Ikea has debuted a new app that uses augmented reality to virtually place items of its furniture in your home.
It’s called Places and it effectively lets you try out some of its most popular items in your home through the lens of your iPhone or iPad’s camera.
Using the camera, the app can intelligently map the room and then scale the furniture’s size to fit with around 98% accuracy.
The resolution is seriously impressive too as you’ll be able to walk up to it and see the textures of the fabric and even see how the natural light in your room reflects off it.
You can then walk around the furniture, move it to different parts of your room or even change the colour.
Once you find something that fits it’ll take you to Ikea’s Store app where you can order it, effectively saving you from the emotional rollercoaster that is a trip to one of Ikea’s physical stores.
While it’s only available in the US right now it is launching in the UK on 3 October giving access to over 2,000 of Ikea’s most popular products.
The app makes use of a new set of tools that Apple calls ARKit, a set of tools that will allow developers to create enhanced augmented reality apps.
Apple showed off a perfect example of ARKit during its Special Event where it unveiled the iPhone X and iPhone 8.
Called ‘The Machines’ it’s an augmented reality game that effectively places the game’s map onto any real-world surface.