Anyone who has had to go through buying new furniture knows how stressful it sometimes is to choose the right one. From checking that measurements are correct to making sure that it matches your other stuff, there are just so many things that could go wrong. IKEA wants to help make that process easier by allowing its customers to try out furniture from its catalog right in their own homes, virtually.
IKEA’s Catalog app lets users not only view products from its catalog, but also gives access to videos as well as 360-degree views of room sets. Now it has gained an augmented reality (AR) feature as well. Users will be able to choose from items in the IKEA 2014 Catalog and have that piece be overlaid in the device’s camera as if it were really in the room, making it easier to see if it fits in a certain place or if it clashes with other furniture or colors.
There is one caveat though. The AR functionality requires an actual printed copy of the IKEA 2014 Catalog to work. The app uses the physical catalog to determine the position and orientation of the furniture to be displayed on the camera’s viewer. IKEA has provided a video to show how it could be used.
And apparently it could be used for much more than just virtual shopping. The IKEA Catalog app is available on Google Play Store but users still need to own the 2014 Catalog. There’s also an online copy of the catalog that can be printed, though it’s not clear whether this could be a stand-in for the real thing.
