Nothing (company)

Nothing Technology Limited (stylised as NOTHING) is a British consumer electronics manufacturer based in London. It was founded by Carl Pei, the co-founder of the Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus. Investors in the company include Tony Fadell of iPod, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and YouTube personality Casey Neistat. On 25 February 2021, the company announced Teenage Engineering as a founding partner, mainly responsible for the brand's design aesthetic and its products. Nothing's first product, "EAR (1)", was launched on 27 July 2021.

History

On 16 October 2020, Carl Pei, the co-founder of OnePlus, while working at OnePlus alongside Pete Lau, announced his resignation so that he could start a new venture. Pei later raised up to $7 million from multiple investors to start up his venture, including Tony Fadell of iPod, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and YouTube personality Casey Neistat.

Pei announced the company, Nothing, on 27 January 2021.

On 15 February 2021, Nothing acquired the Essential Products trademarks and brand nearly a year after the company shut down operations.

On 25 February 2021, the company announced its first founding partner, Teenage Engineering, to produce the design aesthetic of the brand and its products.

Nothing announced its first product on 27 July 2021, named the "ear (1)", which are wireless headphones.

On 13 October 2021, the company raised up to $50 million and also announced a partnership with Qualcomm.

On 9 March 2022, the same day that Nothing secured Series B financing, the company announced that it would hold a press conference on 23 March. During that event, the company announced its first smartphone, the "phone (1)".

On 10 December 2022, Nothing opened its first physical store in London's Soho district.

In February 2023, during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Nothing announced that their next generation of phones would be powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. The announcement highlighted the increased power and device price of the next smartphone release.

On 22 March 2023, Nothing announced the release of their second generation "ear (2)" wireless earbuds, which promised support for high-resolution wireless audio, improved battery life, and adaptive active noise control. These were released to mostly positive reviews. ''Wired'' praised the detailed sound profile, distinctive design, and voice-assistant interaction, but criticized the treble reproduction, physical controls, and "so-so" noise cancellation. ''The Verge'' wrote that, "At $149, the Ear 2 earbuds represent a well-rounded pair of midrange earbuds. They’ve got all the style of the Ear 1s but without their rough edges."

A budget sub-brand named "CMF by Nothing" was announced in August 2023.

On 17 November 2023, Nothing released a messaging app that promised end-to-end encryption but was storing texts publicly in plaintext. Nothing took the app down within 24 hours.

On April 2024, Nothing released their third generation "Ear" and first generation "Ear (a)" wireless earbuds.The Nothing Ear promises a refined audio experience compared to the previous Ear 2. pcmag.com wrote that, "The Nothing Ear earphones offer better sound quality, longer battery life, and more Bluetooth codecs than their predecessors while maintaining an elegant, transparent design."

Products

Smartphones

Phone (1)

On 23 March 2022, Nothing announced its first smartphone named the "Phone (1)".

The phone runs on an Android-based operating system named Nothing OS and went on sale on 21 July 2022.

In June 2022, Nothing opened an invite-only pre-order for the "Phone (1)", which reached up to 100,000 registrations on the waiting list. The device, which was unveiled on 12 July in London, features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ chipset and transparent design.

Phone (2)

On 11 July 2023, Nothing announced its second smartphone named the "Phone (2)". It was released on 21 July 2023. The software front is covered by Android 13 with Nothing OS 2.0 skin on top. The phone comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset.

Phone (2a)

Nothing announced its budget smartphone, the Phone (2a), on 5 March 2024. It came with the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro chipset running Android 14 and Nothing OS 2.5, a 6.7-inch 120-Hz OLED display, and a 5000 mAh battery.

Nothing (2a) surpassed 100,000 units sold in its first day after release.

Audio products

Ear 1

The Nothing Ear 1, stylized as the "ear (1)", is Nothing's first product. Announced on 27 July 2021, the Ear 1 is a set of wireless earbuds. The earbuds can be connected by Bluetooth and have up to 34 hours of battery life when used with the charging case, and up to 5.7 hours of battery life with ANC off; with 24 hours with the case used and up to four hours for the earbuds themselves with ANC on. The earbuds went on sale on 17 August 2021, at $99/£99/€99.

A Black version was also announced on 6 December 2021, and went on sale on 13 December. Nothing also announced on that day that the Ear 1 earbuds are now carbon neutral.

On 18 October 2022, Nothing's CEO Carl Pei announced on X that the Ear 1's price will be increased to $149 starting on 26 October 2022 due to an increase in costs.

Ear (stick)

Ear (stick) is a pair of earbuds Nothing released on 4 November 2022. It is the second part of the Ear family and a lower tier version of Ear (1), and does not include noise cancellation, transparency mode, or wireless charging. Ear (stick) launched at a price of $99.

Ear (2)

In March 2023, Nothing announced the release of their second-generation earbuds, the Nothing Ear (2). These new earphones support the LHDC 5.0 low latency HD audio codec and come equipped with 11.6 mm speakers, similar to its predecessor. The earbuds were launched on 22 March 2023.

Applications

Nothing Chats

Nothing Chats was an instant messaging application released by Nothing Technology Limited. The application, in beta on release, was available on Google Play for less than a day in November 2023 before it was pulled by Nothing Technology Limited due to widespread coverage of application's bugs, insecure networking, and unreliability.

On 14 November 2023, Nothing announced a new messaging application which would become available on 17 November. The announcement stated that Nothing Chats was developed by company called Sunbird and would have limited compatibility with Apple's iMessage. Prior to its launch, Android Authority and Ars Technica expressed skepticism regarding the company's claims to use end-to-end encryption, reliability of message delivery and general application security, citing prior experiences with Sunbird. Ars Technica explicitly advised readers against giving their Apple username and password to a company which might not "understand and/or respect the security version of Pandora's box they are opening". On 17 November, shortly after launch, a third-party developer discovered that the app was using a version of a rival open-source project called BlueBubbles but Sunbird failed to procure a TLS certificate so the application was sending users' service credentials via insecure HTTP. The vulnerability could allow a third-party to intercept users' credentials (one at a time) and use them to impersonate the users to read and send messages. On 18 November, a different user reported that the app was sending all media attachments, including user images to error-logging service Sentry, and all data to Firebase, with the data being stored unencrypted in both places. At the time, the Firebase database contained over 630,000 media files. ''9to5Google'' confirmed that anyone can intercept the application's Firebase credentials (from their own device or any other device), log into Firebase and see all other users’ past and real-time messages. Another party developed a script for downloading this data automatically and published the code to GitHub. Within 24 hours, Nothing pulled the Nothing Chats application from Google Play.

Drinks

''Beer (5.1%)'' is a beer created by Nothing Technology. The beer was initially announced on 1 April 2023, and was made available in the UK in October 2023. The drink is brewed by Free time Beer Co., which is based in Wales.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://nothing.tech

Nothing Technology
Technology companies based in London
British companies established in 2020
Electronics companies established in 2020