In 2020, the rapid development of Augmented Reality (AR) technology has aroused people’s high attention and regarded as one of the most exciting technological developments. The impacting potential of AR is significant and making it one of the new topics for business leaders.
During the COVID-19, AR is a promising new technology that can help improve business operations as well as improve the consumer experiences, and many companies have integrated AR technology into their business, for example we developed FURNILA AR that allows consumers to place the virtual furniture through smartphones at their home.
According to Gartner.com, AR technology has the potential to shake up the customer experience in 2020. At least, there will be 100 million customers who can experience online and in-store shopping using AR technologies. Even though AR is still in the early stages of adoption, it’s already starting to become an integral part of the new level of customer experience.
But on the other side, AR still has many challenges to become a mainstream technology in society, thus many people don’t really understand and know about AR technology and it’s transformation nowadays. So we provide the newest article about AR technology nowadays.
WHAT IS AUGMENTED REALITY?
Augmented Reality enables digital information to be superimposed and integrated into our physical environment in the form of text, graphics, audio and other virtual enhancements. Simplest way to explain the definition of AR is a technology that enriches the real world with information and digital media. These digital media can be 3D models, videos, or other formats that are superimposed in real-time by the view of the camera on our devices.
AUGMENTED REALITY DEVICES
In this digital era, many modern devices support and can operate Augmented Reality, from smartphones and tablets to devices like smart glasses. AR required several technologies on the devices or hardware, such as accelerometer, gyroscope, digital compass, GPS, CPU, sensor, display, and the most important part is camera. There are 5 (five) categories of Augmented Reality Devices:
- Smartphone or Tablet
The most suitable devices for AR applications that allow users from playing games and entertainment, shopping, learning, and social networking. Easy to operate and can be found easily in the market.
- Special AR Devices
This product designed especially for the AR experience, for example is the head-up display (HUD), sending data directly to the user’s display. Special AR devices have been applied for training or simulation in the aviation, automotive, manufacturing industries.
- AR Glasses or Smart Glasses
AR Glasses or Smart Glasses provide all the advantages of the tablet with the added benefit of being handsfree, this product also allows users to get notifications from their smartphone and help users when doing a training program or assembling a component.
- AR Contact Lenses
AR Contact Lenses are new technology devices to support smartphones and enrich features on AR, such as take a photo, save data, etc.
- Virtual Retinal Displays (VRD)
This product also known as a Retinal Scan Display (RSD), is a new visual display technology that directly projection into the retina of the eyes, so the user can see what appears to be a conventional display floating in front of them.
THE TYPES OF AUGMENTED REALITY
To understand the types of Augmented Reality and make things easier, we classified into 3 (three) categories:
- Marker-based AR
Marker-based AR is also called Image Recognition is type or AR that provides users more information about the object after they scan and focuses it on the recognition of objects, whether it be an object, text or animation. ARUTALA already developed AR technology by using this type of AR, we called XPLORIA.
- Markerless AR
Marker-less AR is one of the most widely implemented applications in several industries. This type of AR is unique, because it doesn’t need an image cue to deploy. Instead, it relies on positional information gathered from a device’s camera, GPS, digital compass, and accelerometer. Pokemon Go is the most popular application that implemented this type of AR.
- Superimposition-based AR
This type of AR uses object recognition in order to partially or fully replace an entire image or object with a newly augmented object. The Example of this AR is FURNILA by ARUTALA, the main feature of FURNILA is to bring the furniture items right into the buyer’s environment and try it through their smartphones.
THE ADVANTAGES OF AUGMENTED REALITY
By using AR technology, there are lots of advantages that we can get. We believe that AR has emerged as a potential marketing tool for companies and create more engaging and interesting ways to bring the new level of shopping experience.
- Powerful Visualization Tool
AR is also called a powerful visualization tool, because this technology can bring an object into a reality that is otherwise imagined and the most important part is to help people in their daily activities especially during pandemic COVID-19.
- High Accessibility
Now, AR is being widely used in several sectors, this technology provides a high accessibility because people only use their smartphone without any external devices needed to feel the AR experiences, and it can be used by anyone without any limitations.
- Great User Experience
AR also delivers great user experience for the user and offers better customer retention, with AR technology the chances of the user having a positive experience are very high and it can drive the user to return to the same application in the future.
THE APPLICATION OF AUGMENTED REALITY
In 2020, Augmented Reality will be the key transformational enabler for offline consumer engagement and shifting their behavior because AR can make every experience more digitized and exciting. Based on this case, ARUTALA already developed several products through AR technology to enrich people and bring the new level of AR experiences, such as:
- XPLORIA AR (Treasure Hunter Game on AR Park)
XPLORIA AR is game apps with AR technology to support tourism in Indonesia, it can be implemented for public places, tourism spots, and shopping centers. The main reason we developed this product is to enhance the amusement of its audience and bring the “visitors experience” to the next level.
- FURNILA AR (Furniture Catalogs)
FURNILA AR is revolutionary AR apps to advance the online shopping experience. Shoppers perceive the real experience to interact with items as if in conventional shopping, digitally. The main feature of Furnila is to bring the items for sale right into the buyer’s environment, and even customize the item to improve buyer decision.
- PROPERIA AR (Mockup of Property)
PEROPERIA AR delivers the possibility to present property developer’s design, idea and also product to their client, even when the physical building hasn’t started its early development. This product also can providing customer with virtual journey of the property from their smartphone.
Over the past few months, AR has emerged as a potential marketing tool for brands and AR has slowly started to drive how consumers expect to interact with products. We believe that AR isn’t just a short-term trending gimmick, but a long-term customer experience for your business. Let’s collaborate with us! (S. Bagus Yudananto Nugroho – News)