Augmented reality refers to the simultaneous visualization of real world objects and computer-generated objects presented on a display for a user. Sometimes, though not always, augmented reality applications are used with wearable devices, such as wearable eyewear devices having a transparent display overlaying the lens portions thereof. Computer-generated objects typically overlay relevant objects in real space as captured by a camera. Consequently, because of movement by the relevant objects and/or the user relative to positioning of the camera frame, automatic detection and tracking of the relevant objects is used to accurately superimpose the computer-generated objects on the relevant objects. This can optionally turn the relevant objects into active objects—that is, reactive to click-like or gesture input actions. For object-tracking implementations on wearable and other types of mobile devices, the heaviness of the calculations is a consideration because of the modest computing power available on the mobile devices and the direct correlation between heavy computations, latency and limited battery life.