Andy Rubin (2017)

Hey! Message us directly and we'll whitelist you today! -Rebecca

Hi! We are pretty happy with the hardware design of the camera. We are using computational photography to fuse a monochrome and color sensors. That's the part we're not too happy about, but luckily it's software and we've already done a number of updates to the app to fix bug and add features. - andyR

We are excited about supporting 3rd party developers. We'll be releasing our kernel and factory images in the next few days. Android O will be coming in the next month or two.

-Rebecca

We're thinking about it. Upvote if you'd be in! -Rebecca

Headphone jacks are pretty big components and they don't play nice with all-screen Phone architectures. We studied it very seriously, but fitting a headphone jack into our Phone required tradeoffs we were uncomfortable with. We'd have grow a huge "chin" in the display and reduce the battery capacity by 10%, or we'd need a huge headphone bump! We decided it was more important to have a beautiful full-screen display in a thin device with solid battery life. Then we made sure we to build ya'll a high-quality DAC in a tiny adapter that can elegantly live on your headphones. - Dave

We are under development on a number of Click Connector accessories. The first available should be the charging dock. We are also actively developing a high end audio accessory to support a 3.5mm jack. We are continuing to look at supporting ideas, like cameras. -Joe

Yeah, our head of architecture is in Asia right now getting our high-end audio accessory super dialed. He graciously called me at 3AM today so we could talk about some specifics for our design... We are working literally around the clock around the globe to get your awesome new things ready. - Dave

We have been in the certification process with Verizon and are at the tail end. Could come as soon as tomorrow! These certifications really help enhance our overall quality, so your patience will pay off! - andyR

1. 2 months-ish
2. Yes, we want to -- it's on the list.
3. Fixing as fast as we can. Should refer to rebecca's response on this. It's getting better daily.
4. Yes
5. Good idea. Derek and Nelson will look into this.

6. Team is smiling

7. andyR

We're happy we were able to address some of your issues! You'll see performance bug fixes continuing to roll out in our subsequent release. The top performance issue we are pursuing is that UI freeze up that turns out is lock contention in the System UI thread! Now that we're hot on it's trail we should have a fix soon. -Rebecca

Would like to understand more around your reception problems so I can get you an answer. As you know, LTE Modems are complex and there are a number of factors that cause reception or coverage. -Joe

We have not heard of reception issues. We tested favorably vs. the competition in the labs. I'll have someone reach out and get your logs. - andyR

Working on it as a priority. -andyR

We are working closely with several brands to produce cases for our phone, so they'll be coming from our friends and partners and not from Essential. We play nice with others, so we're supporting lots of requests from accessory companies!- Linda

andyR: https://vivamadridamerica.com/product/essential-clear-back-case/

White is coming! Pure White ceramic is in build trials now. We're looking at a few weeks until they're in boxes and shipping, especially as we fill the manufacturing backlog on Moon Black. - Dave

Coverage is a complex issue. We are always looking for feedback on problem locations so that we can field test to fix issues which are software based. Its hard to look just at signal strength when comparing phones. For instance, which cell tower is serving you may be different even though you are in the same location with two phones. When we performed field testing sometimes we would score better than reference phones sometimes worse. We are a bit more conservative on signal bars. Which, unfortunately, there is no standard for on mobile devices. But, please let us know the locations and we can take a look -Joe

Yes on ROMs. Not sure about trades-in yet. Startups need usually need to gain traction before that's financially possible. -andyR

Would like to get more data from you on what you have installed on the device and when you are seeing this issue. Obviously, this is not how the phone should perform. Its hard to tell from your description if it is hardware or software -Joe

That's a ridiculous question - Dwight

We have performed drop tests to industry standards and have performed as well or better to other devices. We are always looking to improve reliability and test to standards to improve the customer experience. -Joe

We have a reference design almost complete. Once ready, it will be made available to 3rd parties so they can easily integrate our connector into their products. This works for hobbyists as well! -andyR

I'm particularly excited about the home product. It has the potential to unify all the disparate devices in your home, including your phone! Not quite ready to talk details, but development is going well and we'll have something to show soon.

We are planning on having the dock out shortly. Our final prototype build is this month and we will have it available for purchase after we run through reliability testing -Joe

Thank you! We are going to keep rolling out those updates to you and we are definitely paying attention to your feedback. We're also working on a plan to support developers. Keep those comments coming!

We'll work on a forum for our website. I want to create a company where the engineers to talk to customers. -andyR

DM us please - andyR

Tooling for the EU plug for the power adapter is underdevelopment now. First shots will be here this month. - Joe

Have thought specifically about HaaS models. Nothing to announce just yet :-) - andyR

Design, materials, expandability, stock android, fast updates, open mentality. -andyR

This is one of the dilemmas for product designers. We could easily make the device thicker to accommodate a larger battery. But consumers don't like thick devices. (we can also make them a lot thinner, but they'd only last a few hours). The product designers typically take a "just right" approach, which equals one day... - andyR

It is not possible in Zirconia ceramic (what the phone has today), unfortunately. Interesting idea though! - Linda

Right now there isn't a release date for this Click Accessory, but we do have prototypes we are actively testing -Joe

The in-screen front facing camera was a new feature for Android. To ensure Android compatibility, Google asked us to letterbox applications out of the cutout area by default. If you are a developer who wants to use the full screen, shoot us an email and we'll add your app to our whiteilst. The whitelist can be updated via the Play Store, so you won't have to wait for a full software update. -Rebecca

This is a tough one but we're going to take a stab at is as part of our Android O support. It might take us a little longer to get there. No promises, but it's definitely a goal for us too. -Rebecca

Please PM as I want to understand where you are located... we can figure out what the issue is.... Subway rides are problematic if underground. But please PM -Joe

We actually designed the device from scratch and did not take influence from other devices. The details are all there for a good reason. Our side walls are straight in order to reduce the amount of visual and physical border around the display. We actually took many, many weeks just to lock on the appropriate corner radius- just round enough to feel approachable and human, but also tight enough to allow for as many pixels in the corners as possible. Hope that helps - Linda

I'm afraid we can't give you specifics for colors like Ocean. As we ramped up capacity we discovered that non-white/black colors are less stable in production than we'd like, so it's much harder for us to give dates. We have standards for quality that we are unwilling to compromise. Right now we can get a few good pieces of Ocean, but not enough to start true mass-production. The chemistry of ceramics is just super, super tricky. Here's an anecdote for our Reddit friends: our partners in engineered ceramics told us the first time they tried to make gray, decades ago, they mixed black + white and it came out green! So yeah, fine tuning colors is incredibly hard, so we're launching with black and white first, with matte black / gray close behind. - Dave

A.I. -andyR

Manufacturing is always a challenge and new materials make it more of a challenge. For instance, CNC'ing titanium is much more difficult because of heat build up vs. Aluminum. We have a quality plans in place to address the some of the issues you mention. -Joe

We are solving this with the charging dock, which is much more "Green" than Qi power as its more efficient and solves the "drop and charge" issue. -Joe

PM us and we'll see if we can debug it with your help. -Rebecca

You nailed it, there are definitely tradeoffs to every design decisions and we had plenty of debates around ingress protection. When we studied waterproofing the Phone we discovered it would have made the device quite a bit thicker and the borders around the display would have doubled. Ultimately we decided to focus on making it "weatherproof" for daily use while maintaining that just-so blend of a huge display that also fits comfortably in your hand. That made sure the battery was big, the borders were minuscule, and the experience as magical as possible. - Dave

The chin on our display is driven by two components: the touch IC drivers and the LEDs for the LCD backlight. We would love to ship a truly borderless display and are working on next-gen products that get us every closer to a seamless device flooded with pixels. - Dave

Yes, but some of our HALs will be passthrough when we release O. We are committed to doing better and better over time, but we also want to get O to you as soon as possible. -Rebecca

Thanks for the links...Will take a look and see what we can do -Joe

Please PM us and we can see what we can do -Joe

As mentioned above, we have a number of Click Accessories planned. First out is a charging dock and a 3.5mm High End Audio adapter. -Joe

As mentioned above, we have a number of Click Accessories planned including a dock and audio accessory. Great ideas though! question- what color would you like your rock tumbler? - Linda

Seems like the Android team continues to put the 1's and 0's all in the right order to to keep Android the #1 platform (what is it now 85% global marketshare?) - anon ;-)

What you really want is better battery life. Would like to know your use case and what you are looking for. Please PM interested in the constraints. - Joe

We developed a design language based on our top priorities- best technology, user experience, and materials. Believe me, it took MANY revisions and design iterations to get to where we are now. At the end, we worked very hard to make sure our device is designed from the inside out. We wanted to let the technology shine through and take away anything that may pose as a distraction. That's why our borders are straight and thin (more visual display) and our details are clean and minimal. It's hard to come up with a brand new design from scratch, but at the same time it's a very freeing and openly creative process that is hard to find anywhere else but here at new startup - Linda

This actually turns out to be really hard technically. We're going to try to do more and more of this over time but ensuring you separate out any close source proprietary bits from the rest, but that things still work well is a big challenge. -Rebecca

That's why we shipped with an unlockable bootloader! We'll be posting our kernel source and factory images to our website shortly and working on other ways to support developers. -Rebecca

That doesn't sound like a reception issue. I've seen this on a Pixel XL. Please PM so we can help get data to help debug. - Joe

Band Handoff is actually controlled by the cell site. If you can PM, we can see if we can help debug what you are seeing. -Joe

Yes. The charger is one of the best USB Type-C chargers out there! We designed it to charge more than your phone. -Joe

You can unlock the bootloader using the directions here: https://source.android.com/source/running

Power + Volume Down to get to fastboot on your Essential Phone.
-Rebecca

You can double tap the power button to launch camera. We are also looking at adding some other good stuff like fingerprint gestures to pull down the notification shade. Keep your eyes out for updates! -Rebecca

The reason I left was even simpler: After doing Android for 10 years I was ready for another startup. And at Essential I'm super proud to be a customer of my previous work. - andyR

Always looking for great talent to join the team. Please check our webpage for opportunities. - Joe