Looks like time is up for Snap's Pixy drone
Snap may have flown a little too close to the sun in its development of the palm-sized selfie drone, Pixy. Following an announcement in late April, the social media company has already begun to put the brakes on the project, according to a Wall Street Journal report. CEO Evan Spiegel has seemingly relayed the message that hardware is one of the causes of reprioritization, amid broader economic concerns.
All is not lost for the product, exactly. Snap will apparently continue to sell through its already existing limited inventory of the $250 device. The company declined to comment on the report.
The company was not really a material power. The Pixy joins the company's Spectacle goggles, which have been something of a mixed bag – although the product has recently transitioned from being a novelty for face-worn cameras to one focused on the burgeoning AR category. Pixy, it seems, won't have the luxury of finding a suitable market. The material is difficult, of course. Meta has notably been through its own recent struggles with its Portal devices.
Even so, it's hard to know precisely how well Snap was taking its effort with the Pixy. The system itself was a bit of a brightly colored toy, lacking the sophistication (and years of development) of a DJI. Hell, even DJI eventually killed off its closest equivalent, the Spark, in an effort to streamline its consumer offerings — and don't even get me started on the whole GoPro Karma debacle (it involves drones falling from the sky, for begin ).
Between high-end products from companies like DJI and much cheaper counterfeit systems, there may not ultimately be much of a consumer drone market to play on. That, coupled with an internal Snap restructure, means Pixy just hasn't been long for this cruel world. But hey, you now have a collectible and a weird little piece of tech history in your hands.
Snap may have flown a little too close to the sun in its development of the palm-sized selfie drone, Pixy. Following an announcement in late April, the social media company has already begun to put the brakes on the project, according to a Wall Street Journal report. CEO Evan Spiegel has seemingly relayed the message that hardware is one of the causes of reprioritization, amid broader economic concerns.
All is not lost for the product, exactly. Snap will apparently continue to sell through its already existing limited inventory of the $250 device. The company declined to comment on the report.
The company was not really a material power. The Pixy joins the company's Spectacle goggles, which have been something of a mixed bag – although the product has recently transitioned from being a novelty for face-worn cameras to one focused on the burgeoning AR category. Pixy, it seems, won't have the luxury of finding a suitable market. The material is difficult, of course. Meta has notably been through its own recent struggles with its Portal devices.
Even so, it's hard to know precisely how well Snap was taking its effort with the Pixy. The system itself was a bit of a brightly colored toy, lacking the sophistication (and years of development) of a DJI. Hell, even DJI eventually killed off its closest equivalent, the Spark, in an effort to streamline its consumer offerings — and don't even get me started on the whole GoPro Karma debacle (it involves drones falling from the sky, for begin ).
Between high-end products from companies like DJI and much cheaper counterfeit systems, there may not ultimately be much of a consumer drone market to play on. That, coupled with an internal Snap restructure, means Pixy just hasn't been long for this cruel world. But hey, you now have a collectible and a weird little piece of tech history in your hands.
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