Today’s Wordle answer #325 (with hints) Tuesday May 10

After yesterday's controversy, you might think today's Wordle answer would be a straightforward puzzle but it turns out the New York Times had something more complicated up its sleeve.

A lot of people will struggle with today's Wordle answer because it's an unusual word that, while you may be familiar with it, you wouldn't use often.

Below you'll find some tailored hints, tips, and clues specific to today's Wordle answer, but before getting into those I'd recommend having a look at the best starting words for Wordle and trying one of those. You generally want your starter to reveal or rule out the more common letters in the English language because it makes your later guesses easier..

Read on for the hints, tips, clues, and the solution to today's Wordle answer(s) #325, Tuesday, May 10.

Wordle May 10 hint

First up, the hint:

An undercover mascot from the 90s

Not good enough? How about these then?

Today’s Wordle answer #325

Today's Wordle answer will be stumping people not just because the word is unusual and unlikely to be the first your brain reaches for, but also because of its strange structure. It's not too often you come across a word ending in O. Sure, there are those that come to mind – CAMEO, RADIO, BINGO – but in the grand scheme of things they're in the minority.

So, today's Wordle answer can be a challenge to narrow down. However, if you're a fan of your lizards, or simply the 90s game Gex, then you might have spotted it fairly quickly. That's because today's Wordle answer is GECKO .

Today’s Wordle alternative

With today's Wordle answer behind you, let's turn to the business of Tuesday and further Wordle-like activities. From the rich selection of Wordle alternatives , let's go for something a little less wordy...

Framed

Framed is the Wordle spinoff for film fans. Instead of trying to guess a word, you're presented with a single image from a film and asked to guess what that film is. On one day it might be a zombie horde in Shaun of the Dead, another may be a shot from Call Me By Your Name. Or today's, well, today's is actually particularly hard.

Whatever the case, if you know the film you get a lovely thrill of recognition, but if you don't then you get to play detective. Maybe you recognize one of the actors, or the location, or the film style, and can do some Googling to narrow down what movie it may be.

Either way, you should give Framed a play.

There’s a fundamental problem with loads of robot vacuums

I’ll do anything to avoid having to do housework, and I mean literally anything. Even though once the chore is finished, I love how tidy my home is, I still put it off to the last minute every single time.

So a robot vacuums is a must-have household appliance, right? These smart appliances make their way around your home unaided, collecting dust and dander from hard floors and carpets. All you need to do is empty the dust box when it’s full.

The idea of being able to outsource the chore of floor cleaning completely is clearly appealing - according to Statista 14.2 million US households owned a robot vacuum in 2019, up 1.2 million from the year before.

A handful of robot vacuums on the market right now come with obstacle avoidance, which means they can navigate around items such as socks or charging cables left in their path.

But a handful isn’t good enough. As far as we’re concerned, without this feature a robot vacuum is pointless - why buy one if you need to prepare your room for cleaning every time?

Best robot vacuum deals

Read on to find out just why we think obstacle avoidance is needed on more robot vacuums, or if we've already convinced you that a robovac is your next home purchase, check out these great deals.

Socks, charging cables and other small problems

Most robot vacuums on the market today do a good job of not crashing into the big furniture in your home. Most of the time sofas, sideboards, and tables are located on the edges of a room, but even if you do have a coffee table in the middle of a space where you want a robot vacuum to clean, most robots can spot that large block and roll around it.

But it's a different story when it comes to smaller things like a stray sock that’s escaped the laundry pile, or a charging cable that’s been dropped on the floor.

Barely any robot vacuums can detect these items and end up ploughing straight through them, only for something like a charging cable to get tangled in the brush roller - in some cases causing permanent damage.

However, a new crop of robot vacuums are hitting the market with the ability to detect small temporary obstacles and clean around them without actually sucking them up. You'll find this feature on the iRobot Roomba J7 Plus , the Roborock S6 MaxV and later, as well as the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo N8+ .

During testing of the Roomba J7 Plus, we were extremely impressed with its obstacle avoidance.

We deliberately left an adult-sized sock and a charging cable in its path, but rather than sucking it up, the Roomba simply made its way around them both, cleaning within an inch of each.

Even better, the on-board camera snapped pictures of these obstacles and stored them in the app. Once the J7 Plus had finished cleaning, I was able to review the images and confirm whether they were a temporary obstacle or simply a false positive.

We also had the option of sending the Roomba back to clean up the areas it missed as a result of suspected obstacles - removing the offending item first if it wasn’t a mistake of the vac.

What if your robot vacuum doesn’t have obstacle avoidance?

The feature certainly puts an end to having to tidy up before your robot vacuum begins cleaning, but as we’ve already mentioned, frustratingly there are only a few robot vacuums on the market that offer this feature.

We expect to see more models hitting the market as other brands find ways to implement this technology - and if you’re thinking of investing, it’s an absolute must in our eyes, especially given that it only adds around $50 / £100 to the price tag.

However, if you’ve already got a robot vacuum that doesn’t offer obstacle avoidance, what can you do? The obvious answer is of course, to pick up items left on the floor.

We know that dashing around your home, collecting anything left on the floor before you start the robot vacuum on a cleaning spree, makes the process less hands-off than you might have hoped, but in the long run, it will save time (and potentially money on repairs).

To make this easier for the ground floor at least: place a basket on the stairs and make a household rule that if anyone encounters something on the floor they should pick it up and place it in the basket.

As robot vacuums can’t currently sweep stairs, it won’t create another obstacle and will ensure that any stray items don’t end up tucked in a random drawer either. How often you empty the basket and put things away is up to you - personally, I’ve found three times a week works for me.

Also, make use of no-go areas. Some robot vacuums let you create virtual boundaries on a map of your home in the companion app, while others use physical strips, which are rolls of foam with an adhesive backing. Whichever option your robot vacuum uses, it will prevent it from cleaning a specific area - this is ideal if your cables are all located in one place.

Obstacle avoidance means you really can outsource the chore to a robot vacuum, but until it becomes the norm on robovacs, it looks like we’ll also just have to pick up after ourselves a bit more.

Should I buy the Google Nest Thermostat?

Google’s Nest is one of the biggest players in the smart heating market and is most well known for its Nest Learning Thermostat , which will automatically adjust your heating schedule after learning how long it takes your home to warm up and cool down, in a bid to save energy and money.

However, it’s also one of the most expensive smart thermostats on the market too. If you can’t quite justify the $250 price tag of the Nest Learning Thermostat, then Nest has a more budget-friendly alternative. Called simply the Nest Thermostat, this is priced at a more approachable $130, yet looks and performs in a similar way.

The Nest Thermostat is currently only available in the US, where it replaced the similarly cheap Nest Thermostat E in November 2020. That model is still sold as Nest’s more budget-friendly thermostat in the UK.

So, how does the cheaper Nest stack up against other smart thermostats, and is it worth considering over its older and smarter but more expensive sibling?

Best smart thermostat deals

Read on to find out whether you should buy the Google Nest Thermostat, or if you already know which model you want to control your heating and cooling system, check out the best prices right now.

Price

Price is an important factor when it comes to smart thermostats. Because, while their intelligence, voice control and smartphone app integration are all useful, the real reason to buy a smart thermostat is its ability to lower your energy bills.

As such, the cost of the device itself should be pitted against its potential to lower your heating and cooling bills; the more you spend up front, the longer it’ll be before the thermostat has paid for itself and you’re making a real saving.

This all means the $120 saved when buying the $130 Nest Thermostat over the Nest Learning Thermostat could be key to it being worthwhile or not. Nest claims the Thermostat can save an average of 10 to 20 percent on heating bills, and 15 percent on cooling bills.

Design

The Nest Thermostat has a simple but pleasing design. Circular, with a thin bezel available in a range of colours to match the front panel, the thermostat has a modern, minimalist aesthetic that should fit into most homes. That front panel houses an equally simple display that shows the current temperature and the target temperature –  the temperature your heating or cooling system is working towards at that moment.

The colour options for the Nest Thermostat are called Snow, Sand, Charcoal and Fog. In English, these are white, copper, black and pale green.

Only the thermostat itself, plus a base plate for attaching it to the wall and a couple of screws, are included in the box; Nest says DIY installation usually takes 30 minutes. You might need to purchase a trim plate from Google separately, which is designed to cover any holes or marks left behind by the removal of your old thermostat. Given the Nest is quite small, and not the usual square or rectangular shape, it’s likely that a trim plate will be needed to tidy everything up, unless the wall has been freshly plastered and painted.

Google sells trim kits for $14.99 and these are offered in the same four colour options as the thermostat itself.

The device doesn’t rotate (like the Nest Learning Thermostat does), but instead the temperature is adjusted by swiping a finger up or down on the side of the display. Changing modes and delving into the thermostat’s menu system is done by tapping then swiping at the side.

Features

Much like other connected thermostats, the Nest can be controlled remotely, either via a smartphone app or by speaking to the Google Assistant of a nearby smart speaker or display. It can also be configured to automatically turn the heating off when you leave the house (as dictated by the location of your smartphone), and switch it back on when you return home. This is all controlled by Google’s ‘home and away routine’ system, which is a part of the company’s wider smart home automation platform, called Google Home.

A regular schedule can also be created to warm and cool your home to set temperatures each day of the week, and you can take manual control by adjusting the thermostat’s target temperature, either through the Nest app, by speaking to the Google Assistant, or by swiping at the device itself.

Another feature is how the thermostat monitors your HVAC (heating, ventilation and cooling) system, then alerts you to potential problems. That way, if the heating takes longer than normal to warm up, there could be a problem with your boiler and heating system; the thermostat will then notify you about this and provide contact information for a professional to come and investigate. These notifications include early warnings about potential problems, as well as urgent alerts when it looks like there’s a serious issue – such as when the heating is on but the house temperature falls.

The Nest Thermostat does not have the artificial intelligence of the Nest Learning Thermostat, and nor does it work with the company’s Temperature Sensor, so it only knows the temperature of the room it is located in.

Should I buy the Google Nest Thermostat?

The lower initial cost of the Nest Thermostat will be appealing to those who find the $250 Nest Learning Thermostat hard to justify. It will also surely appeal to buyers who want an attractive piece of technology that is offered in a range of colours designed to complement the aesthetic of their home.

If you already own some Google or Nest smart home devices, then this thermostat makes a lot of sense. It will integrate seamlessly with your Google Home app, and can be controlled by speaking to the Google Assistant. There is also deep integration where Google’s ‘routines’ system is concerned, making it easy to incorporate your heating and cooling system with the rest of your smart home.

However, if you instead use Amazon’s Alexa system and its Echo smart devices, buying that company’s thermostat, or an assistant-agnostic option like those from Ecobee, would make more sense.

Similarly, if you have a higher budget, the Nest Learning Thermostat – complete with its artificial intelligence and greater autonomy over your HVAC system, plus compatibility with optional smart temperature sensors – could be more appealing.