Here’s the Nothing product that Carl Pei ditched because it failed to pass tests

When talking about movies, often the conversation ends up with the dead-end question “What was the greatest movie never made?” and more often than not, Stanley Kubrick’s unrealized “Napoleon” project is brought up.

I’m certain that I’m the first person to ask “What was the greatest power bank never made?”, but what the heck, somebody has to – given that Carl Pei is going in detail about a power bank from Nothing that never saw the light of day.

Sure, a term like “the greatest” is not applicable, given the sheer diversity and availability of power banks today, but Nothing’s power bank certainly was sharp-dressed and attracted attention. Here it is, it was to be called Power (1):



In a short video, Carl Pei talks about “Power (1) – the product that never was” and recalls that this power bank was to be released after the earbuds Ear (1). “A lot of us put a lot of heart into this product – and time, and cost. We learned a lot of lessons along the way”, he says.

In his words, “It was really complicated”. The Nothing team had just begun to experiment and explore the transparent design – how to make the glue invisible, yet sturdy enough, and more.

The real problems began at the testing stage when problems with the thermals occurred. “If we used the kind of charging speed that we wanted it would overheat”, Carl Pei recollects and since product safety is really important, the team decided to let go of this project.

Another issue was the durability of the Power (1) – the prototype didn’t perform well in the different abuse scenarios the team had put it through, like dropping it from different angles and heights. “It cracks pretty easily”, says the CEO of Nothing.

He’s not discouraged at all: “Think about it this way: if you’re in a car driving somewhere and you realize that you’ve put the wrong location in the GPS, would you keep driving a bit more just to get to your final destination… or would you just do a U-turn to get to where you actually need to be?”

Here’s the full video: