Lets face facts. Augmented reality has been mostly hype so far, with a lot of fun AR apps but no killer app to speak of.

But that’s about to change with the new AR Mode coming to Google Maps, which was annnounced at Google I/O in May and is now being tested by select Google Maps users.

Credit: The Wall Street JournalAccording to The Wall Street Journal, which had a chance to try out the feature, Google has chosen a handful of “Local Guides” to give AR directions a spin.

Imagine that you emerge from the subway and you’re waiting for that blue dot to get your sense of orientation. Now imagine you never have to do that ever again. With AR Mode in Google Maps, you simply hold your phone up as the camera gets to work recognizing your surroundings.

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From there, you’ll see directions overlaid on your phone’s live view that make it super easy to get around town. The virtual signposts are so big on the display that you don’t need to be constantly looking down at your phone.

In fact, Google advises that you only glance at your phone occasionally so that you don’t bump into other people (or don’t get mugged).

As the WSJ’s David Pierce notes, Google isn’t the only company working on this technology. The Hot Stepper app does something similar, but it’s not as sophisticated.

Pierce says that applications like this are a perfect fit for upcoming augmented reality glasses, whether they come from Google or not. But for now we're waiting for AR directions to simply exit the test phase so all smartphone users can stop guessing whether they're going the right way.

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