AR-Enabled Snapchat Spectacles 2 In The Works? Company Acquires Augmented Reality Location IP

Snap Inc. launched the Snap Map on June 21. The feature will let users see their friends on a map in the app.

“With the Snap Map, you can view Snaps of sporting events, celebrations, breaking news, and more from all across the world. If you and a friend follow one another, you can share your locations with each other so you can see where they’re at and what’s going on around them! Plus, meeting up can be a cinch," the company said in a press release late last month.

Basically it is a location-sharing feature, which might let you meet real-life friends using Snapchat.

Read: Snapchat Map Update: How To Use The New Snap Map

TechCrunch revealed Friday that the feature might get more detailed, since it has acquired an augmented reality (AR) and location-based messaging intellectual property from a start-up called Drop.

“Snapchat reached out to buy the IP portfolio. We went back and forth on terms and price, but ended up selling them our whole portfolio of IP. The patent included a very detailed section on the line by line technology implementation so the owner of the patent would be able to replicate the code consistently with our original technology specifications,” Drop co-founder Zachary DeWitt told TechCrunch.

Drop had developed an app in 2013, which would let users post photos or text to a certain location, such as a nearby landmark. While the feature might let the company make the Snap Map more detailed, but chances are that this might be hinting at the next-generation Snapchat Spectacles — Snapchat Spectacles 2.

Snapchat Spectacles were the company’s first hardware offering. While it might look a little fancy with yellow frame, black glasses and a curvy design, the Snapchat Spectacles don’t do much. You can basically capture short videos from your field of vision and upload them to Snapchat and that’s it.

It might titillate user’s fancy at start, but uploading a video in which you may not even feature in since you are actually wearing the glasses while filming might not be appealing for long. But, if the glasses are AR-enabled, they might do more than just that — it might actually lead people in the real world to places, where Snapchat-worthy moments are happening.

Snapchat has been on an acquisition spree since its IPO in March. According to TechCrunch, it acquired the social map startup Zenly for $250-$300 million earlier in June. In April, the company acquired a geofilter patent from Instagram competitor Mobili. Geofilters are location based photo filters.

Read: Is Snapchat’s Snap Map Dangerous? Police Issue Warnings About Safety Of Young Children

Unlike Apple and Google, which acquire whole companies and even hire their staff to develop their technologies, Snap Inc. post getting its hands on the IPO money has adopted a different, more focused approach. It settles on one technology and then starts acquiring patents instead of companies most of the time.

This makes sense for the company as it currently has few offerings, just the Snapchat Spectacles and the Snapchat app. For the company, it would make more sense to put out more offerings, and from what we gage by looking at its patent portfolio, chances are that it might release an AR-enabled Snapchat Spectacles 2, specializing in location-based metrics.