It sounds like the Essential Phone is dead. A report from Bloomberg says the smartphone startup has "cancelled" its next smartphone. The company, which was once valued at a billion dollars before ever shipping a product, is now "considering selling itself."
Essential introduced itself to the public in 2017 as a new technology company founded by Andy Rubin, co-founder of Google's Android OS. Its first product was the Essential Phone, a high-end, slim bezel smartphone with a notched screen and ceramic body. The Essential Phone launched in September 2017 with a pretty bad first impression. The phone was delayed three months from its original launch window, and early customers had their private information leaked by Essential customer support, an incident Rubin called "humiliating." The phone was originally $699, but poor sales quickly led to a price drop of $200. Bloomberg says Essential sold "at least 150,000 to date, according to the person familiar with the company."
The Essential Phone was designed at a time when smartphone manufacturers all thought modular smartphones would be The Next Big Thing™. Along with Motorola, LG, Fairphone, and Google's Project Ara, Essential wanted to create a proprietary accessory ecosystem of products that could snap onto the phone. Like every other modular smartphone, Essential's modular system was a failure, and only one module was ever created for the Essential Phone: a $200 360-degree camera. The camera was low resolution, bulky, and hot. It was so hot that it had an actual cooling fan inside the camera that would spin up when you took 360-degree pictures.
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