5 brilliant AR ideas to spice up your everyday life

You’ve heard of Augmented Reality (AR) but don’t know yet exactly what it is and how you can use it? You’ve come to the right place! Read on to find out more about AR, what it does, and how you yourself can integrate it into your daily grind to break out of the ordinary and jazz up your life with immersive experiences.

The success story of AR

Broadly speaking, AR lets you overlay a real-world environment with digital content.

While the concept behind AR has been around for a good five decades already, accelerating advances in the underlying technology have made AR gain significant momentum specifically over recent years.

When the first functional AR systems were invented in the early 90s, their cases of application were still quite limited. Due to the exponential increase in smart phone holders with around-the-clock camera and Internet access, AR has since evolved into a multi-billion-dollar technology that provides much needed solutions for a wide range of industries.

Manufacturing companies use AR to optimize their processes and reduce mistakes, the marketing sector leverages it to increase product engagement and drive sales, educators add interactive experiences to their lessons to enhance concentration and memory retention skills, tourism turns tours into immersive and gamified experiences, surgeons can easily monitor the vital functions of their patients without having to look back and forth between multiple displays during procedures, e-commerce offers try-before-you-buy options to increase customer satisfaction and reduce the return rate of items, museums breathe life into their exhibits,… and the list goes on and on.

In 2022, the global AR market size is valued at around USD 37.0 billion, with a sharp upward tendency. While software solutions and advertising make up approximately one third of the total AR market value today, it is mobile AR (i.e. AR services specifically designed for mobile devices) to take the lead, accounting for around half of the total AR market share.

5 exciting day-to-day use cases of AR for everyone

Arguably one of the most exciting recent developments in the field of AR is the tendency to democratize it. Gone are the days when people had to obtain unwieldy and bulky equipment to experience the most basic functions of what AR has to offer.

Today, all you need is a smart phone and you’re good to go. In fact, you probably encounter AR much more frequently than you’d think, if not on a daily basis. Here are just some of the most commonly used technologies that wouldn’t exist, or at least would look very different, were it not for AR.

• Google Maps Live View
• Facial recognition
• Video conferencing
• Interactive gaming (e.g. Pokémon Go)
• Face filters and avatars

Especially the evolution of WebAR has facilitated access to AR even further.

But now to the most burning question that’s probably been on your mind since you started reading this article: How exactly can I, as an individual, integrate AR into my life in a meaningful way?

The simple answer is: AR technology has as many use cases as your creativity allows.

To give you a foretaste of the value-add AR can bring to you, here’s a list of 5 practical, tangible examples of how to use AR to spice up your daily routine:

1. Turn your home into an immersive experience

It seems like a safe bet to say that our home, the place we choose to spend our daily lives in, will always have a special place in our hearts. Against this background, it makes sense that we are willing to invest much time and money into upgrading our house or apartment to make it even more livable.

With AR, you can quite literally make your home your castle, turning it into an immersive experience not only for yourself but anyone showing up at your doorstep.

You can, for example, take a painting at your home and overlay it with digital content to turn any visit to your place into an AR adventure in its own right. Simply ask your friends to take out their phones, scan the QR codes you’ve prepared, and view your home in a way they never have before.

SQUARS Studio even goes one step further, as it lets you not only prepare the augmented content for your real-life target but also add interactive functions to the AR experience, such as integrated event buttons.

2. Pep up your presentations with interactive events

No matter which stage of your life you’re currently in - whether you still go to school, attend university, or are already established in your professional life - at some point, you will probably face the challenge of having to give a presentation.

Think back and ask yourself: What was the most memorable presentation I’ve ever witnessed?

Got one in mind? Good - now ask yourself: What made this particular presentation so memorable? Was it really WHAT was being said or rather HOW it was delivered?

Sometimes it seems that you can get away with saying pretty much everything, as long as you provide a good show that’s entertaining to your listeners and keeps them engaged throughout.

Incorporating AR into your delivery may just add this extra spice to your performance which you need to leave behind a lasting impression on your listeners.

Simply embed a digital 2D or 3D visualization in some of your slides and ask your audience to take out their smart phones to start the AR experience. The more interactive your presentation the greater its impact.

You may, for example, provide augmented content to make a complex idea more digestible. Also, adding a layer of gamification to your presentation can go a long way in hooking your audience in and wanting them come back for more.

3. Create your own immersive content with your family and friends and have a fun pastime

Do you sometimes find yourself thinking about ideas of how to make your time off work more exciting and worthwhile? Why not try AR!

Get together with your loved ones and start building your own AR content during one of the next times you meet. Our Free+ Plan, for instance, gives you instant access to up to 10 individual AR projects to work on with your family and friends.

Make any image or object in your environment come to life and enjoy testing the outcome of your efforts together.

If you are really proud of your work and want more people to see it, simply share your AR experiences with a larger audience and let them partake in your fun activity

4. Visualize your ideas with AR

Have you ever felt like you had a great design idea, but found it difficult to convince others of it? This might have been because the other person was having a hard time envisioning exactly what you had in mind. What you need, in this case, is a way to make your idea more tangible.

Amongst many other things, AR can be a great and engaging visualization tool.

Let’s say you’ve come up with a creative design idea for your home (e.g. a wall print), but all your attempts so far of getting your partner on board have failed. With AR, you could quite easily demonstrate what the new scenario would look like in real life by projecting your own work directly into the room.

5. Personalize your greeting and business cards by turning them into fantastic AR experiences

Are you also tired of getting the same run-of-the-mill greeting cards from the store every year? Why not switch it up and add a personal touch to your card the next time you wish someone a Happy Birthday, Merry X-Mas, or a Happy New Year?

With SQUARS Studio, you can easily create your own AR greeting cards, completely from scratch and for all occasions: Design and upload the card to our editor, overlay it with personalized AR content, and enthrall your co-workers, friends, and family with captivating AR experiences.

Another fun but effective way of strengthening your personal impact, especially in a professional setting, are AR business cards. Attach a small QR code to your card and embed the AR content. This way, you can promote your business with valuable information that would never fit on a regular business card, or add interactive buttons that will forward anyone tapping them to your own website or social media channels.

An AR business card will definitely make you stand out from the crowd and leave a lasting impression on your professional acquaintances.

Get free access to your personal AR experiences with SQUARS

Burning to dive right in and gain your first hands-on-experience in the world of AR?

Squars provides all its users with a Free+ plan that enables you to create your own immersive content and share it with whomever you like, completely free of charge.

Why not sign up today and try out for yourself some of the ideas included in this article?