This is more than just old though, it's a butchered version of old. Google seems to have developed a special skill for messing this up. Last year's bizarre Pixel 5 leak with the goofy "face" camera bump was even worse.
Never heard of Smartio before but if it is an account still installed on your phone, you can go to Accounts under your general settings and delete the account. That should get rid of it.
Essential was a bit of an abberation. I owned one of those as well. It's a shame they didn't survive. The idea of a "clean" Android phone with excellent updates was a very attractive prospect. Unfortunately the Google Pixel phones haven't lived up to that concept either, and are now stuffed...
Agreed, it does look like a pretty convincing package. Especially the smaller version, because personally I'm starting to get a little sick of flagship spec phones that don't even fit in my pocket anymore.