FarSight XR vs Sandbox AR
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
FarSight XR
Experience interactive augmented reality with this app. Bring educational products like reptile books, anatomy displays, and solar system posters to life with 3D models, videos, and sound. Engage with content through interactive quizzes and explore from any angle.
- Interactive 3D models
- Video and sound integration
- Augmented reality quizzes
- Explore from any angle
- Content comes to life with camera
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Use the FarSight XR app to experience our interactive augmented reality enhanced products: • Reptiles & Amphibians: An Augmented Reality Popup Book • Tide Pools: An Augmented Reality Book • Human Anatomy Interactive Augmented Reality Display • Our Solar System: An Augmented Reality Poster The products are available here: https://farsightxr.com/app_discover/ See still images turn into videos, complete with sound. See interactive 3D models emerge from the pages or posters. Touch interactive elements to learn more and see 3D animations. Take an interactive quiz in Augmented Reality. Launch the app on your iPhone or iPad and aim the camera at the product to see the content come to life. Move your device near the product to get a closer look. Move farther from the product to get a wider view. For the interactive 3D models, you can move or walk around to view the model from any angle. Enjoy!
Sandbox AR
Create, build, and explore immersive virtual worlds using augmented reality. This app allows users to scale creations to life-size and share them with others. It's designed to bring interactive technology into educational settings.
- Create, build, and explore in AR
- Life-size scale exploration
- Share creations via QR code
- Capture snapshots and videos
- Teacher audio descriptions (DE:X subscribers)
- Link to curated resources (DE:X subscribers)
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--- Multi award-winning augmented reality maker app --- - BETT Awards 2023 Best AR/VR ! - GESS Awards 2023 Best Digital XR / VR / AI Product - spaces4learning New Product Award 2022 ! -- What is Sandbox? -- Experience, build, and explore in AR with Discovery Education Sandbox. Designed as a companion to the award-winning Discovery Education Experience learning platform, bring immersive technology and content into the classroom. Choose from hundreds of models and create a virtual world to experience and share with fellow students and teachers. Use life size mode to scale up and walk inside your own creation! -- Features -- • Create, build and explore in augmented reality. • Explore creations in life-size scale! • Share your sandboxes with other users with a simple QR code. • Capture snapshots and videos of your sandbox. -- Enhanced features for DE:X subscribers -- As a Discovery Education Experience or Espresso subscriber, access additional features to add teacher audio descriptions to sandboxes and add links to your own curated resources on Experience or Espresso. Integrate with studio boards and access future additional model packs.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Sandbox AR at none against FarSight XR's shown. Sandbox AR also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 67%) and monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases). FarSight XR's advantage is ratings volume (243 vs 16) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, rating and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for FarSight XR against 4.8 for Sandbox AR. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: FarSight XR has 243 ratings behind it against 16, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 67% of FarSight XR's written reviews are positive against 100% of Sandbox AR's.
FarSight XR ships an update every 5 months, Sandbox AR every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | FarSight XR | Sandbox AR |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (243 ratings) | 4.8 (16 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 243 — better | 16 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 14.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 305 MB | 1.6 GB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | FarSight XR, LLC | Discovery Education Inc. |
Customer experience
FarSight XR
Sandbox AR
In-app purchases
FarSight XR
No in-app purchases
Sandbox AR
No in-app purchases
