SpAItial, the London startup behind the Echo-2 world model, launched Echo-3 and an iPhone capture app on October 27, 2026, putting it in direct competition with Polycam, KIRI Engine and Niantic's Scaniverse. The company said Echo-3 "turns phone captures into high-fidelity 3D environments… at real-world scale" from a few minutes of footage, with no tripod or extra camera required, according to its launch post.
The pitch is easy to grasp. Whether the results live up to it is harder to say, since much of what is known so far comes from SpAItial itself.
What Echo-3 does
According to the app's App Store listing, a user records an iPhone scan for a few minutes, uploads it to the cloud and views the result in a 3D viewer. SpAItial said the reconstructions are metric, meaning "dimensions and distances match the real space."
The company also said Echo-3 "builds the scene from what you capture, then fills in the missing regions so they match the surroundings." Radiance Fields, which covered the launch, described the output as a Gaussian splatting scene at real-world scale.
SpAItial's examples of target spaces include homes, classrooms, factories, equipment, outdoor areas and multi-floor buildings. Japan's Mogura VR News noted how this differs from Echo-2, which generated worlds from a single image or panorama. Echo-3, by contrast, reconstructs real places.
On Pro iPhones with LiDAR, the app adds live coverage guidance and a dense point-cloud preview. Older or non-LiDAR iPhones are supported but don't get those views.
Pricing and availability
The app requires iOS 18 or later and runs only on iPhone. The launch post says Android is "coming soon," though no firm date had been given as of October 29.
Pricing runs on credits. Echo-3 processing costs 300 credits per minute of recorded scan, with a 900-credit minimum, according to SpAItial's terms of service. A 190-second scan, for example, costs 950 credits. Per the company's API docs, one credit equals $0.01.
In the UK App Store, SpAItial Standard costs £49.99 a month and SpAItial Pro £99.99 a month, and annual plans are also listed. Credit packs of 1,600, 3,200 and 8,000 credits cost £14.99, £29.99 and £79.99. Eligible new subscribers get a one-month free trial. Subscription credits reset monthly, while purchased top-up credits do not expire, per the terms.
