Verizon bubs flub, hawk their last Hub
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 29th 2009 8:21PM
posted Sep 29th 2009 8:21PM
"Verizon Wireless, like many companies, continually changes and updates the products and services it offers to customers. Our sales teams in all channels will continue to focus on providing our customers the latest and most innovative wireless products and services. Verizon Wireless will continue to support existing Verizon Hub customers with post-sale service or support ."
So the good news is that current Hub owners should be good to go without disruption in service -- for the time being, anyhow. Question is, where's that Hub 2? Is the company completely abandoning the curious practice of competing with itself by pitting traditional landlines against VoIP and Verizon Communications against Verizon Wireless, or are they just making way for something a little more awesome?
[Via Zatz Not Funny]
Don't scrub with that hub in the tub, bub.
Wolverine rhymes.
I feel like Engadget should never bring up that review of the Hub 2 again, mostly because that ruined the neutrality of Engadget for me.
"Verizon's iPhone-like Hub 2 hands-on", when there was nothing really in common with the iPhone.
You should be ashamed of yourself, JoshT!
i honestly don't remember a time when engadget WAS neutral
The fact is is that no one is neutral. Forcing people to pretend they arn't is nonsense. Sure people shouldn't be going overboard, but forcing it over something like that is pretty sad imo. If you don't like it, deal with it or go some where else.
i don't see how that thing ever made it to market
Well see, there was a mommy hub and a daddy hubby, and one day they fell in love. Then they "called" each other and decided to mass produce. Then there were HUBS FOR ALL.
@Syntax Error
Boooooooooooooooooo!
hahaha
Agreed. There's room for some kind of product like this. Imagine an iPhone like interface for your phone, but as a land line. Visual voice mail (locally stored) tagged by name from your contacts list. An easy touch screen interface. Easy feature access like multiparty conferencing or whatever. Different rings for different people (even no ring at all for identified numbers). Etc. A nice cellphone like interface. I'm surprised nobody is doing this actually.
Do you need anything more, like weather, and movie tickets and all that? Maybe some day if you establish the category. First just do the version with the 3-5" touchscreen and forget anything too hard. You can push the category along if the first product is successful. Since there isn't going to be any 2-year contracts or anything (or is there...) you have to sell it at full price, so you've got to make a bunch of these things and sell them for not too much money.
It was an interesting idea... but in its current form I never saw much point, and when you consider it pits Verizon Wireless against Landline I was stunned it made it to market at all.
Give me something similar, but with bluetooth/wi-fi so i can take calls from my cell phone, and give it more widgets/features (like an iTunes remote, Facebook, alarm clock, iPhoto widget, etc.), and I'm all in
Hub 2 = iTablet
Not surprising that Verizon stopped marketing these and pulled them from their retail store only weeks after their release. My crazy theory is that the iTablet will be the new verizon hub/all-in-one tablet.
Boy, what a load of marketing BINGO-speak bullshit!
Didn't see that one coming did we? Sigh, whats wrong with these companies ?
Do they wake up and ask "what products do people want? we need to create the opposite of that today"
Next up for Verizon? The tri-fold flip phone.
With a likely iPhone deal in 2010 in the works, they are consolidating a similar product. Just a guess.
I believe that deal will expand with Verizon & AT&T supporting a "Tablet thing", however they choose to market it...and it will be a new tier of Apple wireless devices, which in turn will ease a very difficult transition from touchable devices (wireless smartphones) to traditionally non-touchable devices (desktop and laptops, starting with laptops or again a tablet thing); end massive run-on sentence.
Well, okay, but I don't see how a tablet is an alternative to a PHONE.
I remember right around the time this hub came out there were rumors of the iTablet as well as an iPhone mini that would work on Verizon. I think they'll make some sort of tablet/mini iphone headset.
and that web page is getting more hits today as a 404 error than it has in the past year combined.
Nice title.
Hey Verizon call Magic Jack I think they are beating you to the punch.
It was doomed for failure right from the very start! VZW blew it the very day it was introduced.
The problem was it came too late. People can already do all of that on their cell phone. Besides how many people actually use a home phone these days for anything other than having a landline for their alarm system?
the problem was it was way too expensive and carried a monthly bill for something that you could mainly do for free on a computer/netbook
i wonder how many they managed to hock before pulling it...~100?
Josh, you are right. It wasn't the product that was bad. Although it could have been better like bluetooth pairing of cell phone and more services. What really killed it was the price and monthly service fees. If Verizon sold this for $150 as a powerful wi-fi/ethernet home phone hub they could have carved a niche in the market. From there VZW could have expanded the offerings on the hub and had the platform to sell/distribute new premium features. But there could never be a monthly fee associated with the device if they want consumers to adopt it.
Cell phone pricing structure with contracts don't work outside the oligopoly. Selling home phones or home information hubs has too many indirect competitors to be priced like cell service and cable providers (in some markets).
Just wait, Vtech will take one of their DECT 6.0/Bluetooth cordless phone systems and add a larger screen with wi-fi. That device will stream forecasts and basic info to the screen while providing a cordless phone to take land-line or cell calls. They'll price it under $200 and have no service fees because its just basic info served over the web.
Does this thing work if you DON'T have Verizon home phone service? It would be cool to pick one up cheap on ebay and mess around with it if all it needs is an ethernet connection. Given that it's Verizon, without an over-priced subscription the thing is probably locked down to about as useful as a paperweight.
"hey! you jumped over some of my buses!"