Google is “turning down support” on its Project Tango augmented reality (AR) effort in favour of its ARCore platform.

Tango will reach the end of the road on 1 March 2018.

While Tango is the more advanced platform, it requires special hardware – specifically additional cameras to support accurate depth sensing. Only two Tango devices have been launched: Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro (pictured) and the Asus Zenfone AR.

In contrast, ARCore is designed to work on a wider range of devices and in its current developer preview guise works with Google’s Pixel devices plus Samsung’s Galaxy S8.

“Whereas Tango required special hardware, ARCore is a fast, performant, Android-scale SDK that enables high-quality augmented reality across millions of qualified mobile devices,” Nikhil Chandhok, director, product management at Google, wrote.

This means the addressable market for ARCore content is massively bigger than for Tango, making it a much more appealing proposition for developers.

TechCrunch said “only a handful of Tango-only apps have managed to breach 1,000 downloads”.