A Snapchat drone available in retail? Count us in!
In 2017, there were reports that Snapchat sought to acquire robotics company Zero Zero Robotics, which is known to produce and manufacture a range of camera-enabled drones, including a compact, foldable selfie-taking drone that was designed solely to help you build and maximize your social media content creation.
Check out this trailer of the ‘Hover’ 4k-ready drone by Zero Zero Robotics released back in 2018.
Autonomous Selfies
As you can see in the video, the Hover drone, which can fold up to the size of a VHS tape (7.4 x 4 inches), provides a range of recording options for all sorts of content ideas, which would seem perfectly aligned with Snapchat’s ‘Snap Cam’, significantly expanding on the platform’s experience focus.
Snap never confirmed these allegations regarding its interest in Zero Zero Robotics and is not listed as one of the latter’s investors. Regardless, a partnership between them would make sense, perhaps even more so than its traditional partnerships with the likes of Apple and Facebook. While these tech giants could do wonders for its AR development, Zero Zero Robotics could’ve provided Snap with a new, tangible offer, increasing the range and scope of its products and services.
Now, a team from XDA Developers has uncovered a couple of new back-end codes within Snapchat’s app, referring to a new functionality called “Cheerio”, which XDA believes points to an upcoming Snap drone integration. XDA developers further elaborate by saying:
“A cursory look at these placeholder strings would indicate that cheerios is likely to be a drone. As The Information reported last year, Snapchat’s parent company Snap Inc. had revived its plans to work on a selfie drone. No information has been made available since then regarding if and when Snap has plans to start selling the drone, however, we can now confirm that development work is still in progress for this device.”
This information, reported in March of last year, suggested that Snapchat planned to revive its selfie drone initiative. It’s also mentioned that instead of acquiring Zero Zero Robotics, Snap instead invested $20 million into the company, with a future view towards an eventual collaboration.
The Wrap
Besides its Spectacles project, which seeks to expand broader use and application of its visual tools, this could be another significant front in which Snapchat could integrate newer AR functionality into physical devices. Just think about it, we’re so struck by the idea of oversized headsets plunging us into virtual environments. If you flip that idea around just enough. Then we’d technically be able, with the help of a drone. To see ourselves in a digital environment, but one that’s captured and reconstructed from our immediate physical environment – a fully Snap Cam-enabled drone literally lets you apply real-time effects to your surroundings as you see it, which kind of throws you into a whole 3rd-person perspective, opening up a range of new opportunities.
It’s a work in progress and a wishful idea at best as Snap has neither confirmed nor fully denied these speculations. What’s known is that they did invest in Zero Zero Robotics, so the least we can expect is some sort of integration between them so that Snap’s investment sees at least some return.
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