Niantic CEO Presents New Look at AR Glasses Design

Niantic founder and CEO John Hanke shared a little teaser of what appears to be a pair of WITH or XR glasses from Niantic. The Pokemon Go developer has researched AR a lot, and this could be the next step for Niantic games beyond just the smartphone. He also shared an image of the stem of what appear to be glasses, with some sort of strap with the Niantic logo on it. The stem of the glasses is also thicker and appears to have some sort of speaker, perhaps.

Exciting to see the progress we are making to enable new types of devices that take advantage of our platform … pic.twitter.com/yYglk4q89G

– John Hanke (@johnhanke) March 29, 2021

Niantic’s interest in AR glasses technology goes back a long way. In 2019, Niantic announced a collaboration with Qualcomm on an XR platform that combines XR, 5G, and AI with Niantic’s AR platform. It’s the same AR platform that Niantic uses for games like Pokemon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

Niantic also demonstrated a version of Pokemon Go on Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 platform and Microsoft Mesh. It appears that the AR glasses will allow players to see Pokemon in the world, although at the time, Hanke said his HoloLens demo was not intended for mainstream use, according to The edge.

The AR glasses space is heating up recently after years of VR glasses dominating the gaming space. Apple is reportedly working on an expensive, $ 3,000 VR headset with 8K screens as a test product before launching a more user-friendly AR device.

Niantic-powered AR glasses could help take games like Pokemon Go and maybe the Newly announced Pikmin game from Niantic to the next level.

Matt TM Kim is editor-in-chief of IGN.

Photo credit: Niantic