Niantic Labs CEO releases teaser image of some AR glasses

Niantic Labs CEO John Hanke has been talking about the potential of augmented reality through high-tech glasses since at least 2017, and his company is getting closer to making it a reality. Today Hanke tweeted an intriguing teaser image that looks like a close-up view of AR glasses, complete with lenses and a small speaker. So far, it’s unclear whether these will try to expand down the path of Google Glass and HoloLens, or if they are intended for an audio-only increase like Amazon’s Echo Frames.

In 2019, Niantic announced a partnership with Qualcomm to work on AR glasses, before clarifying that it “had no intention” of making its own hardware and that it was in fact building benchmark models that it did. ‘others could manufacture. It has since acquired a startup to help activate its AR plans globally and has announced an expanded partnership with Nintendo that will include a new Pikmin game that it will launch soon.