Virtual Kitchen Planner presented by Laan Labs As we see Laan Labs’ case virtual kitchen planner, we can expect that augmented reality will improve our daily life. The typical kitchen […]
As we see Laan Labs’ case virtual kitchen planner, we can expect that augmented reality will improve our daily life.
The typical kitchen planning process for the average person involves a visit to a kitchen retail store. It will send a professional to the person’s home to perform several measurements and produce a hand-drawn floor plan. Once equipped with a floor plan, the professional can determine a configuration of cabinets that fits the space. Properly surveying a kitchen is an expensive process, normally requiring a site-visit from a specialist. Furthermore, the final kitchen visualization may not adequately give the customer a preview of their new kitchen.
Thanks to Laan Labs’ mobile application, customers are able to plan and preview a virtual kitchen in augmented reality. The app enables users to measure an existing kitchen and to create a 3D floor plan quickly. An in-app catalog of cabinetry provides the customer with many options and preview into their space. The customer can curate inventory of the virtual catalog by the manufacturer while using a tailor-made, cloud-based management interface.
Laan Labs is a product development and consulting company. The company offers a broad range of solutions with an emphasis in computer vision, machine learning, and augmented reality. Laan Labs was founded in 2007 and the team work in New York, Berlin, and New Orleans. Their clients include brands such as Nike, Prada, O2, NBC Universal, Twitter, and Toyota.
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where technology adds digital elements to a live view. The camera on a smartphone is one example of technologies to make AR feasible.
Some experts say that XR technology including Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality can be disruptive in various industries. Of course, most people might not agree with the idea now. However, it take time for people to use some new technology as de facto standard.
As we see the other article about Gartner’s Hype Cycle, there are five stages: Innovation Trigger, Peak of Inflated Expectations, Early publicity, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment and Plateau of Productivity.
If we can choose AR as any stage in the Hype Cycle, some people will do it as Peak of Inflated Expectations, and others will do as Early publicity. Therefore, we cannot conclude that AR technology is failure like Segway or it can be a game changer like smartphones.
My friend lives in Japan and he told us that he used a feature phone in mid-2000. In fact, he was skeptical about smartphones at first. This was because he was satisfied with his feature phone and a smartphone costed a lot. However, his perceived a smartphone differently when majority people use it.
In the theory of diffusion of innovations, there is a gap called “Chasm” between early adopters and early majority. Thus, if more companies create new AR based services like Laan Labs does and more people enjoy them, AR can cross the chasm, which means that it might be the next de facto standard.
