A new feature from Polaroid allows you to use their Polaroid Lab device to bring physical photos in AR on your phone.
The Polaroid Lab is a new device that can scan a digital photo off your phone screen and immediately print it onto Polaroid film, allowing you to quickly convert digital photos to physical Polaroids. Using the Polaroid Originals app, you can select a photo for the scanner to read and then develop onto a piece of Polaroid film. You can watch a video on the Polaroid YouTube channel that demonstrates the process from start to finish.
However, there’s also some other cool features built into the app that use AR to bring the physical Polaroids to life. Using the same Polaroid Lab printer and scanner, you can use the Polaroid Originals app on to select a video saved on your device. You then trim the video to the desired section for the animation and select a key frame to use as the physical printed photo. The scanner then scans the video and key frame from your phone, in a similar manner to the normal method, but also affixes a small barcode in the bottom right of the photo.
What you end up with is a physical still Polaroid photo, just like any other, with an AR barcode in the bottom right. When you use your phone’s camera in the Polaroids Original app, the photo will spring to life using AR and play the animation you selected earlier during the development process.
This nifty feature may seem gimmicky, but it could also but super cool – imagine having a wall of Polaroids that already look amazing as still photos, but also all come to life when you use your phone to view the AR animations hidden within them.
Would you use this quirky little AR feature with the Polaroid Lab? Let us know in the comments below.
