Snap gives up on Pixy drone four months after releasing it

After revealing its Pixy pocket-sized photo and video shooting drone in April, Snap already seems to be giving up on the device.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Snap chief executive Evan Spiegel recently told company staff about the decision to halt further development of the project amid a broader reprioritization of company resources.

Released roughly four months ago, the drone costs $230 USD (roughly $294 CAD), and features several different flight paths, including ‘Hover,’ ‘Orbit,’ ‘Reveal,’ ‘Favourite,’ and ‘Follow.’ The drone can also be set to only shoot videos or photos, which are then sent directly back to the Snapchat app on your smartphone, where they can be edited and shared. “Pixy is ready to fly at a moment’s notice. There are no controllers. There’s no complex setup. Simply set a flight path and let Pixy take it from there,” said Spiegel back in April.

The drone is still listed on the Pixy website, but appears to be out of stock at the moment.

Snap, among countless other tech companies, has been feeling the brunt of unfavourable economic conditions and posted its worst quarterly sales growth to date. As of the time of writing, Snap’s share is more than 80 percent down from its all-time high in September 2021.

Canadian tech companies aren’t faring well, either. WealthSimple and Shopify laid off 13 percent and 10 percent of their employees, respectively. Similarly, Toronto-based e-commerce investing platform Clearco cut its workforce by 25 percent in July, while Vancouver-based software company Unbounce laid off 20 percent of its staff earlier this week.

In other Snapchat-related news, the company rolled out its Snapchat+ subscription service in Canada in June that gives subscribers access to exclusive, experimental, and pre-released features before they are released.

Source: The Wall Street Journal