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Andy Rubin's Essential Products Announces Modular Smartphone and Amazon Echo Rival

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New company Essential Products announced its debut products today, including a modular titanium smartphone with an edge-to-edge display and an Amazon Echo competitor. Andy Rubin, the founder of Essential and the original creator of the Android OS platform, announced the devices ahead of a talk he is scheduled to give later on Tuesday at the Code Conference.

The company's logo-free Essential Phone features a 5.71-inch edge-to-edge QHD display that reaches all the way to the top of the phone and runs around the 8-megapixel front-facing camera. The unique design is in contrast to Samsung's Galaxy S8, which retains a minimal bezel to house the camera and associated components.

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The phone is constructed from titanium and ceramic, allowing it to survive a drop test "without blemish, unlike the aluminum competitor devices," the company claims. Apart from the fingerprint sensor and camera lenses, the rear of the device also features a modular accessory system that works via a pair of magnetic pins.

Initially, the "Click" cordless connector pins will hook up to the company's 360-degree camera and phone dock, with more modular products planned that Essential promises will "keep your phone cord-free, future-proof, and always up-to-date". A USB-C connector at the bottom of the phone provides the only other connectivity; no headphone jack is included.

The Essential Phone is powered by a Qualcomm 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, and has 128GB of storage, while its 13-megapixel rear-mounted dual lens camera includes a monochrome sensor and supports 4K at 30 frames per second. The phone runs some form of Android, but the company promises no extraneous software is pre-installed. Available in black, grey, white, and "Ocean Depths" colors, the phone will launch in the U.S. later this summer and cost $699.

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Onto the company's new Amazon Echo competitor, the Essential Home. Details are still scant on the product, but here's what we know. The intelligent assistant device has a relatively inconspicuous puck-like shape with a sloping top that's dominated by a round touchscreen, which allows users to control music, ask general interest questions, set times, and control lights. It can be activated with a question, a tap, or even a "glance", according to Essential, suggesting some form of face detection.

The Essential Home will run the company's open platform Ambient OS, allowing it to interface with existing smart home products as well as SmartThings, HomeKit, Nest, and other popular standards. The intelligent assistant will also support notifications and reminders with contextual information displayed on-screen. Processing of user data is said to remain local to the device wherever possible. Pricing is yet to be announced, but the Essential Home is expected to ship later this summer.

Wired today published a write-up of Rubin's new Essential venture that provides some interesting background on the company. You can read the article here.

Article Link: Andy Rubin's Essential Products Announces Modular Smartphone and Amazon Echo Rival
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/05/30/essential-smartphone-home-assistant/
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Looks like Google Pixel, with modules and un-symmetric bezels. (don't like that chin)
4GB RAM is questionable for such price and year. (oneplus 5 is gonna be 6-8 GB)
Your thumb will rest on volume up button and not on power, this design is straight out of chinese phones, hate it too.
 
Both look pretty slick tbh (for an Android). Interesting how they got around the screen/front camera issue and I wonder how that factors in to items requiring full screen display e.g. video?
 
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They both look like unique competitors in their respective markets, it'll be interesting to see how they hold up against other, well known offerings.
 
MacRumors said:
New company Essential Products announced its debut products today, including a modular titanium smartphone with an edge-to-edge display and an Amazon Echo competitor. Andy Rubin, the founder of Essential and the original creator of the Android OS platform, announced the products ahead of a talk he is scheduled to give later on Tuesday at the Code Conference.
Click to expand...

Steve viewed Andy not very favourably:
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-on-android-founder-andy-rubin-big-arrogant-f-2013-11

I like the idea of titanium and logo-free clean design as well as his price target, but it's still Android inside.
 
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More impressed by the echo competitor than the phone. Makes me wonder though where we go with smart phones once we've gone completely bezel free. I guess just spec bumps year after year? I guess it had to happen eventually, but for me the enthusiasm I once had for following this sector is fading fast and I don't think even Apple can pull something magical out of the bag anymore. I really hope I'm wrong though.
 
Excited to see a new company in the phone market. I kind of like the look of it. Interested to see what the final price looks like.
 
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Both look interesting. I like the fact they're using titanium and ceramic with the phone - makes it compelling from a materials standpoint. Hate the fingerprint sensor on the back, which is just poor ux design.

The echo competitor product reminds me of a Nest thermostat. In fact, that would be an interesting way to do a thermostat, to separate the screen from the controller mounted on the wall. And you could go a step further and pair a multi room mesh wifi router with temperature and humidity sensors that are all driven by an app on your iPhone / iPad / Mac or Android device.
 
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djcerla said:
If you see a fingerprint sensor on the back, they blew it.
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Once you see those bezels on the iPhone, you know they blew it. These are the typical comments from people that have never used phones with the fingerprint scanner on the back, it works fine and it's even handy because you can use it to pull the notification bar without having to touch the screen. You'll get used to it within a day, even on the Galaxy S8 it works fine.
 
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trunten said:
More impressed by the echo competitor than the phone. Makes me wonder though where we go with smart phones once we've gone completely bezel free. I guess just spec bumps year after year? I guess it had to happen eventually, but for me the enthusiasm I once had for following this sector is fading fast and I don't think even Apple can pull something magical out of the bag anymore. I really hope I'm wrong though.
Click to expand...
Think less in terms of specs, and more in terms of what role your smartphone can play in your life.
 
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That Essential Home is essentially :rolleyes: what I expect Apple to do for the Siri Speaker. Something between an AppleTV and a Google Home, using a circular display on the top just like that. The angular display might be something they've all figured is necessary for some type of visual feedback. Amazon's Echo Show is less... impressive... looking.

But Essentials seem to be going for the localized AI-like handling of tasks between devices and processing information. Google and Amazon want to do it in the cloud, but Andy seems to agree with Apple that this stuff is better done on the device itself.
 
trunten said:
More impressed by the echo competitor than the phone. Makes me wonder though where we go with smart phones once we've gone completely bezel free. I guess just spec bumps year after year? I guess it had to happen eventually, but for me the enthusiasm I once had for following this sector is fading fast and I don't think even Apple can pull something magical out of the bag anymore. I really hope I'm wrong though.
Click to expand...

Haha, I just went to get rid of my Mom's sunflower imac. The geekbench on my phone is 10 times higher than that machine.

The direction things are going is the convergence of desktop, laptop, and phone in my opinion. You walk up to any monitor, mouse, and keyboard "station" and your phone connects wirelessly and instant to all of them. All your files are there instantly because they are either on your physical phone or in the cloud. You walk away and go to another "station" and it all connects and you pick up exactly where you left off with the same apps open and the cursor and mouse pointer in the exact same spot they were, ready for you to continue. And the "phone" never left your pocket.
 
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That front-camera is SO distracting!

It looks like just any other flagship Android phone in 2017.

All phones all look the same now a days. Poor Apple is going to get some much grief when the iPhone 8 comes out because it will look similar to 2017 Android phones. I guess the technology just isn't there right now for something revolutionary.
 
imicca said:
Looks like Google Pixel, with modules and un-symmetric bezels. (don't like that chin)
4GB RAM is questionable for such price and year. (oneplus 5 is gonna be 6-8 GB)
Your thumb will rest on volume up button and not on power, this design is straight out of chinese phones, hate it too.
Click to expand...

I think 4GB is enough if the software is close to "stock" Android. Samsung phones typically need tons of RAM because they have so many useless services running in the background.

djcerla said:
If you see a fingerprint sensor on the back, they blew it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, totally. /s

Rogifan said:
Android phones need 6-8GB RAM? Why?
Click to expand...

None need it, but some benefit from it because they're trying to do so much. Samsung phones typically have tons of extra services running and they eat up RAM. As Android O introduces picture in picture to all phones, I imagine having more RAM will be nice. But more RAM does need power to run, and so I do wish these companies would balance things a bit better.
 
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Rogifan said:
Android phones need 6-8GB RAM? Why?
Click to expand...
They don't. But it acts as a marketing point (especially in China, where OnePlus are based - a lot of manufacturers put extra RAM in the phones they sell in that market vs the rest of the world).

Even in the Android world how the RAM is managed matters more than how much is installed. I have a Samsung device with 3GB and a HTC with 2GB, both running the same Android version, and multitasking is better on the (older and less powerful) HTC. Rubin says that the philosophy here is to minimise bloat, so 4GB will be absolutely fine.
 
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Reputation and promises can only last so long as Apple will be finding out this year with its ''new'' iPhone. But people want stuff NOW and finished and working. Technology cant wait for ''next big thing'' boasts any more. The true active innovators like Google, Amazon and Samsung are bringing products to the market now and almost every month without anything like the fanfare of certain big names who are relying on past glories and charity dinners to get them through their current lack of product development. So good luck to these folks for trying to beat the big guys but don't let them fall into the trap of showing their hand too early with vapourware and non-launch dates. People never remember the promises of great stuff. Only the stuff. Now go back to your marketing men and say ''Ok. Enough of the rhetoric. Theres competition out there and it doesnt wait for laurel resting or what could be coming out. We go. Now. Then we stick our chests out. Not the other way round!''

I'm hope this 'advice has been of some help. Thanks. ;)
 
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