I’ve been using daily routines with my smart speaker ever since Amazon rolled them out for its Echo devices. And I don’t trigger chained actions by yelling out some random phrase. Rather, I have my routines fire off at different times during the day — really, just wake-up time and bed time — so I can get a quick snapshot of important information, like the weather and upcoming calendar events.

There are a million different ways to sell your old phone before you pick up something shiny, new, and likely much more expensive than your former device. While the classic advice is to just “eBay your phone" you have two options if you want to sell a smartphone on the auction giant.

You can put it up for auction the same way you’ve been doing since you offloaded your Beanie Baby collection, or you can give eBay’s new “Instant Selling” program a try.

Which Android app is worth a spot on your new smartphone or tablet? Trying to find the very best of the best is a challenging process, because there are millions of apps to pick from on the Google Play Store. Even if you just scan Google’s “top free” or “top paid” list on a daily basis, you’ll miss out on a lot of digital gems. Allow us to help you out with our freshly updated Lifehacker Pack for Android.

I remember all the hubbub when Apple first announced Face ID back in September of 2017. There were countless articles and thought pieces criticising Apple for the terrible experience its new security technique was about to create. Instead of just pressing on your iPhone’s Home button, a natural task as you pull your iPhone out of your pants pocket, jacket, or bag, you’d have to pull your device up to eye level, stare at it, and then go about using it as normal.

I think the last time I played a Windows game — as in, a Microsoft game that comes baked into the Windows operating system — was back in Windows 95. Ah, FreeCell. That’s not to say that Microsoft’s games were bad, it’s just not very often that I find myself needing to strike up some Minesweeper to kill time.

Enlarging the font size on your phone is one of those famous old-people tech habits, like putting "..." all over your texts, or posting Facebook memes about sauerkraut. But it's healthy for younger people too — it reduces eye strain, according to Intelligencer.

Not all of us are lucky enough to have unlimited data plans, which can lead to a lot of anxiety around rationing a monthly allotment to web browsing, video streaming and other mobile activities. Going over a data limit costs a small fortune, and it can be hard to keep track of where all that data went.

If my home had a Game of Thrones-style family motto, it would be "Honey, can you call my phone?" It's the usual way to find your misplaced device. But it doesn't work very well if you leave your phone on vibrate.

There are way too many third-party phone camera apps. This can make choosing a good one unduly difficult. We recently highlighted a couple of my personal favourites in the iOS and Android Lifehacker Packs, but there are plenty more that people love to use. Here are the best of the bunch, according to our readers.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to use your phone’s autocorrect, says the person who invented it. Ken Kocienda, former Principal Engineer of iPhone Software for Apple and author of the new book Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs, led the team creating the first software keyboard for the first release of iOS. And he says that it’s possible to get too aggressive with autocorrect.

I really wanted this experiment to be a success. I've been a a smartphone user since the early 2000s when the first Windows Phone devices, with their clunky interfaces were on the market. I then moved to the Palm Treo 650, the BlackBerry and other pre-iOS phone/computer crossovers.

As I used those devices, and more recent Android handsets and various iPhones, one thing has been constant: I spend more and more time on my phone. So, I decided to take a radical step and shift to the Nokia 8110 - the so-called banana phone released during Mobile World Congress earlier this year. Here's what I learned.

It’s that time again: Time for your annual frantic search to find all of the original packaging for your older iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. That’s the best way to sell it for the highest possible sum, after all, before you plunk down a preorder for whatever Apple’s announcing this week.

There’s nothing I hate more than people doing the wrong thing “just because” they’ve always done it. In this case, blasting movies, games or music on their smartphones to eat up all the battery until the device shuts off, because that’s the only “safe” way to charge it.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 leaks have been coming thick and fast - but this one really takes the biscuit. We now have a hands-on video that shows the device off from every conceivable angle. And it looks pretty damn good.

While the tech in our smartphones has progressively improved, there's one thing hardware can never defeat - poorly written software. And the one part of your phone most likely to suffer at the hands of a dodgy app is the battery. So, what apps are most likely to send you running to a power outlet or battery pack and what can you do about them?

After months of leaked specifications and alleged screen protectors, we finally have our first image of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. As previously reported, the new phone is thicker than its predecessor and boasts a new finger print reader. (Best of all, the stylus isn't yellow. Hurrah!)

Each new generation of smartphones brings remarkable advances in camera quality, allowing even the greenest shutterbugs to snap prime photos.

But, if you truly want to take your pictures and videos to the next level, a tripod for your smartphone is the way to go.

The ARMOR-X Mini Flexible Phone Tripod can help you take dynamic, stunning photos or videos from any angle, and it's on sale for more than 40 per cent off today.

It happens. You're absentmindedly browsing through your photos while enjoying a lovely view or a warm drink. You tap around — and then realise you've accidentally deleted a ton of photos on your device. You panic. Have you just lost your precious memories forever?

In addition to the stress of packing, the stress of making sure you have every electronic device securely stowed somewhere, the stress of remembering every cable you'll need to keep your devices charged during your trip, and the stress of making sure your pets are fed and your plants are watered, there's also the apps.