Camera manufacturer RED stops developing Hydrogen smartphones

Camera manufacturer RED stops developing smartphones in its Hydrogen project. Founder Jim Jannard said so. RED was working on a second model, but it doesn’t seem to be coming out now.

RED will continue to support the Hydrogen One for the foreseeable future, says founder Jim Jannard. Jannard will also be stepping down from the company due to health reasons. Work on the Hydrogen program, presumably a second smartphone, is halted. However, the Komodo 6K, a camera that works with the Hydrogen One smartphone, among other things, will be released soon.

The camera manufacturer blamed the Hydrogen One’s failure on the Chinese manufacturer it partnered with. It wouldn’t fix known bugs or keep promises. RED had meanwhile found another manufacturer to work with for the second smartphone, but that will not be forthcoming.

RED is an American manufacturer of high-end film cameras for cinema productions. The company announced its first smartphone two years ago. The Android device had to distinguish itself with a so-called ‘holographic’ screen and the possibility to record video images in a special 3D format. The $1300 device came out in November last year in the US and was not received enthusiastically. The Verge gave the Hydrogen One a score of 3 out of 10 and wrote that the screen was low. The lack of the promised modules was also a point of criticism. Mashable called the device the worst tech product of 2018 in its review.