Essential Products
Operating Status: Closed
American consumer technology company that developed the Essential Phone smartphone and magnetic accessories before ceasing operations in 2020.
Founded
2015American consumer technology company that developed the Essential Phone smartphone and magnetic accessories before ceasing operations in 2020.
Essential Products paired Android co-creator Andy Rubin with Danger co-founders Matt Hershenson and Joe Britt, and shipped a titanium-and-ceramic flagship with magnetic modular accessories. The company was incubated with the backing and engineering resources of Rubin's Playground Global studio in Palo Alto.
Its single shipped product differentiated on materials and modularity: the Essential Phone used a titanium frame with a ceramic back where flagship rivals typically used aluminum and glass, and it supported magnetic snap-on accessories, including a 360-degree camera that attached to the device's camera pins.
Source: arstechnica.com
Essential entered a premium smartphone market dominated by Apple and Samsung and never reached sustainable scale. The Essential Phone sold poorly and was discounted repeatedly within months of launch; the company cancelled its second flagship in May 2018, explored a sale without finding a buyer, and laid off about 30 percent of its staff in October 2018.
On February 12, 2020, Essential announced it was ceasing operations because it saw no clear path to deliver its next device, Project GEM, to customers. The company's Newton Mail service was shut down on April 30, 2020, and in February 2021 the Essential brand was purchased by Nothing, the startup founded by Carl Pei.
Source:
The Essential Phone launched at $699 in August 2017 as a flagship-class device. The price was cut to $499 within roughly two months, bundled offers fell to $399 by November 2017, and clearance pricing reached $224 by August 2018, a discount curve that reflected weak sell-through rather than a planned pricing ladder.
Accessories carried premium standalone price points: the magnetic 360-degree camera was priced at $200 and the clip-on headphone-jack adapter at $150. A planned charging dock was never released, and the announced Essential Home smart speaker never came to market, so no follow-on hardware revenue materialized.
Source: arstechnica.com