Snapchat, the popular social media platform has given another reason to its users to suspect it might be chipping away on some sort of hardware. Yes, the company has joined the list of other tech titans including Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft. As Snapchat joins Bluetooth SIG, the consortium of companies that manages the Bluetooth wireless standard, the speculations of some wireless hardware got fuel.
Snapchat’s new membership with the group indicates that the company is in plans of moving into hardware development in the meantime. It’s obviously senseless for software companies to join the SIG the other way.
Snapchat most likely joins Bluetooth SIG for coming up with some sort of wearable augmented reality hardware, as a membership is a must for companies that wish to employ Bluetooth in any hardware devices.
Reports reveal that Snapchat is an “Adopter” in the SIG, a free tier providing member companies with a license to build Bluetooth-enabled hardware.
It also lets them work with other Bluetooth SIG makers in collaboration.
So all in all, the only reason for companies to join the SIG is, in one way or the other, to actually launch a wireless hardware. However, other companies indulged in software are also members of the SIG, including Facebook.
But Facebook has dabbed its toes earlier in hardware, including the last year project where the social media giant offered free Bluetooth beacons to business owners as part of a wireless, advertising push based on location.
Snapchat’s own hardware plans along with the Bluetooth tech might be more ambitious as reports suggest that the recently the company has been doing a lot to hint an interest in AR as a hardware.
Snapchat acquired the AR headset startup Vergence Lab, some hires, and a couple of acquisitions in AR software and computer vision.
A report received in the beginning of the year suggested Snapchat might have started developing a pair of smart glasses already, possibly similar to Google Glass. Looking at the matter, Snapchat has valid reasons to be interested in AR as a category. Snapchat’s smartphone app is seen by the most of us as one of the biggest examples of most successful consumer AR, through the use of its image filters, which can be easily applied to live video captured by a user’s device camera.
Given so, the news that Snapchat joins Bluetooth SIG finally, seems to bring some interesting results in the near future of augmented reality and the fate of the platform as well.
Read more about Snapchat at: How to use Snapchat Filters in Instagram Stories
