The OnePlus co-founder’s new hardware venture is set to launch its first product, a pair of wireless earbuds called Ear 1, sometime in June.
Carl Pei, the co-founder of Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus, is starting afresh. The Chinese-born Swedish entrepreneur formed a new consumer tech company called Nothing late last year. The firm is set to launch its first product, a pair of wireless earbuds called Ear 1, sometime in June. While specs for Nothing’s earphones haven’t yet been revealed, Pei hints that they will be minimalistic in terms of features. Rather than “20 different levels” of noise cancellation, for example, Pei says people only need a maximum of two or three settings. Nothing’s products will also have a “retro futuristic” design, Pei said, adding that the company spent a lot of time perfecting its design philosophy. “We want to bring this element of human warmth back into our products,” Pei told CNBC in an interview. “Products are not just cold electronics,” he added. “They’re designed by people and intelligently used by people. It feels like product companies (today) are run by large corporations.” Pei and former colleague Pete Lau founded OnePlus in 2013. OnePlus, which is majority-owned by China’s Oppo, a subsidiary of Guangzhou-based BBK Electronics, gained notoriety for making cheap Android phones. Last year, Pei left the company to start his new hardware venture. Pei hopes his new company Nothing, which is based in London, will shape the consumer tech industry in the same way that Apple’s iMac G3 shook up the PC market in the late 90s and early 2000s. “Today it’s kind of like the PC industry in the 80s and 90s, where everybody made grey boxes,” he said.
