Google ARCore for "unsupported" Android devices

Please check out the service mod branch to help us develop the latest experiment to bring ARCore to more devices. Thanks!

Google's ARCore developer preview for Android is awesome. Unfortunately, my Android phone (Samsung GS8+) is not on the supported list, and apps built with ARCore exit at start on my device. However, its hardware actually can run ARCore!

I modified the Android library to strip the ARCore device check, and ARCore is now working on the device.

In your Android project, simply replace the Google-provided arcore_client.aar with the one in this repo, and voilà! ARCore on any Android device.

Update Aug 31 6pm PST: Please install my modified ARCore Service APK instead of Google's at this time. We are trying to test if a new modification will support more devices. Thanks!

Make sure to first install ARCore Service - "Preparing your Device" section of Google's instructions  

In your Unity project, simply replace the Google-provided unitygar.aar (located in GoogleARCore/SDK/Plugins/) with the one in this repo, and voilà! ARCore on any Android device, within Unity.

Update Aug 31 6pm PST: Please install my modified ARCore Service APK instead of Google's at this time. We are trying to test if a new modification will support more devices. Thanks!

Make sure to first install ARCore Service - "Preparing your Device" section of Google's instructions  

1. Capable Android hardware - Since Google does not yet officially support more than a few devices, it's unknown which devices will actually work. My estimate is that devices from the past year should work, but it's currently unclear. Feel free to try and see if it works on your device, then let us know! There is a research document so we can identify necessary modifications.
2. Android 7.0 or newer - The official library has a minimum SDK version of Android 7.0 (Nougat). It's possible that the library runs fine on older versions (such as Android 6.0 Marshmallow) but I have not yet tested it.

Please keep in mind that (at the time of this writing) only 3 Android devices are officially supported by ARCore, so this hack might not work. I also take no responsibility for damage to your software. It's worth a try, though! ;)

To modify the original ARCore AAR library, follow the below instructions. You will need a java class decompiler, such as CFR.

1. Open a command line interface
2. Unzip the AAR to a temporary directory: unzip arcore_client-original.aar -d aar-tmp
3. Enter the temporary aar directory: cd aar-tmp
4. Unzip classes.jar to a temporary directory: unzip classes.jar -d classes-tmp
5. Enter the temporary classes directory: cd classes-tmp
6. Enter the directory containing the SupportedDevices class: cd com/google/atap/tangoservice
7. Decompile the SupportedDevices class: java -jar /path/to/cfr.jar SupportedDevices.class > SupportedDevices.java
8. Open a text editor and delete return false from the end of isSupported()
9. Compile the modified SupportedDevice class: javac -cp /path/to/sdk/platform/android.jar -source 1.7 -target 1.7 SupportedDevices.java
10. Delete the Java source: rm SupportedDevices.java
11. Change directory back to aar-tmp: cd ../../../../../
12. Create a JAR from the modified classes directory: jar cvf classes.jar -C classes-tmp .
13. Change directory back to repo root: cd ..
14. Create an AAR from the modified aar directory: jar cvf arcore_client.aar -C aar-tmp .

After the above steps, you will have a modified arcore_client.aar with device verification stripped. Now you can replace the AAR in your project and build to any hardware-capable Android device!

Coming soon

Original library by Google
Modification by Thomas Suarez ("tomthecarrot")