Signal Fall 2021 Newsletter

www.alliancecom.net 7 Given that so much shopping takes place online, retailers are now offering VR and AR features to enhance the customer experience. The technology can be used for interacting with products as well as the purchasing process. Immersive Tech Makes Shopping More Convenient Fashion Stores like Ikea already have the technol- ogy to help you visualize different ways of using a piece of furniture in your home. With an immersive in-store expe- rience, you can change colors, lighting, and arrangements to get a much wider perspective about the products you’re considering. Learning Opportunities Lowe’s home improvement stores offer the Holoroom Test Drive, an environ- ment in which customers can safely learn how to operate power tools in a virtual space that uses haptics (sense of touch), scent, sound, and visuals. The company promotes this service as a way to prevent DIYers from giving up on home improve- ment projects due to being intimidated by power tools. Enhanced Shopping AR shopping apps enable you to walk into a brick-and-mortar store and see prices, special offers, and features for the products you’re looking at. For larger stores, these apps can also be used to help you navigate through the space. Product Discovery Within a physical store, AR apps can use information about your preferences to guide you to personalized recommenda- tions. This use is similar to how online retailers make suggestions for products you might like based on past purchases and others items you’ve viewed. QUICK TIP: Netflix VR puts you in a perfect TV viewing room to watch your favorite shows. VR and AR Enable Better Virtual Events In 2020, many events that used to take place in person happened online, sometimes successfully and other times not so much. For example, there’s no way to really replicate the excitement of being at a live concert performed by your favorite band. VR can’t take the place of live events either, but it can come closer than endless Zoom meetings. Events like concerts, plays, and confer- ences can be replicated in the virtual world. For example, according to software development company MobiDev, one organization created a virtual career fair that included traditional-looking tables represent- ing various businesses in an outdoor field. Attendees could approach each table and watch a video about that business. This event was accessed using WebAR, which is web-based AR that users can access directly through a browser, with no app or headset required. The same principle can be applied to other events that might not require the high level of reality delivered by VR.