Amazon’s AR View lets you see items inside your home.
Following in the footsteps of Ikea, Houzz, and Target, Amazon is now the latest retailer to make it easier to buy items from home thanks to AR. An update to the Amazon iOS shopping app enables what the company calls AR View, a tool that lets you drop a virtual item like a toaster or chair on any flat surface in your home.
AR View utilizes Apple’s ARKit, which lets you overlay, move, and rotate a virtual object in a live camera view mode to see how the item will fit and look in real time. You can select from thousands of items in the AR View library that includes goods like furniture, electronics, games, and home decor.
To activate the feature within the app, you can press the camera icon at the top of the app interface, tap AR View and select a product. The app will provide a list of the virtual items available to preview within the mode. The feature is available on iPhone 6S devices and higher running iOS 11.
While seeing how a retro tea kettle looks sitting on your kitchen counter may be more of a novelty, when it comes to larger items like a couch or bed, augmented viewing may be just what customers have been looking for to make more informed purchasing decisions. And likely AR tools like this one from Amazon and other retailers will become the norm for us all in the future to visualize the aesthetic and fit of products in our living spaces.
