessarily require an ongoing fee, with microSD card support and automatic backing up of footage to a NAS server.
Aussies can get the Aqara G400 with a $50 launch discount until 25 May, bringing the price down to $149 via Aqara’s online store.
Have you ever sat in a doctor’s surgery and the doctor said, “Why don’t we check your blood pressure?” I know at this point my anxiety peaks, and the doctor ends up taking it a few times, followed by that’s interesting”. The interesting bit is that the doc cannot seem to get a consistent reading. Back to the anxiety, where my worries about the result actually affect the result.
Health guidelines recommend getting your blood pressure checked every two years if you are healthy and under 45 years of age. Over 45s should get checked annually, and if you are a smoker or have a family history of heart disease, every six months.
If your doctor is concerned, or if you cannot obtain an accurate reading in their office, you should take readings twice daily at home for a week. If you do have a blood pressure issue, you should monitor it once or twice a week ongoing.
The measurement of blood pressure is a barometer of your heart’s workload and the condition of your blood vessels. The results are measured with two numbers. The first, or top, number is the pressure your heart pumps to push blood through your veins. The second or lower number is the pressure between heartbeats when the pressure subsides.
A normal result is less than both 120 over 80. An elevated result is 120-129 over 80, and a bad result is 130 over 80 or higher.
Measuring your blood pressure at home
Back to the false readings at the doctor. The recommendation is to take some home readings over a week and go back and see your doctor. Unfortunately, the best way to do this is to buy a blood pressure monitor or borrow one from a friend. The good news is you can buy a monitor at a chemist or your local Harvey Norman or JB Hi-Fi. Prices start around $50, so hiring is not really worth it.
I have been testing the Beurer Blood Pressure Monitor BM 64, a Bluetooth monitor that syncs with your smartphone and stores your results in the cloud. The BM 64 retails for around $150.
Image: Beurer.
A cheaper model will let you record your pressure, but I really like having a Bluetooth-connected monitor that syncs with both Apple Health and Google Fit to give you a long-term health record. This record is something your doctor will be very happy to read, as it spares them the need to guess on a single result in the surgery.
Just a quick note, I like that Beurer has been around for more than 100 years, developing products in the well-being and healthcare space, and not just pumping out a product because it is the latest trend.
If the smartphone connection is beyond you, the BM 64 will record the last 120 results, so you could always take it along to your doctor.
Is the Beurer BM 64 easy to use?
Although not completely idiot-proof, you will get feedback on the display if you have an issue with an individual reading. This could be caused by not relaxing during a reading or incorrect fitment of the sleeve.
To operate, place the cuff firmly on your arm above your elbow with the Velcro strap, then press the centre button to activate, and press it again to start the measurement. After about a minute, a reading appears, is automatically uploaded to your smartphone, and is displayed on the screen. Don’t worry if you don’t understand what the numbers mean, as a multicoloured chart on the side indicates your pressure health. Green through yellow to orange, with red being bad.
Cuff on arm. Image: Angus Jones.
Beyond measuring your blood pressure, the monitor will also measure your pulse and any arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms), with this information also stored and sent to the cloud.
It’s good to know that more gadgets are available to help with our everyday health and diagnosis.
Looking super cute while brimming with advanced features, the dual-lens Aqara G350 camera hub keeps a watchful eye on your home.
There was a time when home security cameras were primarily focused on catching uninvited guests, but these days they’re more about checking in on family and pets left home alone.
Don’t be fooled by the cute bunny ears, the $269 Aqara G350 looks like a basic baby monitor but is actually much more. It can look around, track objects and zoom in, all while supporting the latest smart home standards.
The Aqara G350 camera hub is extremely cute, although not everyone will appreciate its style. Thankfully, the bunny ears are removable if you’re after something a bit more conservative.
The Aqara G350’s bunny ears are easily removed. Image: Adam Turner.
Even then, the camera looks like it’s designed to live on a bedside table. To make the most of it, it belongs in an open living area with a clear view of its surroundings.
The camera stands around 14 cm tall, with a 7 cm circular base, making it roughly the size of a 375 ml can of soft drink. It’s designed to sit on a flat surface and would tuck away nicely on a shelf, although you do have the advantage of a 1/4-inch mounting threaded on the bottom (but no mounting bracket in the box).
While it might not look like much, the Aqara G350 packs an impressive set of features considering its price tag.
For starters, it’s a pan-tilt camera allowing the whole body to rotate 180 degrees left or right. Its movement is completely silent, so as not to draw attention to itself.
This means you get a full 360-degree horizontal view, with a slight fisheye on the wide-angle lens.
While a 360-degree view is great, keep in mind the camera still needs access to AC power, perhaps making it tricky to set up in the middle of a room. It comes with a two-metre USB-C to USB-C cable but no AC adapter, which is frustrating if you don’t have a spare USB-C AC plug lying around.
Meanwhile, the camera can tilt up/down around 45 degrees each way, leaving slight blind spots above and below – falling short of the more flexible Tapo C206 security camera.
Affordable pan-tilt cameras are becoming more common, but what really helps the Aqara G350 stand out is the inclusion of both 4K wide-angle and 2.5K telephoto lenses. With sharp resolutions, they ensure that you get a very clear picture of what’s happening.
Closer inspection reveals the Aqara G350 has two lenses. Image: Adam Turner.
The camera also has a built-in microphone and speaker, plus there’s a function button on the front. It’s for managing connectivity rather than muting the camera/microphone, which will disappoint those who sometimes want their privacy.
The camera does feature a privacy mode, but perhaps not what you’d expect. From the Aqara app, you can roll the little device’s eyes back into its head, revealing two cute closed eyes with the microSD slot for a mouth.
This privacy mode can be scheduled, but it can only be controlled remotely and not by people in the room with the camera, unlike the physical privacy shield on the Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Camera.
The function button also features a status light, which assists with troubleshooting connectivity and also turns orange to reveal when someone is remotely watching the live feed.
The Aqara G350 camera hub is easy to set up using the Aqara app and QR codes, with extra QR codes for connection to Matter and Apple Home. Be prepared for it to ask for access to a lot of features, such as location, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, notifications, Apple Home and the ability to find other devices.
Part of the reason the camera requests so much access is that it’s also a connectivity hub. It’s billed as the world’s first Matter-certified camera, which is a low-powered, wireless connectivity standard designed to enable interoperability across smart home ecosystems.
As a hub, Aqara G350 supports the low-powered Zigbee and Thread mesh wireless protocols, acting as a bridge for Aqara devices and other smart home gear.
The camera is also platform-agnostic, working with Apple (including HomeKit Secure Video), Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings and IFTTT.
This level of interoperability is still quite rare, making the Aqara G350 a sensible choice if you’re reluctant to lock yourself into one smart home ecosystem. That said, it’s early days for Matter camera support, so your mileage may vary.
By default, the camera sends you a smartphone notification via the Aqara app when something comes into view, with the ability to distinguish people and pets from general movement. You also get the option to snooze notifications for 30, 60 or 120 minutes.
You can click on a smartphone notification to see the live feed or, if you’re too late, an instant replay. When viewing the live feed, the camera interface offers easy access to the plan, tilt and zoom features, including the ability to simply tap on something to get a better view.
Privacy mode rolls the lenses back into the head to reveal a cute face with closed eyes. Image: Adam Turner.
From this menu, you can also enable AI-powered Person, Animal and Close-up tracking, which automatically returns to its default position 30 seconds after losing sight of the object. There’s also a configurable Cruise mode that regularly scans the room.
The app doesn’t support creating activity zones to limit notifications, but that’s no great loss considering that activity zones typically don’t adjust when the camera moves.
The camera can even support gesture recognition. You can make the okay sign, with one or two hands, to trigger specific events across the Aqara ecosystem, which includes cameras, doorbells, sensors, controllers, switches and smart locks.
Plus, there’s a creepy-sounding ‘smile detection’, which is seemingly designed to capture happy family moments.
Along with video, the camera also supports two-way audio, which includes the AI-powered ability to detect alarms, crying babies, barking dogs, coughing, snoring and general loud noises.
The camera also supports AI Video Search via keyword, along with AI-written summaries. It’s worth noting that a lot of the AI detection features are labelled ‘Lab’, meaning they are still a work in progress.
To take advantage of all these advanced features, the Aqara G350 comes with a three-month free Home Guardian plan, after which it is priced $4.99 p/m ($49.99 p/a) for one camera or $9.99 p/m ($99.99 p/a) for unlimited cameras.
AI-powered people, pets, faces, lens obstruction, motion and sound detection are available without a subscription. The Home Guardian plan unlocks vehicle and package detection, AI summary and search, and 90 days of cloud video storage.
Quality
The Aqara G350 camera hub does a decent job of tracking movement around the room, issuing alarms for people and pets. Close-up tracking is a bit hit-and-miss, but the gesture control works well.
Manual control of the telephoto lens is certainly helpful for getting a good view of someone’s face on the other side of the room, although it doesn’t cope as well with bright backlights as the wide-angle lens.
At a range of seven metres, the telephoto lens (1x, 3x and 9x) makes it much easier to see people’s faces clearly. Image: Adam Turner.
The two-way audio quality is also pretty good for speaking to people on the other side of the room.
Sadly, the AI audio detection is less impressive, failing to detect alarms, crying babies, coughing or barking dogs (the last two of which are in Labs). My dogs actually did a much better job of alerting me to all of those sounds.
Who is the Aqara G350 camera hub for?
The combination of pan/tilt controls and wide/telephoto lenses makes the Aqara G350 camera hub an extremely versatile camera – assuming you have a good central spot to install it, with easy access to power.
The AI video detection works well, but the AI audio features seem to be much more of a work in progress. Digging through the menus reveals a wide range of ‘Lab’ features, so it will be interesting to see how the camera’s capabilities improve over time.
The icing on the cake is impressive smart home interoperability, particularly Matter support as both a camera and a hub. This keeps your options open when it comes to committing to a smart home ecosystem, keeping in mind that interoperability isn’t always smooth sailing.
Aqara G350 camera hub
Packed with features and future-proof, the Aqara G350 camera hub fits into any smart home.
Features
9.5
Value for money
9
Performance
8.5
Ease of use
8.5
Design
8.5
Positives
Pan/tilt controls
Dual wide and telephoto lens with 4K / 2.5K resolution
Not everyone is seemingly a fan of the current Mac operating system’s design, which is something Apple will address in the upcoming macOS 27 update.
As reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Guerman, some design tweaks set for macOS 27 will address readability, without overhauling the aesthetic entirely. Last year, Apple introduced a new software design called “Liquid Glass”, a uniform style that came with its suite of operating system updates, including iOS 26 and macOS 26.
Liquid Glass introduced a range of translucent effects to the user interface, letting users see through some menu items to the content behind. Early impressions were divided, with Apple tweaking the design before the major operating system updates arrived in September.
According to Gurman, Liquid Glass hasn’t quite taken off as Apple would’ve liked across its Mac range. Some of the menu items aren’t as easy to read on a Mac’s display as on an iPhone or iPad.
In response, Apple is reportedly tweaking the macOS 27 design to “make Liquid Glass look the way Apple’s design team intended it to from the start”. The see-through look of the software won’t go away. Instead, it is meant to be easier to parse and fit more cohesively within the Mac user experience.
Apple’s planned visual changes are expected to join various other software improvements. Battery life is one of them, helping Mac users squeeze in a bit of extra time before needing to charge.
Aussies eager to play the latest Nintendo games will soon have to pay more for the privilege, after the Japanese company announced a price increase for the Switch 2.
When Nintendo first announced the Switch 2 last year, the price was the biggest talking point. Nintendo’s hardware typically sells for less than its main console competitors from Sony and Microsoft. While that was still technically the case, its $699.95 launch price tag in Australia was a big leap from the original Switch’s $469 cost.
As of 1 September 2026, Nintendo will increase the Australian price of the Switch 2 to $769.95, a $70 bump. Nintendo’s official reasoning was that it was “in response to various changes in market conditions, which are expected to extend over the medium to long term”.
“We understand that pricing changes can be challenging for customers and deeply appreciate the continued enthusiasm of our fans for Nintendo products and experiences,” said a news update on Nintendo’s website.
However, Nintendo is expecting slower sales in the coming financial year: 16.50 million. Higher component prices, and therefore increased costs for consumers, are a big reason why.
