Just as flower buds are beginning to bloom to mark the seasonal shift toward warmer months, Amazon is hosting its first big sale event of 2025. The Big Spring Sale, as it is known, is happening now and runs through Monday, March 31st, bringing with it a slew of discounts on gardening supplies, bedding, and other necessities. While the discounts aren’t as steep as during tentpole events like Prime Day or even Amazon’s October event (and the frequency of new deals coming to the surface has slowed down), you can still find steep savings on security cameras, headphones, smartwatches, the best football video game released in the past year, and loads of other tech.

We’ve dug into all the deals and discounts available so far, the best of which you’ll find below. By and large, most of the deals will last until the end of the event. And, while having a Prime subscription means your packages will certainly arrive more quickly, you don’t necessarily need to be a member to get in on these tried-and-tested Verge favorites (only in rare cases are deals exclusive to Prime members, and we’ll note when that’s the case). We’ll also be keeping an eye on deals at competing retailers, including Best Buy, Walmart, and Target.

Featured deals

Robot vacuum deals

• The Dreame L20 Ultra is on sale for a new low of $549.99 ($450 off) at Amazon. It lacks the self-retracting arms found on the newer, more powerful X40, but otherwise it’s a great cleaning machine. The dual mop pads can still extend to clean baseboard and corners, while its 7,000Pa of suction power does a good job of sucking up unwanted dirt and debris. The robovac is also capable of emptying its own dust bin and water tanks (as well as refilling them), in addition to washing and drying its own mop pads.

• Verge smart home reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy recommends the Roborock Q5 Pro for those who want a budget-friendly robot vacuum that’s skilled in the arcane art of sucking up pet hair. Fortunately, the Q5 Pro Plus model is on sale at Amazon with its auto-empty bin for just $299.99 ($400 off) — a $70 upcharge on the standard Q50 Pro that’s well worth it if your space has a lot of fur to sweep up.
• If you’re looking for an even cheaper robot vacuum, you can buy the SwitchBot K10 Plus with a self-emptying dock for a new low of $175.99 at Amazon, down from $399.99. The small, quiet robovac only offers 2,500Pa suction, but that’s still powerful enough to suck up dirt from most carpets. It also offers a lidar-based mapping system, and while it lacks bells and whistles like obstacle avoidance, it at least lets you set digital keep-out zones. Plus, as an added bonus, you can use it with disposable mopping pads.

Headphone and earbud deals

• The Beats Studio Pro are on sale at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for $179.95 ($170 off), which remains one of the best prices we’ve seen. Looks-wise, they’re not drastically different than prior Beats models, though they tack on a useful transparency mode, personalized spatial audio, and lossless playback over USB-C. Plus, unlike most noise-canceling headphones, they offer native support for both iOS and Android software features. Read our review.
• If you prefer a pair of noise-canceling earbuds that support native software features on both iOS and Android, the Beats Studio Buds Plus are available at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for around $130 ($40 off), nearly matching their best price to date. Yes, their lack of wireless charging and in-ear detection stings a bit at their typical list price, but their see-through design is slick enough that the shortcomings are (almost) forgivable. Read our review.
• If you’re not dead set on noise cancellation but would still like a pair of Apple earbuds, the recently released AirPods 4 are matching their all-time low of $99.99 ($30 off) at Amazon and Walmart right now. They’re a substantial upgrade over the prior model when it comes to call clarity and sound, and they offer the same seamless integration with macOS, iOS, and tvOS as the rest of Apple’s earbuds. Read our review.

• The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e — aka, the best-sounding wireless headphones you can buy — are available at Amazon starting at $295.60 (about $103 off), or from Bower & Wilkins or Best Buy for $318.99 ($80 off). The British audio brand isn’t as well-known as Sony or Bose, though with the S2E, you’re getting superb sound, superior build quality, and controls that rely on physical buttons as opposed to the tap/swipe gestures found on mainstream noise-canceling headphones like Sony’s XM5. Read our review.
• Anker’s Soundcore Sport X20 earbuds are on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart for $63.99 ($16 off), matching their second-best price to date. The fitness-friendly buds are a lot like the Sport X10 — which were once our favorite budget earbuds for the gym — only they offer longer battery life, a more robust IP68 water resistance rating, and multipoint support. They also supposedly offer better noise cancellation and continue to sport an adjustable ear hook, which is a boon if you’re someone who struggles with keeping traditional earbuds in during intense gym sessions.

Portable charger and cable deals

• Power banks with built-in USB-C cables are the hot thing right now. As it turns out, having a battery pack that can charge your device in a jiffy and double as a lanyard is pretty great. Luckily, you can snag one of the most affordable 20,000mAh models out there, Anker’s 30W Zolo power bank, for $24.61 (about $11 off) at Amazon. While it’s not powerful enough to quickly charge a Steam Deck that’s running games, it’ll do just fine for charging it (as well as other USB-C devices) while they sleep.
• If you’re someone who owns (or, someday, envisions owning) USB-C gadgets that draw a lot of power, it’s wise to buy cables with high wattage passthrough, just so you’re ready for the future. Anker’s six-foot 240W USB-C cable is a great candidate, especially since it’s discounted to $16.99 ($8 off) at Amazon.
• Ugreen’s Uno lineup of charging accessories aims to be more personable. To that end, its 6.6-foot 1ooW USB-C cable — which is currently discounted to $10.39 ($2.61 off) at Amazon — has expressive, Tamagotchi-like eyes. The reason? There’s no reason — it’s just cute, okay?

• If you’re not ready to pony up for a Qi2 charger, Ugreen’s Magnetic Wireless Charging Station has fallen to an all-time low of $21.99 ($14 off) at Amazon. Unlike the newer Qi2 offerings that provide 15W charging speeds, Ugreen’s charger can only supply 7.5W of power to MagSafe-compatible devices, or 5W to a pair of wireless earbuds or any Qi-ready device if you’re using the integrated charging stand located on the bottom.
• If you need a cheap way to charge your gadgets, Anker’s 30W Nano Charger is matching its all-time low of $12.99 ($3 off) in select colors at Amazon and Anker’s online storefront (with code WS7DV29VBNV2). The single-port USB-C offering doesn’t include a charging cable; however, it does come in a few fun colors and sports a set of folding prongs that allow you to stow it just about anywhere.

Speaker and soundbar deals

• JBL’s Charge 5 is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart in multiple colors starting at $119.95 ($60 off), which is the best price we’ve seen on the portable speaker since July. We’re not huge fans of the oversized JBL logo, but the powerful Bluetooth speaker hits all the right marks when it comes to functionality and performance, offering an impressive 20 hours of battery life and a built-in USB-A port that lets you top off your phone while listening to music.
• Despite the fact the Sonos app has been a bit of a debacle as of late, I have few qualms about recommending the Sonos Era 100 for around $199 ($50 off), its current price at Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos’ online storefront. It’s a great smart speaker with stereo sound, privacy-conscious microphone controls, and support for both Bluetooth and line-in connections. It can also connect to Spotify and every other music service you can think of and supports AirPlay 2, letting you stream content from Apple devices. Read our review.

• Amazon’s latest Echo Dot is down to $39.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Kohl’s. The tiny, orb-shaped smart speaker features onboard microphones and produces good sound for its size, making it a solid option for listening to music, issuing smart home commands, checking the weather, and making other various Alexa requests. It also includes a built-in temperature sensor, which can tell you the temperature in the room and trigger various Alexa Routines, if necessary. Read our review.
• Sony’s SRS-XB100 speaker is available at Amazon and Best Buy for around $48 ($12 off) or at Target for $39.99 if you’re a member of the retailer’s free loyalty program. Despite the fact it’s tiny, the Bluetooth speaker delivers crisp, clear sound along with up to 16 hours of continuous battery life. It also sports IP67 dust and water resistance, so you can take it hiking or to the pool without worrying. Read our review.

Smart home deals

• The newer Eero Max 7 routers are also down to some of their best prices to date, with Amazon and Eero selling a single router, which can cover 2,500 square feet, for $479.99 ($120 off). You can also buy two for $919.99 ($230 off) or three for $1,359.99 ($340 off). The mesh routers support Wi-Fi 7 and feature a pair of 10GB ethernet ports, along with two 2.5GB ethernet ports. They also support Matter as well as Zigbee, and can act as a Thread border router.
• You can buy the Eve Energy Smart Plug and Power Meter at Amazon for $29.95 ($10 off), an all-time low. Like other smart plugs, Eve’s handy device can turn traditional indoor gadgets like lamps and fans into smart devices; it’s also capable of monitoring your energy use and works with all the major smart home platforms (Amazon Alexa, Google Home, etc.) thanks to its support for the newer Matter standard.
• Ring’s latest Indoor Cam is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and The Home Depot for $39.99 ($20 off), matching its second-best price to date. The 1080p security camera boasts all the same features as the prior model — including two-way talk, color night vision, and a built-in siren — only it’s equipped with a redesigned mount that makes it easier to adjust. That said, you’ll need a Ring Protect Plan ($4.99 a month / $49.99 a year) to share or view video recordings.

• You can grab a four-pack of Meross Smart Plug Minis on sale at Amazon for an all-time low of $28.99 ($15 off) when you clip the on-page coupon. That brings the handy, hubless smart plugs down to just over $7 a pop, allowing you to control a range of traditional devices via Apple Home, Google Home, or Amazon Alexa without breaking the bank.
• Want a compact smart display for your nightstand? Amazon’s latest Echo Show 5 is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo for $69.99 ($20 off), which is a pretty typical discount. The Alexa-enabled smart display is Amazon’s smallest at 5.5 inches, though it’s still plenty big enough for managing smart home devices and controlling music playback. It also has a 2-megapixel camera (with an integrated privacy shutter), just in case you want to use it for more than a smart alarm clock.
• The Blink Wired Floodlight Camera is on sale for $69.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and The Home Depot, which is $20 shy of its all-time low and the best price we’ve seen since the holidays. The inexpensive, Alexa-compatible outdoor security camera offers decent 1080p video, sports a 105dB siren, and provides 2,600 lumens of brightness via two onboard floodlights. You can also mount it horizontally or vertically, and the camera provides local recording — assuming you opt for the optional Sync Module 2 and a USB stick.

• Amazon’s Smart Thermostat has returned to $61.99 ($18 off) at Amazon and Kohl’s, which has sort of become its base sale price in recent months. The modern, easy-to-use thermostat allows for easy control of your HVAC even while you’re not home and supports Alexa “hunches” to try and predict what changes you need based on your habits, which could help you save on your monthly bill. Read our review.
• Amazon’s Smart Air Quality Monitor is on sale for $54.99 ($15 off) at Amazon, which is $10 shy of its best price yet. Not only does the budget-friendly gadget let you know when your air quality is poor, it can also help improve it by automatically turning on Alexa-enabled devices — including smart thermostats and air purifiers — via Alexa Hunches. Read our original review.

Tablet and e-reader deals

• Amazon’s ad-supported Fire HD 10 tablet is on sale at Amazon and Best Buy right now with 32GB of storage starting at $94.99 ($45 off), or about $20 shy of its lowest price to date. The 2023 model sports USB-C charging, a 10.1-inch, 1080p display, and 3GB of RAM, which is plenty if all you’re doing is streaming or browsing. Just be aware that, like all of Amazon’s budget-minded tablets, it’s really focused on serving up Amazon content at every turn.
• If you prefer a big-screen, note-taking alternative to the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Colorsoft, the 2024 Kindle Scribe is matching its all-time low of $324.99 ($75 off) at Amazon and Best Buy with 32GB of storage. It remains the biggest Kindle available thanks to its 10.2-inch 300 ppi display, which features a textured cover that makes it feel more akin to writing on paper. The latest model offers a host of new writing features, too, including a tool that lets you jot notes directly in your book. Read our review.

Smartwatch and fitness tracker deals

• Amazon and Walmart are both selling the Garmin Venu Sq 2 starting at around $189 ($60 off), which matches its second-best price to date. Although not originally priced as such, it’s considered an entry-level fitness watch for Garmin fans. It’s pretty stylish, overall, and can last just as long and do just as much as a Fitbit (if not more). We also like it for its wide breadth of health and workout-tracking features, along with its support for built-in GPS and contactless payments. Read our full review.

Other Verge favorites

• The Blue Yeti microphone is on sale at Amazon in a myriad of colors starting at $89.99 ($40 off). That’s not the lowest price we’ve seen — it’s fallen to around $70 in the past — but it’s still a good deal on what has become a certifiable classic USB mic in the era of never-ending Zoom meetings. The versatile mic is easy to set up and simple to use, with a three-capsule microphone that can capture clear, warm sound that should appeal to both amateur podcasters and anyone wanting a more professional setup.
• One of our go-to gift guide picks, the Instant Pot Duo Plus, is currently available for an all-time low of $89.95 ($40 off) at Amazon. Multiple Verge staffers swear by the six-quart multi-cooker, which is similar to the base-model instant pot but comes with a few additional smart programs, including a customizable sous vide setting and a cake option that lets you pressure cook at high temperature for 40 minutes. That’s in addition to the ability to cook rice, steam veggies, and saute, among other actions.

• Govee may be best known for its ambient TV backlighting, but it also makes lighting products to illuminate your entire living space in shades of RGB. One of its most stunning lights, the Smart Table Lamp 2, is on sale for $55.99 ($14 off) at Amazon. It can provide vibrant lights for a gathering, or you can adjust its color temperature to suit your bedtime and wake-up rituals better.
• Having access to clean drinking water everywhere you are is a privilege, but not guaranteed. If you’ll be out in the wild, or if you’re vacationing but want to be cautious when it comes to water intake, the LifeStraw Peak is worth picking up at Amazon for its current price of $18.62 ($6 off). It’s essentially a thick straw outfitted with a filter that’s capable of removing 99.9 percent of bacteria, parasites, and microplastics from the water you’re drinking.
• Cagiwiru’s Cordless Air Blower / Duster is down to an all-time low of $18.04 ($7 off) at Amazon (at checkout). It might not be as powerful as a can of compressed air, but it’s close, and it’s much more versatile with its swappable tips, built-in light, and ability to recharge via USB-C.

• The AeroPress Go is nearly matching its best price to date at Amazon, where you can pick it up for $31.95 ($18 off). It’s basically a lighter, more self-contained version of the original AeroPress, which has become a well-known staple amongst Verge staffers. It’s a simple way to make great coffee on the go, especially since it comes with a filter holder, a scoop, a mug, and other accessories designed to make life a little easier.
• Pet owners who strive to keep pet hair to a minimum shouldn’t overlook the ChomChom Roller, especially since it’s currently on sale at Amazon for $19.59 ($5 off). This simple tool can de-fur your couch faster and more effectively than most vacuums, even if it’s not the best tool for ridding clothes of unwanted hair.

• We like Hoto’s svelte toolkits for a couple of reasons. They strike a minimalistic look, for one thing, and they incorporate at least one power tool. The company’s Drill Tool Set — which is on sale at Amazon for a new low of $159.58 ($40 off) — is no exception, as it comes with a power drill, a bunch of bits, and several other handy tools.
• Wildfire season might be a ways off, but if you’d like to get ahead, you can pick up Coway’s Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty from Amazon and Coway for $165 ($75 off), which nearly matches its second-best price to date. The compact HEPA air purifier features a four-stage filtration system, and though we don’t do a ton of dedicated air purifier testing here at The Verge, we can personally attest to the effectiveness of this midrange model for smaller rooms.
• If you own a newer Samsung Galaxy phone and need an alternative to AirTags, it’s worth considering the Galaxy SmartTag2, which is on sale at Chewy for $16.96 (about $13 off), its second-best price to date. It’s similar to Apple’s item trackers in that it uses ultra-wideband Bluetooth to provide pinpoint, compass-guided directions to your lost items. They can also tap into the Galaxy Find network and offer up to 500 days of battery life, or up to 40 percent longer in a low-power state.

Update, March 29th: Updated to reflect current pricing/availability and several new deals, including an excellent discount on SwitchBot’s Smart Switch Button Pusher.

It’s sold as an outdoor camplight, but BougeRV’s very bright LED lantern is really a multifunctional work lamp for any place that needs an extra dose of lighting. It’s rechargeable and compact enough to serve as a long-lasting flashlight with three swiveling LED panels that can direct 3000 lumens onto your table, campsite, workspace, or engine block from a height of more than five feet thanks to its telescoping aluminum pole.

I’ve found it impressively versatile and useful over the last week of testing at home, at the beach, or tooling around in my camper van. It provides warm or cold light exactly where I need it, with three levels of brightness ranging from dim to supernova.

At $109.99, the BougeRV Outdoor Portable Telescopic Camping Lantern is also more capable than many of its more expensive competitors. There’s a lot to like here.

At the heart of this lantern is a 57.7Wh battery that can power the lamp on its lowest setting for up to 60 hours, or about three hours when all three LED strips are set to max brightness. You can power it off USB-C from a separate external battery or wall jack if you need more time. It’s slim enough to carry in the water bottle pocke …

Read the full story at The Verge.

A few years after buying Twitter for $44 billion, Elon Musk announced that his AI business xAI has acquired the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. In a tweet, he described it as an all-stock transaction, valuing xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, including $12 billion in debt it had as part of his takeover. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach,” writes Musk.

In response to a deal cementing about $11 billion in lost value since the 2022 sale, X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted, “The future could not be brighter.”

Despite failing so far to make X an “everything app,” Musk has tied these two ventures together closely since launching xAI in the summer of 2023, saying that access to the vast trove of data from Twitter / X would give it a major advantage, and prominently placing xAI’s Grok tool within the social app. This week, Grok launched an integration beyond X, joining Telegram.

The arrangement is also a reminder of a previous Musk deal combining two companies he controlled. Tesla Motors acquired SolarCity, a company with Musk as its largest individual shareholder and his cousin Lyndon Rive as CEO, for $2.6 billion in 2016 and dropped “Motors” from its name. Musk didn’t mention Tesla in the announcement, after already proclaiming “I have, like, 17 jobs” at a hastily-announced all-hands meeting for the car company last week — it’s unclear if this deal adds to or subtracts from the number.

Today’s tweet also didn’t mention his ambition for the service to handle “someone’s entire financial life,” but it does repeat his claim of X as “the digital town square.”As we noted in January, xAI staffers were also X employees, with company laptops and access to its code base. Musk had also previously claimed X investors would own 25 percent of XAI, but as of January, that had not materialized for X employees with shares in the company.

While X’s valuation had reportedly dropped since the 2022 takeover before recently rebounding, the value of xAI has risen along with other companies in the space like Nvidia and OpenAI, where Musk has gone from co-founder and early investor to rival and legal antagonist since walking away in 2018. The Wall Street Journal reported xAI had been valued at $50 billion in an investment round last November, more than double its $24 billion valuation during another funding round in the spring of 2024.

Elon Musk:

@xAI has acquired @X in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt).

Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale.

X is the digital town square where more than 600M active users go to find the real-time source of ground truth and, in the last two years, has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies in the world, positioning it to deliver scalable future growth.

xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach. The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.

I would like to recognize the hardcore dedication of everyone at xAI and X that has brought us to this point. This is just the beginning.

Thank you for your continued partnership and support.

A court took action on Friday to keep the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from shutting down a consumer watchdog agency while its court case plays out.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted a preliminary injunction to save the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from being further gutted while she decides whether the Trump administration has the legal authority to dismantle it in the first place. “Absent an injunction freezing the status quo – preserving the agency’s data, its operational capacity, and its workforce – there is a substantial risk that the defendants will complete the destruction of the agency completely in violation of law well before the Court can rule on the merits, and it will be impossible to rebuild,” Jackson writes.

The ruling is a significant win for the federal workers’ union and groups that rely on the CFPB’s work that filed the complaint, alleging that the Trump administration is violating the separation of powers under the Constitution by trying to eliminate an agency established by Congress. They’ve warned that the efforts to wind down the agency have already left many consumers without sufficient recourse for their complaints about financial services. In recent years, the CFPB has increasingly become a check on the technology industry as tech companies grew into the financial services space. ( For example, Elon Musk’s X purports to eventually become a payments service.)

But as DOGE got involved at the agency, according to reporting and testimony presented before the judge, the CFPB terminated technologists — who would, obviously, be necessary staff when regulating tech companies — and placed much of its workforce on administrative leave. After CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought told agency staff on February 10th to “stand down from performing any work task,” workers testified they followed that order literally. Allegedly, this surprised the administration, with one official later clarifying that statutorily mandated work should still get done.

The judge says she was “left with little confidence that the defense can be trusted to tell the truth about anything,” saying that the government’s arguments that CFPB workers were back to work have “been shown to be unreliable and inconsistent with the agency’s own contemporaneous records.” She also condemned an “eleventh hour attempt to suggest immediately before the hearing that the stop work order was not really a stop work order at all.”

Jackson opens her opinion with quotes from Musk (the public face of DOGE), Vought, and President Donald Trump about their alleged intentions to eliminate the agency. For instance, Musk tweeted “CFPB RIP” on February 7th. “The CFPB has been a woke and weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time. This must end,” Vought said the following day. A couple days later, Trump added, “That was a very important thing to get rid of.”

Jackson came to the conclusion that unless she takes action, “the RIF [reduction-in-force] notices that have already been prepared will go out before the ink is dry on the Court’s signature, the employees will be back on administrative leave for just thirty days before they are gone, and the defendants will pull the plug on the CFPB.” While this isn’t a final ruling, as part of issuing the injunction, Jackson says the workers’ union is likely to ultimately succeed in court on its claims.

The judge orders the Trump administration to reinstate all probationary and term employees terminated since February 10th, carry out no further terminations without cause or issue any RIF notice, lift the administrative leave requirements and stop-work order, and let employees either return to an office or work remotely. She also requires that the government maintain CFPB data and records, and rescind contract termination notices sent since February 11th. Essentially, the CFPB can — for now — get back to work.

Workers are cautiously celebrating. “While we are thrilled and relieved at today’s outcome, union members are under no illusion that this is the end of Trump’s lawless attacks,” CFPB Union President Cat Farman says in a statement. “Vought has already violated previous court orders by deleting data and failing to reinstate illegally fired workers. We can’t rely on judges alone to keep wannabe dictators in check. We need everyone to join the fight to save our services, unionize our workplaces, and create more good middle class jobs doing vital work that benefits working people instead of billionaires and Wall Street.”

Microsoft is no longer playing around when it comes to requiring every Windows 11 device be set up with an internet-connected account. In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview, the company says it will take out a well-known bypass script that let end users skip the requirement of connecting to the internet and logging in with a Microsoft account to get through the initialization process of a new PC.

As reported by Windows Central, Microsoft already requires users to connect to the internet, but there’s a way to bypass it: the bypassnro command. For those setting up computers for businesses or secondary users, or simply, on principle refuse to link their computer to a Microsoft account, the command is super simple to activate during the Windows setup process.

Microsoft cites security as one reason it’s making this change:

We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11. This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account.

Since the bypassnro command is disabled in the latest beta build, it will likely be pushed to production versions within weeks. All hope is not yet lost, as of right now the script can be reactivated with a registry edit by opening a command prompt during the initial setup (Press Shift + F10) and running the command:

reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE /v BypassNRO /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f shutdown /r /t 0″

However, there’s no guarantee Microsoft will allow this additional workaround for long. There are other workarounds as well, such as using the unattended.xml automation that lets you skip the initial setup “out-of-box experience.” It’s not straightforward, though, but it makes more sense for IT departments setting up multiple computers.

As of late, Microsoft has been making it harder for people to upgrade to Windows 11 while also nudging them to move on from Windows 10, which will lose support in October. The company is cracking down on the ability to install Windows 11 on older PCs that don’t support TPM 2.0, and hounding you with full-screen ads to buy a new PC. Microsoft even removed the ability to install Windows 11 with old product keys.

Amazon’s Big Spring Sale is happening now through Monday, March 31st, with several dozen good-to-great deals available that don’t require an Amazon Prime membership. Our main roundup has you covered with more than 100 deals on Verge-favorite gear with quite a high price ceiling. But, for this post, we wanted to provide some low-cost alternatives that, to us, are just as appealing as the pricey ones.

All of these deals come from Amazon, with the exception of one that’s on Woot (which is owned by Amazon). We’ll keep our eyes out for more $30 and under candidates as we cruise through the weekend, just in case you’d rather pick up an inexpensive pair of earbuds, a security cam, or a retractable charger instead of a $1,500 robot vacuum.

Update, March 28th: Verified that deals are still in effect, and added new discounts, including the JLab Go Air Pop earbuds, the Anker 525 7-in-1 charging station, and the 4K Blu-ray editions of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Microsoft is starting to test Quick Machine Recovery, a feature designed to prevent incidents like last year’s Crowdstrike catastrophe. It’s rolling out in its latest Windows Insider Preview build (6120.3653) and allows IT professionals to remotely recover Windows 11 devices even if they won’t boot.

Microsoft first announced Quick Machine Recovery last year as part of its Windows Resiliency Initiative, which came in direct response to the Crowdstrike outage. Last July, Crowdstrike rolled out a faulty kernel-level update that caused the Blue Screen of Death to appear across millions of Windows devices, impacting banks, airlines, TV broadcasters, and more. IT admins struggled to quickly get them back online because many needed physical access to the machines to issue a fix.

But Quick Machine Recovery should at least help prevent similar outages. It prompts a device to enter the Windows Recovery Environment, where the machine can access the network and provide Microsoft with diagnostic information. Microsoft can then remotely deploy fixes via the Windows Update system.

The feature is enabled by default for home users, and Windows Insiders can try it out now using a simulated environment.

After Google completed its acquisition of Fitbit in early 2021, the company integrated Fitbit’s services with its own and required users to migrate existing Fitbit accounts to a Google account by 2025. But in an email sent to Fitbit users today, Google now says that deadline has been extended until next year.

“As we have previously shared, Fitbit is now a part of Google, and Fitbit Account holders will need to transition to Google Accounts to continue using Fitbit,” the email says. “If you want to keep using Fitbit, you must move to a Google Account by February 2, 2026.”

In addition to not being able to continue to use the Fitbit service after the new deadline, the email also warns users that “your historical data will not be retained beyond February 2, 2026 (except as needed to comply with laws), and your account and data will be deleted.” Those not wanting to migrate have the option to “download or delete your data anytime on or before” the new deadline.

Following the acquisition, Google had also announced that activating new Fitbit hardware (including the Pixel Watch 2 and Fitbit Charge 6), accessing new health features, or creating a new Fitbit account would require a Google account starting in 2023. The company positioned the requirements as being a more convenient unified login solution for Fitbit users who would also be able to manage their Fitbit health data through the Google Privacy Center.

I realized quite late in Assassin’s Creed Shadows that being this version of a shinobi is hard — but it was precisely the precision the game demanded that made it all the more rewarding.

With Shadows, the Assassin’s Creed franchise has achieved both its most impressive stealth and assassination mechanics. At its best, Shadows evokes games like Arkane’s Dishonored series, mixing emergent action with an artful blend of skills and scenarios. While not nearly at the level of sophistication as those games, I nevertheless had moments that left me breathless from what I could achieve. These put me more in the space of immersive simulated assassination games than the most recent, chest-thumping Assassin’s Creed games.

Here’s an example. In Ubisoft’s open-world third-person action game, I was faced with a group of about 10 men in a dark cave, all of whom turned out to be targets I’d been hunting for ages. They were all part of one group, who I’d been carefully taking down individually — one leading me to the next. Now, after tracking one, it turned out he and his remaining colleagues had decided to hold a meeting. Together. With their guards. I hadn’t planned this, bu …

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