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Target adds augmented reality shopping to mobile website, doesn’t (yet) use ARKit

Target is the latest retailer to offer augmented reality shopping, allowing customers to see how furniture would look in their own homes. It currently offers the feature with 200 items, but says it plans to offer hundreds more by the end of the year and ‘thousands’ of products next year.

The feature works much the same way as Ikea’s app, but doesn’t (yet) take advantage of ARKit

Target describes how it works.

Guests […] can use the feature to place three-dimensional versions of real Target home products within photos of actual rooms at home, and move them around at proper scale to see how they’d look—all before buying the product.

Once a guest finds, say, a floor lamp or bedside table on Target.com using their smartphone, they simply tap the product’s See It In Your Space button and follow steps to do just that. All they need is a photo of the living space they want to decorate—which they can shoot in real-time or pull from an existing photo.

As TechCrunch notes, Target is currently using WebGL to perform the AR renders in its mobile website, but the company says that it may switch to a mobile app if the feature proves popular.

To try the feature, just visit the company’s website on a mobile device and look for the Project 62 line of home decor products.

Tim Cook recently suggested that AR will become as essential to retailers as a website is today.


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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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