Ikea, everyone's favorite Swedish furniture powerhouse, keeps on evolving, despite its comfortable status as the world's foremost furniture and home goods retailer.
Today, Ikea announced "Ikea Place," an augmented reality app that lets consumers design rooms in their homes by virtually test driving furniture and home goods. Ikea Place will be available on iOS 11 at the end of September.
The timing of Ikea's announcement is no accident: Today, Apple showed off a number of updates to its hardware (hello, iPhone X) and software, including a demonstration of its updated ARKit augmented reality platform, on which Ikea Place runs.
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In a release, Ikea described just how the app will work:
"The app automatically scales products—based on room dimensions—with 98 percent accuracy. The AR technology is so precise that you will be able to see the texture of the fabric, as well as how light and shadows are rendered on your furnishings."
At launch, Ikea Place will let users choose from about 2,000 of the company's offerings, as well as save and send video and photos of their gussied-up digital rooms.
Virtual reality is trending in design and architecture: In February, we reported on architects using augmented reality tech to create dementia-friendly spaces. Surely, Ikea's first foray into this world won't be its last.