• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, March 22, 2018

Augmented reality is finally starting to get more real.

Millions of consumers of all ages discovering it through Pokémon Go a while back was a start, at least for people seeing what AR actually is, even if they didn’t know what to call it.

Now, however, augmented reality is moving more into what consumers do day to day.

Lowe’s just introduced ‘View in Your Space,’ a new Lowe’s app feature for Android users with ARCore enabled phones that lets consumers see what products would look like in their homes before making the purchase.

While browsing products in the Lowe’s app, consumers tap the ‘View in your Space’ option. The customer then is prompted to scan their surroundings, wait a few seconds and the item appears in augmented reality.

The item then can be dragged into the desired spot, with an add-to-cart option if the consumer decides on the product. A neat feature is that the customer can walk around the product, seeing it in different perspectives, while the item remains the same size and in place, which is shown in a Lowe’s video.

Swedish-based Ikea and other retailers also let customers view products in place via mobile AR. More companies of various categories are tapping into augmented reality. A few examples:

• Sotheby’s International Realty is adding augmented reality to its international listings. The luxury realtor’s Curate app enables an empty house to be shown filled with a potential buyer’s choice of furniture and décor. Curate comes with a collection of AR furniture and décor sets calculated to fit in the rooms.
• Shazam just teamed with Glenlivet to add a QR code to the new malt scotch whiskey The Glenlivet Code. Scanning the code leads to an AR experience featuring a hologram of Glenlivet’s master distiller addressing them.
• To ramp up its AR efforts, Snap created new tools for its Lens Studio to make designing AR effects simpler, which will lead to more augmented reality.
• Online marketplace eBay recently launched augmented reality on its app using Google’s ARCore platform. The feature lets people select the proper U.S. Postal Service flat-rate box for items to be mailed.

There are many more examples and even more to come. Augmented reality finally has arrived.