Four months ago, Snap revealed Pixy, a personal drone that was supposed to join Spectacles as a pillar in capturing candid moments less invasively than a smartphone. It’s barely had time to get off the ground, but according to The Wall Street Journal, Snap has already halted development on future versions of the drone.
We suppose it was inevitable that Snapchat, an image-heavy messaging service with conversations that can automatically delete after a specified length of time, would lead Snap to develop its first hardware product, sunglasses with a built in camera called Spectacles. The idea was that Spectacles were better at never missing a moment, and better at capturing candid moments, because you were always wearing the cameras on your face. They were apparently successful enough to warrant several versions, but the same can’t be said for Pixy, the camera-equipped Snapchat-compatible drone that could autonomously follow users around.
The Wall Street Journal has learned that Evan Spiegel, Snap’s CEO, recently told staff during a Q&A that further development of the Pixy drone has been halted as “part of broader reprioritization of company resources.” The drone is apparently yet another victim of both recent economic downturns and challenges that Snap’s advertising business is still dealing with as a result of recent privacy updates from Apple for its mobile devices.
At launch, the Pixy quickly sold out, presumably partly a result of the company revealing it would only be making a limited quantity of the drones. But while we may never see a Pixy 2, a “person familiar with the matter” told The Wall Street Journal that the company still planned to sell off its remaining stock of the drone. However, while the Pixy website claims the $US230 ($319) drone “Ships for free today,” it’s currently only offering a “Notify me” purchase option, so it may already be sold out for good.