Lighthouz Furniture has rolled out a mobile application that leverages augmented reality to show consumers how products fit in a consumer’s home.

The Lighthouz Furniture app is part of a bigger revamp of the brand that also includes a new Web site and a 6,000-foot showroom. Lighthouz Furniture worked with Ad-Dispatch on the app.

“The mobile app is intended to support Lighthouz’s retail showroom customers as well as the online customers,” said Nathan Kroll, president of Ad-Dispatch, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

“The idea is to assist with the buying experience and help give customers the confidence that their decision on a piece of furniture is a good one,” he said.

“Fundamentally is comes back to giving the customer more confidence in their decision.”

Lighthouz Furniture focuses on three furniture collections – the bungalow, the loft and époque. The company sells living, dining, lighting, rugs, window, office and outdoor home products.

Finding the right fit
The app is available for free download in Apple’s Canadian App Store and leverages augmented reality to let consumers virtually play around with furniture to see how it fits within their homes with step-by-step directions.

The technology reproduces an image the same size as the piece of furniture, and consumers can move around the room to view the virtual furniture from any angle.

What makes the app different than other executions of augmented reality is that the app maps the features of a specific room to anchor the virtual pieces of furniture. This lets the image appear stationary while consumers move their mobile device.

The app lets consumers take a picture of their furniture and homes that can be shared via social media.

There are also options to access product and store information as well as shop.

Augmented opportunity
Lighthouz Furniture is not the only furniture brand leveraging augmented reality to help consumers envision how big furniture pieces fit within a home.

IKEA also leveraged augmented reality within its branded app earlier this year to bring its fall catalog to life (see story).

For many brands, augmented reality is still considered gimmicky, but there have been some initiatives such as the Lighthouz Furniture app that use the technology to help solve pain points.

For Lighthouz Furniture specifically, the goal of using augmented reality is to showcase how the brand is forward-thinking.

“Halifax furniture stores are very old school and have not adapted even Web technology let alone mobile, and the goal is to help position Lighthouz as the leader in regional thinking for the furniture retail industry,” Mr. Kroll said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York