Update[August 21]: Andy Rubin, in an interview with Bloomberg, has revealed two of the upcoming Essential Phone accessories that are currently in the making. While one of them is an accessory that outs high-quality audio from the Essential Phone to your car’s stereo wirelessly, the other is what Andy Rubin calls “the world’s smallest 3D laser scanner.” Also, for the unaware, the company is expected to launch a bunch of new external accessories, six to be precise (including the two mentioned above) in the coming months.
Andy Rubin whom we all know as the Father of Android has recently unveiled the much-teased Essential Phone. In addition to it, he has also launched a couple of snap-on modular accessories called the Essential 360-degree camera and the Essential Phone Dock.
As soon as we say “modular” we know that Motorola’s “Moto Mods” or the LG’s “Friends” modules popped up in your head. The latter, however, failed miserably when it was introduced last year with the LG G5. Even, Google gave the modularity concept a shot with its Project Ara. But, sadly, the search engine giant had to scrap the entire project even before it matured which leaves us with the relatively successful “Moto Mods” and the newly launched Essential modular accessory system.
While the idea behind both of them is same — to provide additional functionality via external snap-on Mods, accessories from Essential seem to be more future-proof than the ones from Moto design-wise.
Read: Essential Phone Features: All you need to know
Let’s get to know more about these modular accessories from Essential. Shall we?
360-degree Camera Module
Let’s get this straight out of the way, Essential’s 360-degree camera module is 12mm thick and weighs only 35g. What this essentially means is that the accessory will not add much bulk to the smartphone when you snap it on the handset. And most importantly, it doesn’t mess around with the device’s form factor for the most part, unlike the Moto Mods which add extra thickness to the device.
The Essential 360-degree Camera is equipped with f/1.8 dual 12MP fisheye sensors which provide a 210-degree FOV on both the sides. FYI, it can record 360-degree videos at UHD (3840 x 1920 pixels) resolution at 30fps. Also, it comes with a quad microphone setup in a 3D ambisonic tetrahedral arrangement for better audio recording.
A Qualcomm 8053 chipset powers the accessory. As far as connectivity is concerned, there’s a Click ConnectTM Wireless Accessory Port (60GHz Wireless) and a SuperSpeed USB accessory connector.
Finally, the Essential 360-degree camera is currently available for USD 50 if purchased with the Essential Phone. However, it’s actually priced at USD 199.
Essential Phone Dock
The second accessory unveiled by the company is a docking station to charge the Essential Phone. Called the Essential Phone Dock, it’s rectangular-ish docking station which holds the smartphone intact with the help of a magnetic connector and charges the device. Sadly, that’s pretty much everything we know about the accessory so far as the company didn’t disclose other details regarding the dock. We shall update the post with more information when the company reveals more details regarding the same.
