Nothing Is Teaming Up with Teenage Engineering for Future Product Design

So far, it’s been much ado about nothing as One Plus co-founder Carl Pei’s new company has yet to release a single product. But today, Nothing is making a splash by announcing a founding partnership with Teenage Engineering that will put the Swedish design group in charge of Nothing’s future product design.

By teaming up with Teenage Engineering, Nothing could be prepping for a departure from typical minimalist gadget design—Teenage Engineering has become known for its twee retro-inspired gadgets like the OB-4 radio and its line of pocket synthesizers.

Recently, Teenage Engineering has been expanding its sphere of influence thanks to a collaboration with Ikea, but this new partnership with Nothing has the potential to push things even further.

In Nothing’s press release, Teenage Engineering co-founder and CEO said “When Carl [Pei] first told me about Nothing’s vision I remember being super excited thinking about how this would be translated into the design identity of the products. After months of research and development, we are now in a place where I believe we will have something exciting to show to the world.”

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The challenge for Teenage Engineering will be to channel its distinctive styling into devices like wireless earbuds, which will be Nothing’s first product when it gets released sometime later this summer.

That said, for a company that has yet to sell anything, in addition to being helmed by Pei, Nothing boasts an impressive stable of investors including YouTuber Casey Neistat, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and others. And on top of that, according to recent filings in the U.K., Nothing has even taken ownership of Essential and all of its tech and branding. The startup founded by Andy Rubin shut down last year after following weak sales of the Essential PH-1 and other products.

So while it’s hard to say right now if Nothing will turn into something, at the very least we’ll probably get gadgets that look very different from what companies like Apple and Samsung are pumping out now.