[HN Gopher] IKEA using AR to let users decide which furniture fi...
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IKEA using AR to let users decide which furniture fits where (2020)
Author : valkrieco
Score : 44 points
Date : 2021-01-29 18:35 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (karlsnotes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (karlsnotes.com)
| S53Vflnr4n wrote:
| IKEA should solve their delivery issue and stock sync in their
| website first.
| TravelPiglet wrote:
| IKEA's webshop is just a bad frontend for their stores. If
| you're unlucky you add items to your cart that you would
| (according to their check out) have to drive 500 km to pick up.
| Probably a result of the stores themselves being the warehouse.
|
| Most stores ship your order within 2 days. With IKEA your're
| probably going to wait a week for them to handle the order and
| hopefully ship it.
| Spivak wrote:
| "Large company employing thousands of autonomous people can
| only do one thing at a time."
| tpmx wrote:
| (Upvoted since your comment was turning gray. It's a legitimate
| concern, I think.)
|
| I think the story here is that they were overwhelmed with a
| high demand during the past "WFH and improve your home year"
| all while their production and shipment capacity was being more
| or less randomly reduced (separately in each country) with very
| little warning.
|
| Stock sync issues? I used to think they had bugs there until I
| realized they're constrained in two aspects that are both
| unusually tight at the moment:
|
| a) forecasted availability of products in your particular
| shipment center
|
| b) forecasted availability of home delivery capacity in your
| particular region
|
| Note that the two will have to match up for the same week at
| least (maybe less), or there'll be a pileup. In a normal year
| this isn't really a problem, there's some slack...
|
| The strategy I eventually landed on was to give up trying to
| bundle everything into one neat order to save a little money.
| I've been ordering large/heavy stuff (like sofas/beds) for home
| delivery in separate deliveries, as soon as I've been able to
| decide on something. Smaller things I've been picking up
| outside their nearby store. If I didn't live near an IKEA, I'd
| order the smaller items by postal/package delivery.
| cratermoon wrote:
| IKEA Collecting Images, Video From Customers' Homes
|
| fixed that headline for you
| loceng wrote:
| This paranoia and fear is getting ridiculous.
| Spivak wrote:
| I think you overestimate the value of random images of mostly
| empty spaces in people's homes.
|
| This isn't a data-grab it's a sales vector. Make it easy for
| people to envision their house with your product in it. IKEA's
| best marketing is their catalog and showrooms where you can
| actually see their stuff used in different actually livable
| rooms and see how they would fit into yours. Same thing but now
| it's literally your house.
| universa1 wrote:
| Iirc, at least in germany they will not distribute the
| catalog anymore and it's volume decreased significantly in
| the last years. I think the all time high was around
| 60million copies, though I might be mistaken on that :-)
| [deleted]
| abeppu wrote:
| Deciding where to put your furniture with AR is from 2017.
|
| I think the 2021 AR move will be that you can buy Ikea furniture,
| and an AR filter will let you take pics for social media showing
| Design Within Reach (or whatever fancy brand) furniture in the
| same places.
|
| And the 2022 version will be when you wear an AR headset at home,
| so you can pretend all on your own.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Not sure why this is news? The AR "IKEA Place" app [1] has
| existed since September 2017.
|
| It's very odd that the submission (dated October 2020) suggests
| that the app is something new.
|
| It's also a pretty bad app -- I tried using it a couple months
| ago. It failed to render anything on my brand-new iPad, though it
| worked on my iPhone. It also only has about ~half the current
| furniture IKEA sells, so I could only try out one of the three
| desks I was interested in, which made it entirely useless for
| comparison. Finally, you can't even search for items by name --
| you have to navigate a hierarchy of every model the app has.
|
| In other words, it still needs a LOT of work. The app gets
| occasional maintenance updates but IKEA doesn't seem to be
| seriously investing in it, unfortunately. The fact it's missing
| half their furniture is pretty unforgiveable.
|
| [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ikea-place/id1279244498
| mstade wrote:
| > It's also a pretty bad app
|
| This doesn't surprise me very much. I'm gonna rant a bit now.
|
| I used to make consumer facing software for IKEA 10+ years ago
| and the dynamic back then was that IKEA Communications (the
| marketing arm) would always have these pretty cool and
| interesting projects, but they (and we) were constantly running
| up against the wall that is IKEA Systems.
|
| Basically, whatever Systems says is the law, and they had all
| kinds of... interesting laws.
|
| For example, Systems owned all environments (production or
| otherwise) and had very draconian rules with regards to
| deployments. Everything had to be documented and packaged in
| certain ways, certain formats had to be used etc. This wouldn't
| be so bad if you are given clear instructions, but we never
| were. So we'd do our best, throw packages over the wall and
| then eventually get them back with pretty useless commentare
| like "This is not up to code" but no indication of what's
| missing or otherwise wrong.
|
| Oh and you only had four deployment windows a year, once a
| quarter. It could take days to get a response, and if you
| missed the deadline you'd have to wait three months for the
| next window. Of course, whenever Communications had a project
| they wanted done it would be stale and out of date if you
| missed the deployment deadline, so it truly was a deadline as
| in your project is dead if you miss it. Needless to say, we had
| to crunch more than a few times.
|
| But it was fun working with Communications - they were a very
| creative and fun bunch. It's also really cool to visit IKEA HQ
| down in Almhult, where they have the photo studios, loads of
| furniture and props from pretty much any decade, a _very_ cool
| 3D graphics department etc. We had a lot of fun there.
|
| Anyway, Systems had a way to always make every project so much
| crappier than it could've been. They were like the lawyers that
| would come in and tell us that "you can't do this, you can't do
| that." Systems and Communications didn't really talk to one
| another either. It was a bit like being the kid in a family
| where the parents are always passive agressive against one
| another, and the kid is just sitting there in the middle having
| to deal with all the crap. The people were nice enough, but the
| whole setup was draining and you end up with a lot of
| compromises.
|
| All that said, I had good fun working for IKEA back in the day,
| and I don't have any regrets. I also obviously have no idea
| what it's like to work for them _now_ , so the above may have
| absolutely nothing to do with the AR app and current states of
| play etc. Maybe it's better now, but my experience having tried
| to plan both a kitchen and bathroom in the past few months lead
| me to believe that maybe not that much has changed in the past
| decade.
| atkbrah wrote:
| The app is a nice curiosity and works as an advertisement but
| nothing else. Everyone knows IKEA makes the most buck out of
| crap people buy while coming over to the store to see something
| they actually planned on buying. It's not a coincidence their
| stores are like mazes.
| ffhhj wrote:
| > Not sure why this is news? The AR "IKEA Place" app [1] has
| existed since September 2017.
|
| Usual product positioning in HN, meanwhile actual discussion is
| flagged:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25591552
| dmje wrote:
| Just tried it. It's terrible. Two rooms, no instructions,
| failed to place any furniture apart from a chair in mid air.
| Uninstalled.
| allenu wrote:
| Blu Dot also does something similar, at least on iOS. What I like
| is it's integrated in the browser, so you don't have to install
| an app. Just tap a button and point your camera at the spot where
| you want to see the furniture.
|
| It works reasonably well and gives you a general idea of how
| large the furniture is and how it would fit in the space.
| Surprisingly, they do a good job with the lighting on the object
| and if you unfocus your eyes a bit, it does seem like it's in the
| room with you.
| Grustaf wrote:
| If they made an AR app that helped impractical customers assemble
| their products that would be real news.
| arkitaip wrote:
| It's crazy that in 2021 they still don't have videos of how to
| assemble their furniture. I mean, it couldn't be that they
| charge you for assembly service...
| Ma8ee wrote:
| I don't think videos would help. Their instructions are
| already exceptionally well made, and I've yet to see any IKEA
| furniture that is hard to assemble.
| umeshunni wrote:
| To add to what you said, every time I have bought furniture
| from someone other than IKEA that needs to be assembled,
| I've missed IKEA's clear instructions.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Maybe for you. Not everyone is so mechanically inclined, or
| can understand instructions well.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Maybe it's because I'm Swedish. ;)
| Grustaf wrote:
| Yeah i think most people simply don't want to try, or they
| are certain they wouldn't be able to.
|
| But even if the instructions are very clear, videos could
| make it more approachable to people.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Maybe more approachable, but I don't think more clear.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I have assembled several pieces. From my limited
| experience, there always seemed one step that was a little
| hard to get right, whether because of angles, or tight
| space, or having to hold something else in place while
| screwing. Other than the one tricky step, everything else
| was pretty easy.
|
| Free tip: Get a powered screwdriver before you start. It
| will definitely be worth the investment.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| For chests of drawers I certainly recommend powered
| screwdrivers (IKEA sell cheap, and for this particular
| use, adequate powered screwdrivers). On the other hand,
| are you assembling some Ivar shells there's hardly any
| screws.
| joezydeco wrote:
| But some pieces can mess you up with orientation. Is that
| long board symmetrical or not? If you missed that there are
| three small dots at the left end of the diagram and two on
| the right, you'll probably install it backwards.
|
| It's happened to the best of us. If you've ever built a
| LEGO kit and been off by one stud somewhere early in the
| project, you'll know the feeling.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| I don't know how long it was since you put together any
| IKEA furniture, but even things like these are hard to
| miss nowadays. I don't know how and if they tests their
| instructions, but they seem to know quite well what kind
| of mistakes people tend to do and adapt their
| instructions accordingly.
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