Augmented Reality

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Next Generation Car Shopping
25 January 2023

Kaalo has been bringing the car showroom to the customer for more than 3 years now. Buyers are able to explore cars in true scale, color, material and finish in the convenience of their homes or anywhere. They are able to conference in family members for a full 360 degrees experience. View features, details, specifications, and even get technical with thermals, airflow, x-ray vision, and exploded view of assemblies. Drag and drop a live sales person, populate the car with passengers, luggage and pets, and even check out safety features & crash simulations. All this without any special headgear or further expense – just the phone in your pocket is all you need.

Ask your leadership team to contact Kaalo for a demo: [email protected]; 805.630.8267

#AutomotiveAR #NextGenCarShopping #CarSales #Tesla #Ford #BMW #Mercedes #AutomobileSales #Design #KaaloAR

Collaborate, debate, explore and then buy from anywhere in the world
23 January 2023

Retail has transformed from brick and mortar to ecommerce and hybrids. Replicating touch and feel of a physical store experience online has always been a challenge. Scale, volume, material, and color is represented poorly via images and video. Especially large products like home appliances, and furniture. Since 2018, many ecommerce platforms have adopted Augmented Reality to bring products to the space of your choice. Customers are able to explore the product up and close in high fidelity resolution, material, color, and in true ambient lighting. Kaalo has helped many such companies to bridge the gap between an actual physical product experiences and ecommerce digital ones. Today, we have the ability to conference around a 3D digital product. So a family in different locations can view, debate, choose and purchase a product. Contact Kaalo for a demo. [email protected]; text: 805.630.8267 – forward this your Sales Executive.

#retailAR #ARecommerce #CollaborationAR #NextGenRetail #BuyingExperience #salesAR

Kaalo AR VR
How did Kaalo morph into a technology and design company?
18 January 2023

How did Kaalo morph into a technology and design company? A classic Industrial Design team from the early 1990s with an open mind to the changing times and complicated client needs. Hardware design was not enough with the world of software taking over. Kaalo embraced software design and development to offer comprehensive solutions to clients. It was the explosion of social media, gaming and the virtual space that changed the face of product experiences and customer expectations. Kaalo got ahead of this macro trend back in 2017 by using Industrial Design techniques to Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality for solutions that served real world business needs. In 2020, when Covid hit, Kaalo’s remote AR based technical support solution was a “must have” for our clients. Now in 2023, Kaalo is recognized as one of the top AR companies offering a wide range of well designed, robust, secure solutions for a variety of industries including Electronics, Housewares, Retail, Health and Education.

#design #industrialdesign #augmentedreality #DesignAndTechnology #KaaloAR #team

Kaalo AR offerings
18 January 2023

Kaalo has augmented reality solutions for a wide variety of business needs including Customer Support, Training & Education, Sales & Marketing, Design & Development, Presentations and Demos. Our clients win awards with our AR solutions. Contact us: 805.630.8267, [email protected]
#ARforBusinessExcellence#ARforCustomerSupport#ARforSales#ARforMarketing

What’s the Difference Between AR, VR, MR and XR?
28 June 2022

AR, VR, MR, XR…There are a lot of acronyms tumbling around the internet concerning reality. But before we get into the modifiers, let’s talk about what reality is. When we say “reality,” we usually mean the physical world. Each person’s experience of reality is somewhat subjective, based on simple things like the way they see color and more complex factors like how they perceive an event based on their unique past experience.

Physical reality (without any digital enhancement) is at one end of what’s called the “virtuality continuum,” first introduced by Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino. Virtual reality — a full-immersive digital environment with the “real” physical environment completely blocked out — is at the other extreme. The other terms fall in the middle and around them.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is one step away from standard reality toward the digital end of the spectrum. With AR, digital elements are superimposed onto physical reality, giving us a composite environment made up of both real and digital elements. You can get an AR view through smart glasses or an app on your smartphone. Accuvein technology, which projects vein locations on a patient’s arm to increase accuracy during blood draws, is a good example.

Mixed Reality

You can imagine mixed reality in the center of the spectrum. Like AR, MR projects digital overlays onto the physical environment, but MR allows the user to interact with those digital elements as well. You can see the virtual dog in front of you and also scratch it behind the ears. Think of Tony Stark swooping those 3D digital diagrams around his multimillion-dollar “workshop.”

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is a totally digital environment with nothing of the real world remaining in view. VR often makes use of sight and sound to create an immersive experience but when touch is added, it becomes even more real for participants. The ultimate example of VR? The Matrix (of course). Here’s an entertaining video of the Fulham players struggling with a virtual reality “walk the plank challenge,” even though they know the height isn’t real.

Extended Reality

Extended reality or “XR” is the easiest to explain. It’s an umbrella term that encompasses all of the aforementioned ways of using digital content in our environments — everything from Pikachu projected onto the sideway in Pokémon Go, to well, again, The Matrix. AR, MR and VR are all types of XR.

The exciting thing about AR and MR in particular is how they are already being used. Apps can provide digital, 3D interactive manuals. Instructions for manufacturing and assembly can be projected right onto complex products to prevent costly mistakes. Driving directions can populate on a heads-up display so directions are step-by-step on the road in front of you. Once you have a basic grasp of what each of these terms means and how they fit on the continuum, it’s easy to see where they are already popping up in our very real world.

an augmented reality design model of a stretcher
How Augmented Reality Models Change the Design Game
16 June 2022

Building a product model or prototype takes time, money, materials and energy. And yet it is a necessary step in the design process to present your design to a stakeholder. Facts and figures, even 2-D diagrams only get you so far before everyone wants to see what the laptop, new medical device or treadmill is actually going to look like and how it will function. Augmented reality enables a virtual prototype that works just like a real, physical version, complete with a 3-D model that can be rotated, opened and taken apart at less cost using fewer resources.

Augmented Reality models revolutionize the design process.
AR Reduces Prototype Cost

Prototypes are often the largest expense in the product development process and can account for up to 80 percent of the development budget. Oftentimes, the first iteration of a model isn’t the final one, and creating updated versions takes even more time and money. With AR, models can be generated and modified in far less time, with less cost and less waste. And they can be delivered easily anywhere in the world, which brings us to our next point: accessibility.

AR Models are More Accessible

Shipping a model to a customer for a demonstration in their own space is costly and requires a couple of days’ lead time for shipping. If you are flying stakeholders out to observe a model, that cost is likely even higher. With AR models and prototypes, that product demonstration can happen in 3-D for many people at one time in multiple locations, delivered digitally, with no need to pay for expensive shipping or travel. Users can manipulate the 3-D models at will without safety concerns and without fear of damaging the product.

Better than 2-D Design

With larger, more complex design, 2-D modeling is often all you get. Vizworx President Jeff LaFrenz said that when designing an airplane, AR models can save a lot of rework. In a standard design review, a 3-D image is projected onto a 2-D screen, and the loss of dimension makes it difficult to discern how it will work in the real world. Mistakes are often not corrected until they’ve begun production. “We don’t get the insight around those spaces until we’re in them,” he said. “That’s where AR allows insights. We can reduce significantly the cost of infrastructure design and construction by giving them a spatial understanding through AR.”

Augmented reality models outperform physical models in all areas. They are less expensive, easier to modify, more accessible, more accurate than 2D models and produce less waste. AR product models are the future and none too distant.

Kaalo Augmented Reality App
Why People Don’t Read and How AR Can Fix That
09 June 2022

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.”

~ Steve Jobs, 2008

Steve Jobs said this in response to queries about the possibility of Apple developing an e-reader almost 15 years ago. His cited statistic is debatable, but we are all bombarded by things we HAVE to read in order to discover what is important and what is trash — emails, spammy texts and the thick paper guides that still come with many of the products we buy. It’s no wonder that to preserve our limited attention spans and our sanity, we have started ignoring text instead of reading it.

How, then, do you get people’s attention? How do you teach them about a product when we have all become so skeptical of giving our time and attention to the written word which we fear may be worthless? Imagine packaging, brochures and catalogs that can provide everything the addictive internet can — animation, audio and video in three dimensions — through augmented reality (AR).

Kaalo’s augmented reality app, KAR, brings text to life.
Catalogs in Augmented Reality

Instead of trying to pare down a laptop’s stats into digestible bits of text that still include crucial, yet often dry, information like screen dimension, processing speed and storage capability, imagine someone could point their phone at the catalog image, see that laptop in their own space and have all of that data presented to them in interactive 3-D. The image can even be rotated and disassembled for the truly curious.

AR Packaging

Augmented reality packaging serves two purposes: marketing the product before the consumer purchases it and helping them figure out how it works once they’ve taken it home. Instead of cramming all that text info onto a box or plastic package, buyers can point their phones at it and learn all they need to know via audio, video and infographics presented in augmented reality. After the purchase, Kaalo’s augmented reality app, KAR, can help them with setup without having to include a lengthy manual in eight different languages. (The app can act as a translator as well.)

Jobs may have been right that the way we interact with text and reading is changing, but with change comes an opportunity to rise to the challenge. KAR caters information to the modern mind, the discriminating reader, all while reducing the need for so much paper. Kaalo recognizes that, in order to continue to meet consumers’ needs, we must grow. Because, as another well-known entrepreneur once said…

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”

~ John C. Maxwell
Kaalo Augmented Reality
How a New AR App Makes Online Shopping Fun Again
01 June 2022
KAR, Kaalo’s augmented reality app, lets you view catalog images in 3-D.

You shop online a lot; we all do — all two billion of us and counting, according to data from 2020. The convenience of ordering a pair of shoes, a sofa or a new laptop from your living room beats driving to multiple stores to compare prices before finally making a purchase. The downside? You can’t see how those shoes look on your feet before you buy them or whether that couch would work, in blue, in your space. Is a 15-inch screen laptop big enough for your purposes? You have to imagine it, and if you’re wrong, you return, exchange and wait all over again. Existing augmented reality (AR) technology can help with that.

AR Catalog Images in 3D

KAR, Kaalo’s augmented reality app, lets you view catalog images in 3-D. You can rotate the product, explode its parts, explore what it would look like in various colors or with different materials or features. You can try those shoes on, virtually, and see whether you like them better on your feet in red or black. Project that sofa into your living room and see if it works with your current coffee table. Take the image of your potential new computer and rotate it, take it apart and explore all of its features in three dimensions. When you decide, KAR includes a “buy” button taking you directly to a secure e-commerce platform to make your purchase seamless.

What Kaalo’s AR App Can Do

KAR can apply this augmented reality technology to…

Interactive print technology, using augmented reality, brings static print to life in brochures, packaging and point-of-sale terminals with animations, audio, video and infographics — fully animated, three-dimensional details you can’t get from traditional print marketing. How cool is that? Stay tuned for more Kaalo AR posts coming soon.

AR brings print to life.
Augmented Reality Brings Print to Life
22 May 2022

For years, people have been talking about print media becoming obsolete and indeed, publications have struggled to remain relevant and financially viable. After all, why research a new product or plan your vacation with magazines when the internet puts not only text and images but video and interactive content at your fingertips. But what if the way for print media to maintain its usefulness isn’t in rejecting technology but by embracing it through augmented reality?

AR can, like its name says, augment printed materials. It can provide three-dimensional, rotatable, expandable models based on the images in books or magazines. It can call up supportive videos for more information. It can also provide translation in different languages and accessibility for people who are visually or auditorily challenged.

AR for Books

In a world where children often learn to operate digital tablets before they can talk, augmented reality can provide an enhanced experience of books, bringing characters into three dimensions. Textbooks can benefit from AR as well. Videos and other additional information can be called up through an AR app, enhancing understanding of concepts. The three-dimensional nature of AR images makes exploring language, history and math concepts more engaging. (several examples of augmented reality books)

Shopping, Product Packaging and Augmented Reality

Companies are already using AR to make interactive product labels; download a free app, point your phone at the label and the story unfolds. Jack Daniels is one of the more prominent companies using AR for marketing. Their bottle label tells stories about the history of the whiskey, teaches the distilling process and can take you on a virtual tour of their facilities. It’s easy to imagine how this concept applies to at-home shopping. AR is the link between those glossy yet archaic paper catalogs that arrive in the mail and the world of online purchasing. Point your phone at the page and learn more about the product, see videos of how it works and access a link to the online store.

AR and Product Guides

Let’s say you’ve already used AR to purchase something new — a vacuum cleaner, a new laptop or a fancy blender. That old-school product guide that has to be printed in several different languages can now be a lot smaller. An AR app can translate for you and provide additional information and three-dimensional diagrams that you can rotate or take apart without the risk of breaking your new toy. Mercedes Benz was making use of AR manuals as early as 2018, making it more fun and interactive to get to know your new car.

Augmented reality and print can work together, giving us the best of both worlds — the feel of real paper you can touch with the engaging and customizable nature of the digital world; the same target audience as a glossy paper catalog with an interactive digital touch that leads directly to the company website. Print media is far from dead and with augmented reality enhancing it, it will continue to play a role in informing and entertaining us.

6 reasons augmented reality is worth it
6 Reasons Augmented Reality is Worth the Investment
13 May 2022

There is a lot of talk about virtual reality these days, with Facebook rebranding as Meta and their declared focus on creating the Metaverse — a completely digitally generated world in which users can work and play. But augmented reality — technology that projects digital enhancement onto our existing world — is being applied in a number of different industries as diverse as large machine manufacturing and shopping for makeup. AR has begun to take hold of the manufacturing and retail world with much more potential. Here are some reasons AR is the tech to watch.

Mobile AR had 600 million users worldwide in 2020

That number is on the rise. According to Statista, by 2023, 1.4 billion people across the globe will be using mobile augmented reality. That number is expected to continue to grow through 2024 and beyond, as more apps make use of smartphones’ existing ability to support AR technology.

The AR market will be worth over $97 billion by 2028

In 2020, the augmented reality market size was about $4.2 billion. It was over $6 billion by 2021 and is projected to keep growing. While AR took a small dip during the pandemic, it has rebounded nicely and continues to grow. (Fortune Business Insights)

Augmented Reality has applications in the industrial sector

AR’s overlay of digital information on a real-world environment helps technicians prevent mistakes and work more efficiently. Newport News Shipbuilding, a designer of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, uses AR to inspect newly built ships. The digital projections highlight construction structures, not part of the finished product, that must be removed. AR has reduced inspection time from 36 hours to just 90 minutes. (Harvard Business Review, 2019)

AR can make education more efficient

According to Michael Porter, some companies are already using augmented reality to reduce the training time for new employees to nearly zero. It also means they are able to hire people who are initially less skilled. Package delivery company DHL has found this especially advantageous with their seasonal hires during peak shipping times. (Harvard Business Review, 2019)

Augmented reality is already used in healthcare

With augmented reality, patients and care providers can draw and annotate on a 3-D screen during telehealth visits. When combined with machine learning algorithms, AR can help detect diseases such as cancer. Google’s 2020 announcement for an AR-based microscope for the Department of Defense is just such an example. Real-time camera images are processed with computer diagnostics to diagnose disease at an early stage. (mobidev.biz)

AR-enabled advertising is engaging customers

The L’Oreal YouCam makeup app was downloaded 3.5 million times in 2018. Many media planners today intend to incorporate more VR/AR experiences into their ads to improve the customer experience. (Assemblr) In fact, AR ad experiences are reportedly twice as engaging as their non-AR equivalents.