T‑Mobile Accelerator Kicks Off Program to Build 5G AR Experiences for Smart Glasses with Snapdragon Spaces

T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) today kicked off its T-Mobile Accelerator program working with startups, developers and entrepreneurs building immersive experiences for AR smart glasses using T-Mobile 5G and the Snapdragon Spaces™ XR Developer Platform. As the lead 5G launch partner in North America for Snapdragon Spaces, T-Mobile Accelerator is working to fuel 5G innovation for AR smart glasses leveraging heads-up displays, spatial awareness and computer vision across the gaming, entertainment, education, wellness, fitness and travel and hospitality industries.

“Smart glasses will completely change how we connect and experience the world around us,” said John Saw, EVP of Advanced & Emerging Technologies at T-Mobile. “With T-Mobile 5G we have the capacity and performance needed to power high-bandwidth, immersive AR experiences for smart glasses, but it’s the developers and entrepreneurs that will bring these new applications to life.”

Today’s new T-Mobile Accelerator participants include:

Beem (London, England).  Beem is a software platform that enables live and on-demand communication using real humans in Augmented Reality. (https://www.beem.me/)

Krikey (San Francisco, CA).  Krikey is an Augmented Reality gaming and social media app. In 2020, Krikey launched their first action-adventure game, Yaatra. In 2021, Krikey launched Krikees - custom 3D Avatars. In 2022, Krikey launched Avatar NFTs. The Krikey app is ranked in the Top 50 Social Apps on Google Play India. (https://krikey.com/)

Mawari (Tokyo, Japan). Mawari, Inc. is a pioneer in cloud rendering and streaming technology for interactive AR experiences. Mawari provides an AR-focused streaming SDK that renders 3D content in the cloud and delivers it efficiently to devices. (https://mawari.io/)

Mohx-Games (Eau Claire, WI).  Mohx-games is a company focused on creating the most advanced and immersive augmented reality gaming and entertainment experiences possible. Its vision is to bring people together through a new layer of reality. (https://mohx-games.com/)

Pluto (Seattle, WA).  Pluto’s purpose is to help humanity transcend physical location. Pluto VR offers shared presence communication through virtual and augmented reality technology. PlutoSphere lets you stream high-end PC VR games without needing a computer, lowering the cost of entry for XR opening it up to a wider audience. (https://www.pluto.app/)

VictoryXR (Davenport, IA).  VictoryXR’s goal is to bring a more immersive way for students to learn through virtual and augmented reality. Since VictoryXR’s founding in 2016, online education has rapidly grown in the United States and across the globe. They offer immersive classrooms and campuses through virtual reality, including programs for K-12 as well as Higher Education. They help create both synchronous and asynchronous learning solutions with VictoryXR Direct and VictoryXR Academy. (https://www.victoryxr.com/)

According to industry analyst firm GlobalData, AR technology has the potential to replace the smartphone as the primary connected device users carry around, and AR will be a critical component of the metaverse. GlobalData found that the worldwide AR market was worth nearly $7 billion in 2020, and GlobalData forecasts that it will reach $152 billion by 2030.

To help build the ecosystem of AR applications for smart glasses, T-Mobile engineers and business leaders will work directly with T-Mobile Accelerator participants as they develop, test and bring to market new AR products and services.  Experts from Qualcomm Technologies will also provide support for solutions built on the Snapdragon Spaces platform. The T-Mobile Accelerator Snapdragon Spaces program kicks off today and new participants will join on a rolling basis.

With Snapdragon Spaces, developers can receive resources to create immersive consumer and enterprise AR applications. The platform enables developers to build 3D applications for AR smart glasses from scratch, or simply add headworn AR features to existing Android smartphone applications for a unified, multi-screen experience between the smartphone screen in 2D and the real world in 3D.

T-Mobile Accelerator participants will use Lenovo ThinkReality A3 augmented reality smart glasses – the first device to support Snapdragon Spaces.

T-Mobile 5G, A Platform for Innovation

With its leading 5G network as the foundation, T-Mobile fuels innovation and helps build the 5G ecosystem with a number of initiatives in addition to T-Mobile Accelerator. Its newly unveiled Tech Experience 5G Hub is a 24,000 square foot innovation space where entrepreneurs and partners can tap into 5G working alongside T-Mobile engineers. The Un-carrier also operates the T-Mobile Ventures investment fund and it is a co-founder of the 5G Open Innovation Lab. 

T-Mobile Accelerator serves as a hub for driving ideas, innovation and action. Focused on collaborative experiences for growth, it delivers year-round programming and activities, including entrepreneurial and tech community engagements, expert speakers and mentorship sessions. Since its inception, the T-Mobile Accelerator has worked with 80 startup companies that have raised an aggregate of over $190 million with 78% of the alumni companies still in business today.

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