One special thing of Ikea is how this Swedish furniture
company presents its products in the form of storefront rooms such as the
living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. In that way, consumers can get an
idea how the products will look when they are placed at home.
However there were times when some storefronts of Ikea were
filled with visitors so the stores felt less comfortable. But fortunately this
problem will be resolved soon because Ikea has prepared alternative solution,
with the help of virtual reality technology.
Named Ikea VR Experience, this is the app for HTC Vive
headset. The principle is simple; you will be taken to three virtual rooms with
different styles. From there, you can customize the room, such as changing the
color or finish furniture by using HTC Vive's controller.
The motion tracking function of Vive allows the users to
walk around the virtual rooms and do some simple interactions, such as opening
a drawer or put the frying pan on the stove. Users can also see from the
perspective view of a child, so they can estimate whether the end of a table is
potentially harmful to children at home or not.
If seen from a screenshot on Steam, the graphic is fairly
good and detail because the developer has been utilizing the Unreal Engine 4
that has a phenomenal capability.
Ikea VR Experience shows the seriousness of Ikea in applying
the digital technology for the benefit of consumers. Before this, Ikea had
released Ikea Catalog app for augmented reality-based Android and iOS.