AR Is the Future of Practicality
I figured I might start to tackle a very serious phenomenon with something not so serious. Do you remember the “Pokémon GO!” craze? Going through the city and trying to find the Pokemons of your childhood had us all in a frenzy. I’ll admit it’s not the healthiest phenom, but it’s a textbook example of how AR could make our lives more fun.
This gamification of real life seems appealing for a number of reasons. With technological accessibility around the world increasing on a daily basis, it might seem natural that a significant part of tech development goes in this direction. After all, we’re all used to consuming massive amounts of content, so why not gain control by integrating it into something new?
I know it might seem easier to dive down the rabbit hole and find the negative aspects of applying augmented reality, BUT…
What if AR actually provided an additional value to our everyday lives?
Let’s start with something down-to-earth. A boring chore, like cleaning the windows, washing your car, or cleaning the floors of your house. Not something we’re generally very fond of. It’s a chore, and it needs to be done – for those of you with teenagers in your household, you might find this idea interesting (wink).
The repetitious task of cleaning is generally very dull, but let’s spice it up with some gamification. AR lets you get an added virtual experience while doing something in real life. So, you’re mopping the floor, but it shows you how well you cleaned it, or your favorite cleaning brand said that you’d get a free product for a month if you achieved a score higher than XY on their AR app. Your interest is spiking, right? For cleaning the car, AR could allow you to get a gas discount if you get your products from a specific supplier, etc.
Hand to heart, the possibilities are endless, and the user experience is in the driving seat.
Heck it can improve or even save our lives.
With that in mind, the practical aspect of it could be applied to improve the overall quality of life. Monitoring health conditions is already gamified with the smartwatches we all wear, but it could be amplified significantly. Come to think of it; we’re already used to allowing practical tech into our lives.
You could think of it as revolutionizing self-care, even. We’ve grown accustomed to wearing tech, like smartwatches, that are practical and improve our way of life. Adding AR’s interactivity to that hardware could allow health professionals to provide more extensive care of us – like providing real-time consultations and AR visually representing pain points. It could help primary care significantly, and even monitoring would be substantially cheaper with new technologies relying on the hardware we already have. And it’s not at all different in other industries.
At the end of the day, who wouldn’t want an easy way out of modernizing operations while enhancing performance at the same time?
I’m very curious about what the future holds, and I can’t wait for AR to be integrated into our lives more. Certainly watching out for startups in this area and tossing around some very exciting ideas that converge hospitality, gaming and AR.
Hit me up if you’re also passionate about this!