Dreame — the vacuum company — just ‘launched’ its own phones

Dreame, a Chinese manufacturer best known for its robot vacuums but with ambitions to do much more, says it’s making smartphones now. I’m not sure I believe it. The company showed off two phones at its own Next event, which took place in California this week, though both had previously been revealed in China in March. Neither phone has actually launched though — in China, the US, or elsewhere — and the company has revealed only a handful of specs about either. Aurora Nex LS1 is the more interesting of the two, but also the less plausible. It’s a modular smartphone with a magnetic attachment point where the rear camera would normally be. Dreame has revealed five different modules that can be attached at that point: a triple camera that apparently includes a 1-inch-type sensor and a 115mm equivalent telephoto lens; an action camera; a fan; a satellite communications module; and a “Smart Agent Module.” We’ve seen modular phone designs before, but this is closest in approach to the version Tecno showed off at MWC this year. That phone was only a concept device though; Dreame is at least implying that the Nex LS1 is a real product that will really go on sale. Dreame’s second phone is the Aurora Lux, though calling it a single phone is a little misleading. This is really a series of different phone designs, some quite radically different from each other, all unified by a garish sense of luxury. Some are coated in leather; others appear plated in gold. …