Motorola Moto G5S Plus and LG V35 ThinQ now support ARCore

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The Motorola Moto G5S Plus and the LG V35 ThinQ now support Google ARCore, the platform for augmented reality applications on Android. Both smartphones were recently added to the list of supported ARCore devices.

Augmented Reality via ARCore:

Succeeding Project Tango, Google ARCore was launched in preview late last year for the Google Pixel and top-tier Samsung Galaxy flagships. Unlike Project Tango, ARCore does not require dedicated hardware such as special cameras or sensors. The platform is designed to work on existing smartphone hardware.

Ahead of Mobile World Congress 2018, Google launched version 1.0 of the augmented reality platform which brought support for many new devices. The first public release saw new features such as environmental understanding of when a user places virtual assets on textured surfaces. With version 1.0, Google also started to allow developers to publish AR apps on the Google Play Store.

Version 1.1 of ARCore hinted at more devices receiving support for the platform such as the Samsung Galaxy S9 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S. (Both devices have since officially gained support for the AR platform.) The 1.1 update added two new APIs to the platform: An API that allows for developers to run their own image processing algorithms on images from the camera and an API that allows for rendering virtual objects to match real-world lighting.

Version 1.2 was announced at Google I/O 2018 and it added features such as “Cloud Anchors,” “Vertical Plane Detection,” and “Augmented Images.”

The list of supported devices grows. The Moto G5S Plus and the recently launched LG V35 ThinQ are just two of the latest devices to join the growing list of ARCore supported devices. According to users on our forums, the Moto G5S Plus supports the platform even on the Android Nougat release. That’s great news considering that a Motorola support page (now taken down) suggested that the Android Oreo release was rolling out, but nobody has actually received the update yet. The LG V35 ThinQ hasn’t started shipping to consumers yet, so we can’t verify if AR apps actually work on it yet. If you want to try an augmented reality app out, then download ARCore and an app like “Just a Line” to play around with AR.