How often did it happen to you that you were so enthusiastic about buying decor stuff for your house, like a lamp, a carpet or maybe a chair, only to be disappointed later when you reach home to find that the fortunate purchase of your doesn’t fit into the room Argh, moment, isn’t it ultimately what you’re left to do is either return the item or choose to live with it anyway.

However, technology has done enough good for people already and now in this arena as well, technology comes as your savior, offering new technological advances like Augmented Reality shopping apps. With AR apps, you can select colors for the interiors, create a model of your room, stage it with the furniture, and do a lot more. There are many Augmented Reality Shopping Apps and IKEA is one such app. AR app like IKEA enjoys a lot of prominence in this arena and is counted as one of the top AR apps for furniture online store.

In this blog, we have covered the benefits, basic functionalities of Augmented Reality App like IKEA, its development process, estimated-cost and a lot more. So, here let’s first begin with benefits:

How Augmented Reality eCommerce Apps like IKEA can benefit your Retail business?

Many retailers nowadays are opting for AR technology to boost up their marketing game with a motive to expand their customer base & increase sales. Especially for home decor and furniture retailers like IKEA, Augmented Reality offers numerous amazing opportunities. Their customers are also going to more than appreciate the ability to preview their home interior with furniture & other stuff they haven’t yet purchased.

Here let’s find how businesses can leverage these advantages from the AR app:

Great promotional idea

AR technology is a huge success already and when you associate it with your business, it offers a natural inclination in the market. Additionally, you can find myriad ways to promote your products & make creative ads, like offer product-related information, display new products and provide 3D experience to the users.

AR Shopping Experience

Augmented Reality Apps allow the customers to shop fearlessly like they get to buy furniture that suitably fits their homes. Like, users can place a cupboard in their room and then check where it would look the best. This way, the risk related to product return & logistical expense can be reduced.

Find fan-base in the young audience

Business can successfully target young users with AR apps. This audience can be leveraged to bring in legit business to the enterprise. And unlike VR (virtual reality) apps, which need additional tools, AR apps are widely-accessible with there being myriad mobile phone users.

Infinite growth

Technology like AR ensures infinite growth in retail businesses and allows them to be the brand that is loved by people and wins over the entire market. By offering your audience great shopping experience you can successfully lure them to buy your products & services.

Broadcasting

With the use of AR tools, retailers will be able to display their products visually & interactively and this will be a motivating factor for customers to make the purchase. Like, a furniture store can offer its customers the actual view of how a bed table might look in their house.

What are The Basic Features of AR Shopping Apps like IKEA

  • 360-degree view
  • 3D view of the items
  • Elegant angle positioning
  • Social media Sharing
  • Media access
  • User-Profile
  • Order History
  • Shipment Tracking
  • Sync across device
  • Device hardware usage
  • Multi-language support
  • Payment gateway integration
  • Search products & choose favorites
  • Smoothly navigate through product categories
  • References to each of the product page
  • Multiple language support
  • Elite-class design with items in the interactive entourage

Additional Features

  • User-engagement features, (like push notifications & social sharing)
  • Native-device features (like address book, access to photo-gallery, etc.)
  • CMS Integration
  • Real-time Analytics
  • Real-Time Dashboards
  • CRM Integration
  • Inventory Management System
  • Fleet Tracking System
  • Loyalty Program
  • App Personalization
  • Chat Bots

How does AR Shopping App like IKEA works?

Once the app is opened, your phone camera focuses in on to an orange cross to the bottom-right of selected product pages. Users will find an icon on their device’s screen that provides them access to AR mode. Then, the app tells the user to choose the printed version of the brochure & put it at the place where they desire to place the new furniture or the decor item. Now the roughly estimated dimensions of the chosen virtual furnishing are reliant on the size of this tangible, real-world catalog of IKEA. Users can browse the catalog, choose the furniture or decor item (maybe a table, chair, sofa or a lamp), then switch to the AR-mode and view it on their phone screen. These items to a certain degree are responsive to the environment.

  • AR app offers Wide-angle views, though there is no 360-degree view
  • Augmented Reality Objects detects horizontal surfaces in the room, so they don’t roam around.

As the camera kicks open, a product outline surfaces in the frame and the user can shift, rotate or even replace in order to make it appear right, prior to assuring choice from a scrollable list. Resultantly, the new furniture’s virtual version with room in the background can be viewed on the device’s screen. Next, let’s move on to technical parts and explore how SDK can be greatly helpful in the development of the augmented reality app like IKEA.

mobile app development

Software development tools for AR App Development

Also prominent as the devkit, a software development kit comprises of an array of software development tools. This kit is useful for AR developers to create apps as SDK is helpful in simplifying coding-phase, mainly in the case of AR app development, as it can avoid the writing steps from scratch.

Prominent SDKs helpful in creating AR mobile apps are Kudan

This SDK is faster as compared to most frameworks and offers a myriad of recognized images. Besides, it requires less memory storage for the libraries. Kudan can also be a good analog of two other prominent SDKs, Wikitude & Vuforia. However, developers must know that in certain areas, it is inferior to Vuforia. Besides, Kudan also lacks certain functionalities that Wikitude offers, for instance, it doesn’t offer cloud-recognition or geo-location.

Wikitude

This SDK is created for mobile platforms mainly to work with the Wikitude AR browser. It is the first SDK to provide a JavaScript API that enhances the whole of AR experience. Additionally, Wikitude supports Native API for Android & iOS. It offers wide-ranging functionalities, like geo-location & SLAM technology. However, the other parameters of Wikitude are maybe higher than average, but still, they are not the best. It supports platforms like iOS, Android, SmartGlasses

Vuforia

Considered to be the most prominent SDK across the world, Vuforia provides robust & comfortable tools to the AR developers. It uses Computer Vision technology to enable developers to identify & track target images. Resultantly, the app can project 3D objects/media in real-time. Besides, Vuforia offers one of the best features for minimal angles of the marker-recognition algorithm. And also has minimal requirements for tracker visibility of the overlapped targets. Other than that, its stability of the immovable & movable markers is considered as best among the other SDKs. It supports platforms like iOS, Android, UWP & Unity Editor.

How to Develop AR furniture experience

You need to be aware of two critical elements while it comes to displaying objects in your own environment.

  • The objects shall be placed on the floor or any other surface, so they don’t seem like floating in the air.
  • The objects must be shown in the right size.

Here, Wikitude SDK proves helpful as its SLAM algorithm, combined with a scaling approach allows the user to do just what is desired, like display the right product, at the right position and right size. There are five basic steps that need to be followed to create an AR app:

  • Set up base info, like App name, bundle-ID, etc.
  • Select a template for the industry you desire to build your app for.
  • Design your app with the use of CSS, directly in the browser with the inspector.
  • Add your content.
  • Execute app tests with the use of the chosen SDK.
mobile app development

AR Shopping App Development Steps

App Customization

The most important feature of an AR app is visualizing products/objects in augmented reality on any of the mobile devices. However, by customizing the app as per your requirements, the developers can also render items into 3D models for the users, create pre-sets, change user-interface, make changes to design, and a lot more.

App CMS Customization

Developers often create a customized content management system (CMS) to ensure the app’s high-performance and the same can also be done for the Augmented Reality project. This will lend full-control in the way you desire, without any external support or services.

Develop 3D models & upload to the CMS

It’s no issue if you don’t have virtual models of your products, as you can ask the developers to create a professional 3-D model in little time.

Release Android & iOS apps to stores

Once your AR app is ready, you can now log in to your app & demonstrate products in AR. Once, you are ready to release your app in the market, the marketing team will help you submit the app to the app stores, like Google Play & Apple Play store.

Recommended Read: Top AI Development Companies

Important Features of Augmented Reality Mobile App

Well, there are numerous of basic features that can be added to your AR app, however the most important feature of an AR app is Augmented Reality itself, so here we have shortlisted some of the most-prominent Augmented Reality apps:

Gyroscope-based AR

You can create an AR app that is the simplest way by using the device’s gyroscope. It is learned that with the use of Gyroscope, the apps will be able to place virtual models around the user. Also, no SDK is needed for these simple features, like Vortex Planetarium ? Astronomy app use the gyroscope to place stars, constellations & planets around a user. Here the average time needed is 150-250 hours.

Location-based AR

It uses device’s data from Wi-Fi, compass & GPS to augment reality around a user by positioning virtual models, link, text info or media in the real world. It requires the user to be in the right location with a good internet connection so to offer the best AR-experience. Developers can be Wikitude to create such a feature. For instance, Pokemon Go app generates digital characters & places them in the physical environment, Flightradar24 helps in tracking planes in real-time. Usually, it takes around 400-800 hours to create this feature.

Marker-based AR

You can also create an AR app by using trigger-markets in the real world. Here, the markers can be anything, from simple QR codes, images, cards, icons to even movie posters. The user’s mobile or tablet’s camera will capture this kind of triggers and then the app will project a particular AR model or media onto it. These kind of apps are quite easy to create & integrate. However, here the most time will be spent in setting the triggers.

Like, each trigger image is required to be designed, specialized, scanned & integrated into the AR app separately. Kudan, Wikitude, Vuforia & Maxst SDKs are used to create such features. For instance, there is an Inkhunter app, which uses markers to project tattoo designs, Layar for scanning of printed media images & generate projections, and Quiver to create 3D models. Average time needed to develop such an app is around 200-400 hours.

How much does it cost to create an AR app?

Your project cost is going to depend hugely on the team you hire, both in case of skills & time-frame. Like, if you desire to develop an app in the least possible team then you’d need more than one person for each role and require to hire an AR App Development Company. Usually, you would need:

AR apps usually involving 3D images & animation, so the main focus is going to be the production of high-quality pictures. It is vital that AR elements look natural & realistic to users and thus, you must find brilliant designers and 3D artists who are apt at image processing skills.

AR App Development rates: Meanwhile, the rates for AR app development will vary as per the region you wish you get the app developed in, like:

  • Northern America: $50 – $250/hour
  • Southern America: $15 – $75/hour
  • Eastern Europe: $30 – $100/hour
  • Western Europe: $50 – $200/hour
  • Australia: $40 – $170/hour
  • Asia: $10 – $50/hour

How much does it cost to develop an AR app like IKEA

Summing it all, to develop an app like IKEA, the cost will be somewhere around $43,000, with Development requiring 25,000, Design & 3D animations 5000(depends on numbers), Back-end 10,000 & QA 3,000

Conclusion

If you wish to get an AR app for some serious business, then you should go for custom AR apps, as then free templates and ready-made solutions won’t be that helpful to you. Instead, you’d need a comprehensive development process. Even though custom AR apps are expensive but are one-of-a-kind, and hence they require the skilled developers, designers, 3D artists and a lot more time as well. Now it’s time that you get in touch with the Best AR Mobile App developers today itself in order to fill the missing spark in your business by getting an AR app developed.

mobile app development
THE AUTHOR
Design Team Lead
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What sets Jitendra apart as a tech blogger is his dedication to staying informed and up-to-date with the ever-changing landscape of technology. He constantly keeps his finger on the pulse of the industry, researching and exploring new advancements to provide his readers with accurate and timely information.

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