Check Your New Decor With the Virtual Renovation App
You dream of a couch, but you have no idea how your vague idea of a couch will actually work in your living space. Or you go to a furniture store with your measurements on hand, want to buy a table, but leave, not knowing if it will look wrong, even if it technically fits into your dining room.
But what if you could allay that stress with an app? Ikea is trying to provide a solution with the latest addition to the realm of very user-friendly AR tools, which it calls Ikea Studio. The app, created in collaboration with Danish interior design laboratory Space10, aims to use iPhone LiDAR sensors to detect your living space and determine if your preferred Ikea ottoman or oversized lamp is right for your living room.
It is currently in beta and can be downloaded via TestFlight, although unfortunately it is only available for iOS. That said, if you can get it installed, you’ll probably find it worthwhile to try it out before your next ride in a large yellow and blue box. Anything you want to make the excursion a little less than an odyssey (in the classical sense).
How to use Ikea Studio
The bottom line is pretty simple: the app captures the floor plan of the room you want to renovate, and then lets you browse a limited catalog of Ikea’s offerings that fit your room’s dimensions. Conveniently, it will replace your existing furniture with white boxes, easily replaceable images of your chosen Ikea furniture. The scanning system takes into account the presence of window and door openings and allows you to change the color of the wall. If you want to try out some of the more superfluous augmented reality features, the app also lets you turn digital lights on and off, just in case you have a limited imagination and want to see what your proposed spaces might look like. more or less light.
What’s more, you can see what your shelving walls look like, or what they might look like when painted in a delicious shade of seaweed green:
When you’re done exploring the possibilities, you can export a 3D or 2D rendering of your floor plan. Hopefully this process will make the monotonous task of furnishing your home a little easier, provided that you are satisfied that you are looking for an Ikea for all your furniture needs. (If not, keep reading.)
The predecessor to Apple Glass?
It just has to have its own business model, right? In an interview with Wired UK, Space10’s head of digital design, Tommy Campbell, suggested that the arrival of Apple’s AR glasses would open up greater avenues for realizing Ikea’s digital furniture ambitions.
He told the magazine:
Therefore, we made a very deliberate decision to paint the vision of Studio as one that can exist both on a smartphone and with glasses. We also used Apple’s new reality rendering kit, which allows us to achieve a level of detail in these models not previously seen in IKEA’s AR portfolio.
Apple Glass or not, the iPhone beta app offers a fun new way to explore decorating options without taking out a tape measure.
Other apps do the same
The Ikea app may look like the best-in-class version of its kind at the moment , but that doesn’t override the ones that came before. If you don’t have an iPhone or don’t want to be the warrior of the Ikea brand, there are other apps that do the same (or similar).
- Magicplan also creates floor plans for your surroundings and integrates with Amazon, expanding the scope of what you can order and visualize. Available for iOS and Android.
- Houzz is slightly different in that it contains photographs that you can browse in hopes of finding the creative spark, but it also allows you to photograph your surroundings to see what new accessories you would like to see in your dig. It is also available on iOS and Android .
- Dulux Visualizer reminds us how important paint can be. The paint company has its own app that lets you upload a photo to see which color works best for your walls. Available for iOS and Android .
- Oh yeah, there’s Wayfair . The online furniture supplier has an app very similar to the Ikea app in which you can see how their exclusive deals fit into your home. It’s on Android and iOS .