Smartphone users have a new way to keep their distance — a tool that lets them know when people are getting closer than pandemic guidelines recommend. The Google-developed Sodar tool available this week taps into Android smartphone cameras to put users in the center of a white circle with a radius of about two meters, or 6.5 feet.
The perimeter, determined based on pandemic social distancing guidelines, is made using the same kind of augmented reality technology in smartphone games such as Pokemon Go.
We are required to follow the lockdown guidelines and social distancing norms to stop the spread of the coronavirus. United Nations made an app called 1point5 to help you achieve a distance of 1.5 meters from your fellow human beings. However, the app requires people around to have Bluetooth turned on to notify you if they enter your vicinity.
Google has now jumped in to help users maintain social distancing with its new augmented reality tool Sodar. Neither does Sodar require you to install any kind of app nor does it need the people around you to have their phone on them.
The AR tool uses WebXR to visualize a two-meter radius ring around you to help you maintain social distancing. The phone uses augmented reality to map the area around you superimposing the virtual ring on the view from your camera.
Android users can open the Chrome browser and go to goo.gle/sodar to launch the AR tool. Notably, the functionality is not available on the iOS device or older Android devices.
How to use Sodar to maintain social distancing
*Visit goo.gle/sodar or sodar.withgoogle.com
*Tap on ‘Launch’
*You will see a dialogue box asking for your permission to let the website “create a 3D map of your surroundings and track camera positions”
*Allow the permission
*Scan the ground
*You will see a ring around you with a 2-meter radius
To use the Sodar on your phone, you need to have the updated version of the Google ARCore. You can search for “Google Play Services for AR” on the Play Store and update/install it to use the new social distancing AR tool.
