Snap Pixy: hands-on with Snapchat’s selfie drone

More than five years after it released Spectacles, snap is back with a second hardware product. This time it flies.

Yes, the company made a device. The small yellow puck takes off from your hand, follows you around, and captures video that can be sent back to the app. It's possible that the more advanced, AR-powered future of Snap is being built toward, because of its attempt at making a drone that's friendlier and more accessible than other products on the market.

In the US and France, it will be available online for $230. Unlike most existing drones, it is small and light enough to fit in a pant pocket. There isn't a controller, it takes off from and lands on an outstretched palm, and it uses six pre-programmed flight patterns that can be accessed through a dial on the top of the device.

Why would a messaging app make a drones? It is the first question I pose to Evan.

He told me recently over video chat that they are a camera company. Since the company changed its name to Snap, it has used that slogan. This product does that.

S piegel Spiegel has been interested in drones for a long time, ever since the company started tinkering with how the devices could fit into its camera company strategy. He was close to acquiring a Chinese company called Zero Zero Robotics. With Facebook aggressively copying its staple Stories feature, investors were questioning the growth prospects of the company as a public stock, and the deal ultimately fell apart over price. The company still isn't consistently profitable, but it is growing much faster than Facebook.

So far, drones have not caught on beyond professional use cases. Most are loud and expensive. Some require a permit. A key focus for Pixy was making it easy to use, and a design that could fit into your pocket. I think we should probably release it.

The swappable battery allows the Pixy to weigh just 101 grams. A full charge will get you five to eight flights, which can range from 10 to 20 seconds. Additional batteries cost $20 and a portable dual-battery charger costs $50. The 12MP sensor of the Pixy shoots up to 100 videos or 1,000 photos, all of which are stored locally on a 16GB drive.

The footage is uploaded to the Memories section of the app and edited there, but it doesn't capture audio, so you can use songs it has licensed from music labels. I expect more to be added over time from the company and its creators, as they have included a few Pixy-specific AR effects to choose from. An auto-crop feature can quickly turn the horizontal footage into a staple vertical orientation. The video quality is not great, but it is fine for viewing on a phone.

The main trick is taking off and landing in your hand thanks to the bottom-facing camera. The front-facing camera needs to be lined up at eye level as it takes off, and then it will automatically track you as you move around. When you are ready to end the flight, stretch your hand and it will come back to you. I found this to be the most impressive part of using the drone, it just works and makes a rare first impression.

The new way of taking pictures is centered on people, which is a more narrow view than how drones have been traditionally positioned. I think that Pixy is better than what your phone can do.

The simplicity of the Pixy makes it stand out from the other small drones. Small drones built by DJI can take off from your hand and automatically follow you around, with longer battery life and higher-quality video, too. These competing models are more difficult to use. They are still larger than the pocketable Pixy.

There are other limitations to the design. Since the device is so light, you won't want to use it in windy conditions. It's not advisable to use it over water and other shiny, reflective surfaces that could confuse the camera.

The goal is to get it in people's hands and have them play with it. It is difficult with all the supply chain stuff going on. We didn't think it would be this good.

• Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
• Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
• Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
• Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
• Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Before Spectacles dropped, I noticed that there were job openings with the slogan, "toys are preludes to serious ideas."

The phrase was first used by the famed design duo Charles and Ray Eames. 75 percent of 13 year olds in over 20 countries use the app, which started as a sexting app a decade ago. More than 250 million users engage with augmented reality effects every day. People were allowed to wear dog ears and vomit rainbows. You can try on clothes if you solve math equations.

Spectacles have never been a commercial success, but now they are full-fledged augmented reality glasses that represent what many technologists believe will be the next major wave of computing. Despite having less money than Meta or Apple, Snap is the first in its peer set to have functioning augmented reality glasses and hundreds of developers making them.

Spiegel sees the hardware efforts as a way to push the boundaries of what a camera can be. He focuses on the camera because it is how people are expressing themselves on mobile phones.

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Spectacles suggest that Spiegel has many future generations of Pixy up his sleeve. He sees building hardware as a long-term commitment, though he doesn't see those becoming mainstream for years. I don't think it's wise for us to push scale for a product that isn't ready yet.

The market for camera glasses is very small and constrained to people who want them.

I have a theory that, like the first version of Spectacles, Pixy is a horse for a bigger idea. Drones are already being used to create 3D maps, which would be useful for building more realistic Lenses that are grounded in the real world. NextMind is a French startup that made a headband for controlling computers with your thoughts. Is a future in which I am wearing augmented reality glasses and controlling a piece of electronics with my mind?

When I ask him about it, he laughs and says that is the most he has ever given. The Pixy is just a toy.