It was announced in 2017 but never made it to customers It was announced in 2017 but never made it to customers is a reporter with five years of experience covering consumer tech releases, EU tech ...

I retired the expensive commercial smart home hubs and rebuilt my smart home from scratch.

Back in May 2017, the now-defunct technology company Essential announced its first two products — a smartphone dubbed Essential PH-1 and a smart speaker called Essential Home. But only the former made ...

They're all unique, wonderful, and interesting.

If you get carried away with setting up helpful reminders, eventually you’ll get tired of your smart speaker’s endless nagging and will start ignoring it. But what if instead of Siri or Alexa ...

The oft-forgotten Essential Home never officially saw the light of day following Essential’s 2020 closure, however, a prototype for the smart device has surfaced on eBay. The Essential Home was a part ...

The now-defunct Essential only ever released its PH-1 smartphone, a device I personally loved. But before that, the company had promised to release “Essential Home,” a unique smart speaker that ...

Amid the increased clamor for AR smart glasses and headsets over the last year, it’s become easy to lose sight of the much more advanced alternative: smart contact lenses. At MWC 2025, though, I got ...