The brick-and-mortar reality of Walmart stores means they have to compete with the likes of Amazon on different playing fields. Walmart is therefore among the first retailers to embrace newest technology to the fullest. The latest technological improvement comes in form of Walmart AR price scanner, an extremely fast and intuitive barcode-run AR price check tool.
Walmart is rapidly moving past its physical boundaries. The news of nationwide VR staff training still fresh in our memories, the retailer is empowering the shoppers with a neat AR addition. Walmart AR price scanner delivers an instant price information about a product by simply aiming the smartphone camera at it. The app runs on Apple’s ARKit, hence available only to iOS for now.
Walmart is bent on making the price checker more than what it is. The idea is to create a definitive buying guide for Walmart goods. The first thing to notice is the feature design, or lack thereof. Walmart has stripped away every visual paraphernalia to make the scanner as intuitive as possible. The real focus is on task at hand, having interface help you rather that entice visually. This way, Walmart created an immersive AR experience, continually an issue for developers who often go for visual appeal. Like Focals glasses, Walmart price scanner truly augment the reality in real-life use cases, rather than morph it in a video game.
Cutting the visual effects has another effect boosted – speed. Indeed, Walmart AR price scanner is fast. The brains inside WalmartLabs figured that speed of service had little to do with hardware performance, and more with transition to UIViewController. By removing this transition and all the animations that go along, they boosted the speed of AR scanner by as much as 50%, Walmart estimates. Where speed is ripe, clutter is no more. The common pest in AR interfaces is also smartly dealt with by the Lab brains.
Speed and design choice aside, Walmart takes the AR scanner beyond a simple price know-all. The huge retailer’s biggest advantage is also its major undoing – there is just too much of stuff to compare. If you are on a hunt for the affordable, there are better ways to spend a day than perusing the prices in hope to find a better deal. The Walmart AR price scanner helps here, making the potentially head-spinning task a breeze. It anchors dots to the products you’ve already scanned, never losing sight of comparison between same category products. The unassuming interface shows the product you are currently scanning, comparing its price and relative quality the while. User reviews, too, are right at users’ tips.
The future of big market shopping is in the smartphone camera. iPhone camera, for the time being. Walmart AR price scanner rolls out on iOS 11.3 or above only for now, necessarily limiting the user pool. A temporary situation though; the price feature is just a taste of AR goodies to come from Walmart. The retailer doesn’t shy away from big words and even bigger ideas. Exciting times for shopping, no doubt.
