How Smart Glasses are Revolutionizing Interior Design
In an age where technology continuously shapes and reshapes various industries, the realm of interior design is no exception. Over the past few decades, designers have traded their paper sketches and mood boards for digital renderings and 3D models, with the new kid on the block being smart glasses!
Living with smart home technology brings a lot of comfort and convenience from all the automated functions and processes behind the scenes. As such, in 2022, Statista showed that the UK’s smart home market was projected to reach a revenue of $7.7 billion (£6.3 billion). The market is also expected to reach 34.8 million users by 2028.
In a previous post on ‘How to Incorporate Smart Technology’ into your home decor, we highlighted how smart tech, such as voice-controlled music systems and smart thermostats can be valuable tools in the house. These innovative technologies for the home can help keep the house secure, save time, increase efficiency, and provide a more enjoyable and immersive entertainment experience.
Nowadays, smart technology has expanded beyond home tech. Wearable technologies like smart glasses are feature-packed and can make activities such as home decor and interior design more time- and cost-efficient.
Soon enough, smart technology will be a vital part of home design instead of traditional furnishing techniques. Below, we’ll look at how smart glasses are revolutionizing interior design.
Smart Glasses in Interior Design
Among these advancements, one of the most promising tools emerging is smart glasses. Let’s dive into how these tech wearables are transforming the interior design world.
What Are Smart Glasses?
At their core, they are wearable computer glasses that add information, usually through Augmented Reality (AR), to what the wearer sees. Unlike traditional glasses, they interact dynamically with information, often overlaying digital content on the physical world.
1. Communication and Collaboration
Good interior design often relies on you communicating with other people, such as furniture or house decor suppliers. One of the key advantages offered by smart glasses is their ability to facilitate remote communications thanks to built-in microphones — and sometimes, cameras.
Eyewear brand Ray-Ban’s collaboration with Meta is leading the way in the smart glasses sector. The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses allow wearers to capture images and videos using a built-in ultrawide 12MP camera. This can help with interior design as you can easily record or livestream a room or house tour. You’ll also be able to refer to photos and videos remotely throughout your design process without always being on-site.
2. 3D Visualization
Another critical smart glasses feature — that is yet to be developed — has to do with Apple’s AR glasses. By leveraging augmented reality technology, AR can be used alongside home design/development tools, such as Apple’s latest RoomPlan, to make accurate 3D scans of a room or space.
Previously, designers relied on software on stationary computers to draft 3D models. Smart glasses now let designers and clients embark on interactive walkthroughs of these models. These simulations can be incredibly detailed, from the texture of a rug to the way light filters through a set of curtains.
In the interior design process, this can help you visualize aspects such as wall or floor colors to ensure your choices fit existing furniture or other additions you may have in mind later on. While the technology currently relies on high-end LiDAR-equipped iPhones, it’ll be interesting to see other tech giants adopt this technology and integrate it into smart glasses for a hands-free and immersive experience.
3. Augmented Reality
Similar to Apple’s sophisticated RoomPlan API, some smart glasses can virtually augment interior decor elements onto a physical room. This can be useful if you’re working with an empty space or planning to switch out old or damaged furniture.
Imagine stepping into a room and, through your smart glasses, visualizing different design layouts, furniture placements, or color palettes. Wearers can use smart glasses to indulge in a hands-free design process while enjoying an immersive view of interior spaces. Aside from quickly visualizing virtual furniture and house items, wearers can manipulate design elements in real time.
AR can also display virtual material samples on physical surfaces, helping you decide the suitable materials for walls, floors, and furniture without buying them beforehand. This dynamic visualization aids in faster decision-making and brings an immersive experience, far superior to 2D sketches or even computer renderings.
4. Measurements
One of the challenges of interior design is ensuring that furnishings and decor fit harmoniously within a space. Smart glasses can help interior designers by helping measure home elements and furniture to ensure that everything will fit just right. Some smart glasses may be equipped with built-in laser measurement tools to measure distances between walls, furniture, or other elements as you go.
With smart glasses that can capture video or images, you’ll also have access to a visual record of the space. You can refer to and annotate measurements and other elements accordingly throughout the design process.
Other smart glasses may have built-in features that augment annotations such as measurements and other details onto your environment, so you can quickly verify measurements without repeatedly using tape measures or laser distance meters. This not only reduces human error but also streamlines the furniture selection and placement process.
5. Virtual Material and Color Swatches
Physical swatches can be limiting. With smart glasses, designers can instantly switch between different materials, textures, and colors, projecting them onto surfaces. This not only helps in determining the right shade of blue for a wall but also how a mahogany versus an oak finish might look on a coffee table.
As technology continues to evolve, the capabilities of smart glasses will expand. Integrations with AI could offer designers intelligent suggestions based on space and user preferences. There’s also the potential for even more immersive mixed-reality experiences, merging both AR and Virtual Reality (VR).
In the grand tapestry of design evolution, smart glasses might just be the thread weaving the future. So, the next time you see a designer donning a pair, know that they’re likely envisioning a world far beyond our current imagination.
