Jim Jannard, the founder of RED Digital Cinema has announced that the Hydrogen One project is being shut down because of his retirement which is due to “a few health issues.”. The project first came to life in the year 2017, when the company’s first handset, RED Hydrogen One concept was announced.
At that time, the company promised to deliver a handset that would bring several industry-first features like a “holographic display“, high-end camera system and support for modular accessories. Sadly, the device when turned into a reality in 2018, was nowhere near the promises and hype that RED had established.
The RED Hydrogen One, at the time of launch, carried a price tag of $ 1295 and it simply could not compete with other flagship smartphones that were priced likewise. Talking about its shortcomings, the holographic display technology was not polished enough and was not ready for the end consumers. It featured the Snapdragon 835 SoC which was Qualcomm’s flagship chip from a year before and it had chunky bezels on both the top and bottom of the display which didn’t either help in making it more appealing.
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RED affirmed that it had learned from its mistakes and the second-gen smartphone would be designed in-house rather than being made from off the shelf parts by a Chinese ODM. Moreover, its highlighting feature, the camera setup was promoted to be tuned by the company’s engineers at the camera division. After all, following the announcement, we won’t be seeing this second-gen smartphone from RED.
While the first handset is now being sold for $645 which is about 50 % lower than its original price, the company’s ex-CEO has announced existing device owners won’t be abandoned and the RED Hydrogen One will continue to be supported in the future.
Besides, he has teased RED’s upcoming camera, the Komodo 6K which will supposedly work with the smartphone in some manner. After his departure, the company will be led by Jarred Land (RED’s current president), Tommy Rios (RED’s executive vice president) and Jamin Jannard (RED’s president of marketing and creative).
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