Post-mortem. Essential Products closed in February 2020. The account below was written after the end, with the outcome known. Separately, a blind test with the evidence cut off at August 2018, before the end, returned: not called safe. How the blind test works.

Essential Products

Defunct smartphone maker, built one phone, closed in 2020

Blind testEvidence cut off August 2018 · Ended February 2020 · Result: not called safe

What happened

Company ceased operations entirely (shutdown) (February 2020)

Why it did not hold

Essential Products built one phone, ran out of money and options, and closed in 2020; Nothing Technologies now holds what remains of its name.

Essential Products made Android phones and other gadgets, but the company closed completely in February 2020 and transferred its brand name to a different company called Nothing Technologies in 2021. Since Essential Products is legally dissolved with no employees or business operations, there is nothing to join or invest in. If you are interested in this space, you should look at Nothing Technologies instead, which is the actual live company that now owns the Essential brand name.

AI pressure: None apparent. Company dissolved before the AI wave; its unshipped GEM device was pitched as AI-and-voice-forward but never reached customers.

Bigger players: Samsung, Apple, Google Pixel. Essential's single PH-1 phone sold poorly against these three, and it could not fund a second model or match their distribution.

What protected it. None left: the company has zero employees, zero revenue, and no operating entity as of 2020.

Timeline

2025-06-11Carl Pei discloses Nothing was almost named Essential
2025-05-06CMF Phone 2 Pro ships Essential Space AI feature
2025-03-04Nothing Phone 3a/3a Pro ships Essential Space AI feature
2021-01-06Essential trademark transfer to Nothing Technologies completed
2020-09-25Alphabet settles Rubin-linked misconduct litigation for $310 million
2020-04-30Newton Mail (CloudMagic) shut down in wind-down
2020-02-12Essential Products shuts down entirely, ~100 employees laid off
2019-10-09Project GEM AI phone teased, later cancelled
2018-12Essential acquires CloudMagic (Newton Mail)
2017-08Essential Phone PH-1 launches at ~$1B unicorn valuation

Also gone

Chegg closed 2026 Course Hero closed 2026 One Hour Translation / Blend was absorbed 2026

All 62 post-mortems →

This page is a post-mortem, not a live assessment, and it carries no band. The blind-test result is the only part made without knowledge of the outcome.