RED's Hydrogen phone project is dead
RED's Hydrogen project is no more.
Founder Jim Jannard said so on the company's forum (via The Verge), saying he'll be "shutting down the HYDROGEN project, ending a career that has included Oakley, RED Digital Cinema and HYDROGEN."
He also announced his retirement due to "a few health issues."
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Jannard said that the Hydrogen One phone — the only smartphone the company has launched — will "continue to be supported in the future."
The move isn't particularly surprising due to the extremely poor reviews Hydrogen One has gotten, and the company's own admission in July that finishing the phone's feature and fixing its issues was "impossible," allegedly due to poor performance of RED's manufacturing partner in China.
Back then, Jannard promised a follow-up phone, Hydrogen Two, which was to be built "virtually from scratch," but it appears those plans were canceled.
On paper, Hydrogen One was an exciting device, with a 3D "holographic display" and a powerful camera. In reality, the screen wasn't very good, the interface was outdated, 3D content was lacking and the phone was poorly built as well as bulky compared to modern Android phones.
Some of the projects related to Hydrogen will seemingly live on, though. According to Jannard, the company is about to launch the Komodo 6K camera, which should be working with Hydrogen phones in some way but it's unclear how.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
