News written by Petteri Pyyny (May, 2025)

European Union's new directive promoting sustainable consumer electronics, known as Ecodesign, comes into effect in June 2025. Among other things, it mandates that smartphones must receive software updates for a minimum of five years.

European Union's new Ecodesign legislation, aimed at improving repairability and extending the lifespan of electronics, partially takes effect on June 20, 2025.

Perhaps the most significant shake-up in the new rules targets budget smartphones, but the law will also ripple through the higher-end device market.

Only in recent years have Android manufacturers started gradually extending their software update commitments--that is, how many major Android version upgrades a phone receives during its lifecycle and how many years of security updates are guaranteed.

For cheaper phones, say, phones under €300, most brands have so far promised just two Android updates - with security patches for only two or three years. Some manufacturers have even launched phones in recent years with zero guaranteed Android upgrades and just two years of security updates.

That's about to change.

In a quite interesting move, Signal - the privacy-focused messaging app favored by journalists and privacy advocates - has quietly rolled out a new safeguard for its Windows desktop application. Going forward, users on Windows will no longer be able to take screenshots that include the Signal app window. Whether you're capturing the whole screen or just a portion, if Signal is visible, it'll appear as nothing more than a black box.

The feature doesn't impact macOS, iOS, or Android versions of the app - it's strictly a Windows-only measure. And there's a very specific reason behind this: Microsoft's controversial Recall feature.

Recall, which Microsoft plans to reintroduce despite backlash, automatically captures screenshots of a user's screen every few seconds in the background. The idea is that these snapshots can help users, with the assistance of Windows' Copilot AI, retrace their steps or recover forgotten actions - say, the name of that app you briefly opened or the form you accidentally closed.

But for privacy-first platforms like Signal, that kind of constant surveillance raises major red flags. And since Microsoft hasn't offered any tools for developers to opt their apps out of Recall's screenshot collection, Signal has taken matters into its own hands - creatively.

One of the biggest players in the robot vacuum market, Roborock, has been pushing the boundaries with innovation and smart ideas for several years now.

In early 2025, Roborock unveiled a fresh wave of new products, which hit store shelves that same spring. We got our hands on the company's flagship release, the Roborock Saros 10, even before it officially launched in Europe.

The big headline feature of the Roborock Saros 10? It's the lowest-profile robot vacuum currently on the market. In other words, it should fit under sofas and beds that other robot vacuums simply can't squeeze beneath.

Of course, it's also a feature-packed flagship device - a fact reflected in its hefty $1600/€1500 price tag. The Saros 10 is a mopping, self-emptying, self-washing, obstacle-dodging robot vacuum - the whole package.

We put the Saros 10 through our traditional real-world testing: the robot was tasked with cleaning the floors of a typical Nordic home over a period of two months. During that time, it was the only tool used for floor cleaning - no brooms or vacuums allowed.

The test period coincided with the tail end of the Finnish spring, meaning mud, grit, and sand were constantly being tracked indoors - the perfect storm for a proper stress test.