General Capital Limited is pleased to advise that its subsidiary, the RBNZ licensed deposit taker General Finance Limited, has passed the last hurdle to be part of the Government`s new Deposit Compensation Scheme (DCS) which is due to commence on 1 July Read...

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TechHive Editors Choice At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Vastly improved installation procedure Integrated Wi-Fi frees you from the external bridge Lockly Home app is significantly improved, with lots of new features Cons Integrated Wi-Fi significantly reduces battery life (by about half) We experienced some app-disconnect issues Still quite bulky on the exterior Our Verdict Integrated Wi-Fi is the major upgrade in this revamp of Lockly’s well-aged Secure Pro lock, making it a winner on all fronts. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Lockly Secure Pro 2025 Version (model PGD728WMBE1) Retailer Price $299.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket The Lockly Secure Pro isn’t a new lock, but rather an upgrade to an old one: The original Lockly Secure Pro came out way back in 2019, hence this release’s full (and rather awkward) name: Lockly Secure Pro 2025 Version. The two locks have roughly the same industrial appearance (though the new lock is reportedly 25 percent smaller), so you’ll need to pay close attention when shopping to ensure you’re getting the current version. While Lockly’s website includes the 2025 indicator in the name, many vendors, including Amazon, do not. Look for Lockly model number PGD728WMBE1 to be sure. Specifications The biggest difference between the two locks is indeed a biggie: The 2025 Version has a built-in 2.4GHz Wi-Fi adapter and no longer requires an external hub to bridge to your internal Wi-Fi network. (Lockly says the fingerprint scanner on the lock has also improved, but this isn’t nearly as important: Lockly has long had some of the best fingerprint scanning tech on the market, so any improvements are minuscule). Lockly’s PIN Genie makes it impossible to guess a PIN by observing someone or by dusting the touchscreen for fingerprints. Other changes are incremental, and many are part of wider industry shifts, such as the move from a 9-volt battery terminal at the bottom of the exterior escutcheon to a USB-C port that can provide emergency power from a power bank if needed. The interior escutcheon and thumbturn have been redesigned to be more appealing and easier to grasp, and the fingerprint reader has been moved from the side of the device to the front, just above the touchscreen and set at a slight angle. Lockly’s PIN Genie randomizes the arrangement of numbers on its PIN pad, so no one will be able to observe the code you tap out or discover your code by looking at the locations of your fingerprints.Lockly Lockly’s PIN Genie keypad is still in effect, and if you’ve never seen it, it does take some getting used to. Instead of being organized in numerical order, digits are grouped into four sets of three, which are shuffled each time the lock is used. This makes it functionally impossible to guess a PIN by observing someone or by dusting the touchscreen for fingerprints, since the numbers move around every time it’s used. The lock is also built to ANSI Grade 2 standards, according to Lockly, but it is not certified as such. Installation and setup I’m happy to report that Lockly has made great strides in improving its hardware and installation process in the last six years. The disconnected crossbar that connects the exterior and interior escutcheons is now built into the exterior escutcheon, making setup far easier than in previous incarnations of Lockly hardware. The whole kit comes together with two long bolts that connect a standard interior mounting frame to the exterior escutcheon, plus three more screws attaching the interior escutcheon to that frame. It’s by and large a process that’s fairly standard in the smart lock industry, and while I didn’t have any major issues getting things connected, I will offer a pro tip: Make sure the deadbolt is extended when you attach the interior escutcheon, or the system will not be able to calibrate, an important step for setting whether the door is left-handed or right-handed. (This calibration is done by pressing the red button located under the cover of the interior escutcheon, after which the lock opens and closes a few times before finalizing setup.) All told, installation was smooth—and even Lockly’s manual has been greatly improved since the original Secure Pro launched, should you need extra help. The built-in wired door sensor informs you if the door is open or closed.Christopher Null/Foundry The lock is still powered by four AA batteries, and after they’re installed, you’re directed to the newish Lockly Home app, which replaced the old Lockly app earlier this year, for onboarding. The new app a big upgrade, too: It’s straightforward and painless to initially configure the app, and once everything is configured, it’s equally easy to use. The primary screen offers a standard, front-and-center button for lock/unlock operations; the button doubles as an icon to show whether the door is locked, unlocked, open, and/or closed. (A built-in wired door sensor that sticks out from the bottom of the interior escutcheon is still standard, though its use is optional.) In addition to support for using a physical key or the app to open the lock, the lock (still) supports PIN and fingerprint-based access. The lock supports a maximum of 52 users, with support for a total of 99 fingerprints and 49 access codes. I don’t get the math on those numbers either, except that users are not required to have both fingerprint and PIN, so it sort of makes sense. Lockly has made significant improvements to its app.Christopher Null/Foundry Users can be configured with full-time access, as “sub-admins” who can also create new accounts, with time-limited access that either expires at a set time or recurs each week, or one-time access (which can also be set to expire). Up to three one-time or limited-time access codes can also be configured, though note that there are specific instructions that must be followed (involving certain button presses and entering the code twice) for these codes to work. All told, I didn’t encounter any issues with user setup or management—or using PINs or prints to open the lock. As with previous Lockly products, all access methods were wholly reliable. Logging is robust, though Lockly includes a second, slightly confusing “notification center” that duplicates some but not all of the information in the logs about lock openings, closings, and failed access attempts. These notifications (not the log entries) are what are pushed to your phone—reliably so, in my testing. You can open the Lockly Secure Pro 2025 with a physical key in addition to using the app, the PIN pad, or your fingerprint.Christopher Null/Foundry A bevy of settings options are available for those who wish to dig deeper, including three power modes designed to extended battery life (5 months is specified by Lockly, about half what the old lock offers), automatic locking (customizable by time, or settable to lock whenever the door is closed), and Lockly’s somewhat maddening “random mode” which shuffles the digits on the PIN Genie keypad each time a button is pressed instead of just once per use. Support for Alexa and Google Assistant are also included (though not Siri). This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart locks. Should you buy the Lockly Secure Pro 2025 Version? The few non-trivial issues I encountered with the lock were connectivity related. The app would sometimes take a few seconds to connect to the lock, and on more than one occasion it didn’t connect at all, forcing me to quit the app and try again. The open/closed door status condition also didn’t update reliably in my testing, though it was accurate more often than not. In general, the unit was plenty reliable and its few connection hiccups were easily resolved with a little patience. At $310, the lock isn’t significantly more expensive than the 2019 model, which is still available for $260. Still, both are on the high side for Wi-Fi-capable smart locks, though not egregiously so. If you’re sold on Lockly, especially its unique touchpad interface and slightly dystopian design, the 2025 Lockly Pro sees the outfit performing at its best. Read...

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Valve’s beloved Steam Deck is a delightful little device that makes PC gaming possible anywhere, but it suffers from some significant limitations. The Deck’s custom AMD Ryzen “Aerith” processor requires severe graphical sacrifices to hit playable frame rates in intense games — if you can run them at all. When you’re playing, you’ll blow through the battery in just a few hours. And while non-Steam games can be added to the Deck, it requires wonky technical workarounds that normie gamers probably won’t bother to troubleshoot. Enter Nvidia’s new GeForce Now native app for the Steam Deck, announced today and available immediately. If your internet signal is strong, and you pay for a premium GeForce Now subscription with advanced prowess and features, Nvidia’s app transforms the Steam Deck from a delightful device into an utterly magical one. How magical? Consider that Doom: The Dark Ages has been called a “nightmare” on the Steam Deck. Even with every graphics option turned to low, playing through the sparsely populated tutorial section results in frame rates in the low- to mid-20s — it not only looks ugly, it feels atrocious, like the Doom Slayer is a container ship you’re trying to steer while blackout drunk. Hard pass. Then I flipped over to it on GeForce Now’s new Steam Deck app, using an early build (and GFN Ultimate subscription) provided by Nvidia. Oh. My. God. Suddenly, everything was beautiful and smooth, with the Doom Slayer ripping and tearing through demonic hordes like the finely tuned weapon he is. Even with graphics settings set to the strenuous Nightmare level and rays being traced everywhere, performance ran locked at the 60fps maximum that GFN offers on the Deck. Doom: The Dark Ages runs like butt on Steam Deck — but it streams amazingly over GeForce Now, even with Nightmare graphics settings.Brad Chacos/Foundry GeForce Now literally made an unplayable game deliciously perky. But that’s not the only benefit: With my Steam Deck’s battery life lingering around 86 percent, the system’s performance overlay estimated I’d get around an hour and 44 minutes of play time before juice ran out. Streaming the game over GFN doesn’t tap into the Steam Deck’s resources nearly as heavily, and the performance overlay said the exact same scene with the exact same battery level would deliver over 7 hours of playtime. Wowza. Now that’s transformative — though Nvidia only officially claims battery-life improvements of “up to 50 percent” over native Steam Deck performance. GeForce Now on Steam Deck: Amazing performance and battery life And Doom: The Dark Ages isn’t the only example. I also fired up Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, a pair of CD Projekt Red’s heavy hitters that come with native Steam Deck graphics settings. In a bustling Novigrad Square teeming with NPCs, Witcher 3 achieved surprisingly playable frame rates — I was cruising around with Geralt to the tune of 50- to 60fps. Not bad! …though the graphics looked muddier than I’d prefer, and the battery only expected to last around two hours. Witcher 3 runs fine on Steam Deck natively — but look at how low-quality the visuals are in order to achieve playable performance. Brad Chacos/Foundry Then I booted into Witcher 3 via GeForce Now. What a difference. Using the game’s Ultra settings with ray tracing in full bloom, Geralt suddenly looked so much crisper and vivid — and once again, the game played locked at 60fps on GFN Ultimate’s hardware (equivalent to an RTX 4080), with a runtime estimate of over 7 hours. Transformative! The story remained the same in Cyberpunk 2077, which includes a Steam Deck graphics preset that drops visuals low enough to run at a locked 30fps. It’s muddy but playable! Streaming over GeForce Now, however, lets me run the game’s gorgeous RT Ultra mode at a locked 60fps while looking crisp, clean, and even more responsive. (The in-game benchmark said the Steam Deck mode ran at locked 30fps; RT Ultra over GFN ran at 86fps per the benchmark, but Nvidia’s servers delivered it as a locked 60fps. Nvidia says a 90fps mode is “being evaluated for future release.”) Better yet, estimated battery life increased from 1:09 in Steam Deck mode to 4:02 via GeForce Now — all while looking and feeling so much better than native performance. GeForce Now plays Steam Deck games Valve won’t sell you Another feather in the cap for GeForce Now’s new native Steam Deck app? It lets you play games Valve won’t sell you. The Steam Deck is amazing, but it’s obviously built around Valve’s storefront. Installing non-Steam games on the Deck involves heading to the gadget’s desktop mode and tweaking arcane settings, or installing third-party apps that (hopefully) automate the process a bit. It’s clunky. Not with GeForce Now. You’ve got lots of Alan Wake options on GeForce Now’s Steam Deck app — including the Epic-exclusive Alan Wake 2. Brad Chacos/Foundry Nvidia’s service lets you link your GeForce Now account with major PC gaming storefronts — Steam, yes, but also alternatives like Ubisoft, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, and the Epic Games Store. Once you’ve done so, any of the 2000-plus games supported by GFN will easily be playable by simply searching for them in Nvidia’s interface and launching the game. Want to play Alan Wake 2 (an Epic exclusive) on your Steam Deck with full fidelity? Yeah, the GeForce Now app can do that. Want to stream Forza Horizon through your Game Pass sub? Yeah, you can do that too. The GeForce Now library isn’t exhaustive, but it is huge, and adds games every week. It’s an instant level-up for your Steam Deck’s capabilities if you have games stashed on other PC storefronts too. Better yet, since GFN is now a native app, it’ll appear in the Recently Played section of your Steam Deck’s homescreen — making it dead simple to leap back into games you’ve streamed via Nvidia’s servers. GeForce Now for Steam Deck: Details you need to know Of course, you need to be a GeForce Now subscriber to take advantage of the new Steam Deck native app. The app supports all tiers, including the ad-supported free tier, but paying for higher tiers unlocks ad-free streaming, RTX capabilities, higher resolutions, ultrawide monitor support, and — if you pay for the Ultimate tier – DLSS Frame Gen, Nvidia’s latency-lowering Reflex tech, and HDR10 support that looks oh so good on the Steam Deck OLED that Nvidia sent me for testing. The paid tiers offer 100 hours of gameplay a month, with 15 rollover hours. Nvidia is currently running a GeForce Now summer sale that knocks 40 percent off a six month “Performance” plan, down to $30 for six months. It lacks some of the features of the Ultimate tier, but should deliver a wondrous experience on your Steam Deck, even if Valve’s handheld can’t take advantage of its 1440p option — GFN streams at 1080p/60 undocked. If you connect a monitor to your Steam Deck, GFN can output at 1440p/120Hz, or 4K/60Hz when connected to a television. As a streaming service, GeForce Now obviously requires a strong internet connection. In tests around my apartment in a small city, it held up well over my Comcast home connection, though performance sometimes suffered playing in the furthest reaches of my home. Your mileage may vary depending on your home network situation and whether you’re tethering off a mobile connection, but in general, Nvidia’s streaming service is fairly rock-solid these days. The error message when you try to use quick resume with a GeForce Now streaming title. Brad Chacos/Foundry One tidbit to be aware off: Since GeForce Now relies on active internet streaming, it’s incompatible with the Steam Deck’s quick resume function. If you power off your Deck mid-GFN stream, it’ll crash when the system wakes back up. I wouldn’t want to rely on GFN for a morning bus commute unless your phone can power a banging Wi-Fi hotspot. Just play it Bottom line, though? Nvidia’s GeForce Now app can transform your Steam Deck from a low-powered, vendor-locked console into a full-blow portable PC gaming experience, complete with no-compromises ray tracing and a sublime uplift in both visuals and feel. Playing Doom: The Dark Ages is a nightmare on the Steam Deck — but it’s heavenly streaming to your Steam Deck via GeForce Now. Expanded game support and drastic battery life enhancements almost feel like cherries on top of the experience, but they’re just as crucial to the GFN app’s Steam Deck success. In an age where graphics card prices are soaring and the PC market shivers around damning tariffs, Nvidia’s GeForce Now app can elevate the Steam Deck from a kick-ass sidekick to your primary gaming PC. That’s especially so if you dock your Deck with a mouse, keyboard, and monitor, but the wildly long battery life makes it true in handheld mode, too. You should absolutely, positively give the GeForce Now app a download on your Steam Deck. It’s damned near a must-have accessory if you want to play more strenuous modern games. Even if you only give the free ad-supported tier a whirl, it should provide enough oomph to get you through the new Doom — something the Deck itself isn’t capable of on its own. Giddy up! Read...

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