News: Chairish App Now Lets You Try Before You Buy (With Augmented Reality)

Chairish, Inc. is the latest furniture retailer to bring augmented reality into its mobile stores, adding features for users to visualize products in their homes.

Today, the company added AR capabilities to their iOS apps for their brands Chairish, an online marketplace for vintage furniture, and DECASO, a purveyor of modernism, antique, and art dealers. Neither brand offers an Android app.

The feature operates much like IKEA's apps for iOS and Android. When viewing an item, users press the "View in Your Space" button to place a 2D image over the device's camera viewer. The item can then be resized or rotated with the standard touchscreen gestures. Scaling does require some manual effort by the user, though dimensions are listed for each item.

The online market for furniture, decor and art is in the early stage of a long term growth trend as this huge industry migrates online. With both Chairish and DECASO, we are helping buyers connect directly with sellers in new and exciting ways.

The apps are less sophisticated than Cimagine, which renders 3D models on iOS and Android devices, as well as WayfairView, which takes advantage of the depth-sensing capabilities of Tango devices.

Should AR features be standard for mobile apps from furniture retailers by now? Or should more retailers begin pushing the envelope with more advanced features? Let us know in the comments.

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