Digital navigation has revolutionized the way people travel. While outdoor navigation has been around for a while, indoor navigation has posed some challenges as satellites cannot track the indoor areas. For indoor navigation, AR based apps have been the holy grail. Augmented reality can be used as indoor navigation technology, and it can provide turn-by-turn directions to locations or objects where GPS and other technologies cannot accurately work. In this blog, we will take a look at how an AR based navigation app can help retailers and enterprises leverage various use cases to improve their CX.
City navigation: The simplest and most obvious case is when a person finds himself in an unfamiliar area and tries to build the route to the final destination. Such apps based on AR maps are meeting the needs of both pedestrians and drivers, a user just needs to clarify in advance the trip format: by car, public transport, on foot, etc.
Military & Emergency: The military industrial complex is always one step ahead of everyone. It is no different in case of creative use of Augmented reality for routing. There are many former and frozen war zones littered with mines and other dangerous things that were left undetonated or unspotted. Augmented reality GPS-based routing of the safe route over minefields or other dangerous places can be a solution for civilians who are still living in war zones.
Shopping and entertainment centers and malls: The customers visiting the shopping and entertainment center can orient themselves more easily if they have an AR navigation app which suggests to them what is located where. More specifically, inside departmental stores, customers can use AR based navigation to get to the aisles of products they are looking for.
Museums, exhibition halls: Today, in order to study the history of the creation of a certain object of art, there is no need to resort to the help of a guide or background material. Modern Android and iPhone augmented reality apps are able to determine the user's position and provide an overview of the ways to reach certain spots to obtain the information on the object to which he directed his smartphone’s camera.
Industrial facilities and educational institutions: It all goes in a similar way: the augmented reality GPS apps help to better navigate a particular institution, whether it is a factory or a university complex.
Logistics: Augmented reality navigation features can improve logistics in various industries when it comes to visually guided navigation along a route. GPS navigation apps are being widely used for unforeseen cases such as in emergency incidents, they can help make an SOS call if something bad happens to the user such as car accident or theft and guide the helper to reach the incident location.
Advertising: Using augmented reality experience, retailers can drive more customers. To display advertisements, AR can be used for ad flashing in front of stores when customers scan their smartphone camera at a store.
Route Creation for Car Transportation: Another field where AR Routing can be effectively implemented is the transportation industry. There are numerous sci-fi works that describe smart screens and head-up displays with lots of data and stats. The biggest car manufacturers are trying to implement a smart screen solution for the vehicle's windscreen so that it would include an interface with all the critical stats such as weather details, road conditions etc. right before the driver’s eyes. Combined with automated speed control this can revolutionize the whole concept of transportation.
Healthcare: Healthcare system was one of the pioneers in implementing AR and VR solutions, especially for educational purposes. First and foremost, routing can be used in finding the closest hospital and guiding them to it. While its practicality is still limited, it is an option that can potentially save someone’s life and that is always important. On the other hand, routing can be used by patients to navigate in large hospital structures in order to find where their doctors are situated or how to get to a place where their procedure will take place.
Navigation and routing seem to be the easiest way of implementing AR Solutions without disrupting the natural state of things i.e., the established business models. It can also greatly expand customer experience and open up new possibilities within a well-developed field. The process of creating the solutions isn't without its challenges, but getting the right guidance from an AR app development company can get you where you want to.