Google Play Service for AR on FP6

Discuss The Products
1

Hello,
I cannot use Live View on my new FP6, the button is greyed out.
I did some research and discovered that you need to have Google Play Services for AR installer, in order for Live View to work.
And, sure enough, that app is not on my phone.
But what’s worse, when I tried to look for it on the Play Store, it says that my phone is not compatible with that app.

I’m shocked: a brand new phone, released in June 2025, that does not run AR?!?
I walk a lot and heavily rely on Google Live View…
Please tell me there is a fix, because otherwise I am considering returning my FP6.

2

AR was touched here. Please ask Fairphone directly.

3

Thanks, I saw that post, but that was FP3!
Do you mean that even the brand new, just launched FP6 will never support AR?!?
This is a serious problem for me.

4

Yes but see discussion above the post I linked. No FP had ARCore support so far, therefore better ask Fairphone when you rely on that.

5

I did ask. Their first answers were all about restarting the device, checking authorisations in Google Maps, and so on…
Clearly, they had no idea about the real issue here…
I’m not a technical person, I don’t know whether this problem can be solved with software updates (seems like the answer is no…) or with a new module, but should Fairphone confirm that I’d be stuck for many years with a device that won’t be able to help me walk through a city, I’m going to return my phone.

6

I dont know how live view works or if this needs ARCore enabled/supported. i’m 100% sure there will not be any new module to fix this.

As said I dont know what live view is or how it works, however I walk through cities without that, so it might be rare use case and with this will maybe not get a lot attention from FP end soon.

7

Indeed, quite shocking. One wonders who Fairphone designs their phones for. Seems to be an incredibly narrowly defined user group. If all the needed technology is present in the phone, what would it cost them to enable this?

8

I started my cool off return because of the usb 2.0 port which bugs me more than i expected, and now realized that the phone does not support arcore either.

What started as a great phone experience ended in a terrible multi purpose device experience. Everything past basic phone use is leaving a sour taste and im not sure how Fairphone can continue to push devices lacking features considered basic in 2025.

9

I just tried to use the ToF sensor of the Fairphone 6 to build a point cloud app for it. But it was by the life of it not possible to access data from that sensor. I would be very happy if that changes with a firmware update. E.g. please include goolge play ar core.

10

Sounds like a request to the Fairphone support as this is a user forum where only from time to time some Fairphone staff looks into.

11

This is one of my major gripes as well. For some reason they dont enable AR Services, even though the phone has all the hardware it needs.

12

In case you want to look at older topics on ARCore (for the previous models), I think these are the most relevant

13

Thank you for linking them.
I did read them before, it is just a shame that ARCore is still not supported.

14

I’m very sorry to read that. I was about to buy a FP 6, but now have to turn to other options. I found this thread when I googled why the FP 5 shows an error when you try to launch an AR app.

I do, on occasion, develop AR apps and a phone which cannot run any AR app is therefore not an option for me. :confused:

15

Same here, I’ll soon replace my Fairphone 3 and I’ll have to consider another brand :frowning:

16

Just came here to find out that Fairphone fails again. Reason 3 to me why my next phone will not be a FP. :frowning:

17

I found this too late. I just wondered why I couldn’t install an app for OpenStreetMap mapping I was using on my old Pixel 2 (a phone from 2017). Turns out the app needs AR Support which my old phone has but not the brand new Fairphone 6 (8 years younger and almost twice as expensive).

18

I eventually decided to keep the phone and I’m happy with it. But I really don’t understand why they decided not to include such a commonly used feature… Not only for Maps, but anything AR-related is of course not working (displaying objects in space while shopping online, for example, or some services offered by museums and exhibitions).
A real pity.

19

Did you contact support to get an answer? It would be nice if someone can share a statement from support in this thread.

20

I think I did, but it was months ago.
The problem is that it’s not a software problem: it’s hardware. That AR component is missing in all FPs, not only in the FP6, as far as I understood.
Not sure why they made this decision, I’m not a tech expert.