The reputed Swedish brand IKEA specialising in home furniture has used virtual reality technology developed by HTC to give its customers looking for its kitchens to select the best options as per their taste and decor of the house. IKEA has developed an app for a virtual reality-kitchen for HTC Vive on Steam gaming platform. The app is a pilot test exploring new ways to empower customers to try new kitchen solutions before they buy them.
This app has been made in collaboration with developers at the French company Allegorithmic, using Unreal Engine 4 from Epic Games for HTC Vive – a virtual reality system created by HTC and Valve.
“Virtual reality is developing fast and in five to ten years it will be an integrated part of people’s lives. We see that virtual reality will play a major role in the future of our customers, for instance it could be used to enable customers to try out a variety of home furnishing solutions before buying them,” says Jesper Brodin, managing director at IKEA of Sweden and Range & Supply Manager at IKEA Group.
One of the features of IKEA VR Experience is the possibility to change the color of cabinets and drawers with a click. Another feature is the ability to shrink yourself and move around the kitchen in the size of a 3.3 foot (100 cm) tall child. You can also enlarge yourself and experience it as 6.4 feet (195 cm) tall. These features will be useful from a safety perspective, since walking around the room in someone else’s shoes enables you to discover hidden dangers.
IKEA VR Experience will be continuously updated until August when this particular pilot test ends.
