The 7 best ways to use augmented reality

Have you ever used augmented reality glasses? With them your computer is no longer inside a monitor, it becomes your home: Extend a screen into the living room to watch a film on Netflix, you have a programme with notes on the fridge with a shopping list and videos of recipes next to the cooker that tell you what you are going to eat and how to cook it.

Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and virtual reality make up a series of digital technologies that are beginning to combine to provide tools that can enable processes for all kinds of professional sectors, as well as being used for personal leisure.

From education to the analysis of plumbing in the reform of a house, we present our list with the 7 best uses of augmented reality:

Health and Google Glass

Do you remember Google Glass? Google's augmented reality glasses arrived in 2012 as a consumer-oriented product. The technology was innovative and very different from any device that had previously been used to target the general public.

The features included seeing mobile phone messages, answering calls, writing messages, automatically translating what the user was seeing, taking photos and recording. As you may remember, the project was not very successful. With a view to relaunching them, the glass were redesigned in 2017 as a product focussing on companies.

One of the new uses for the Google Glass Enterprise Edition is to optimise times and help in daily tasks in health centres. Doctors can view documents in real time ,including patient histories and information about the medications they take.

How will it look? Trying out clothing and furniture at home

If you have ever found out that the new living room furniture does not match the style of the rest of the furniture once you have already bought it and assembled it at home, you will be interested in this use for augmented reality. The choice would have been much simpler if you had known beforehand, but sometimes it is not easy to imagine how a product will look just by looking at a photo in a brochure.

Using augmented reality, companies like Ikea have developed an application that solves these problems. It enables you to see the furniture on the screen of your mobile directly in the place where you think it fits best in the house.

But what if you are thinking of going to a restaurant but you don't know if you're going to like the dishes they serve? Some restaurant chains have already developed applications which make it possible to see the dishes included in the menu directly on your table at home to help you decide. Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Hololens: The future of the computer in augmented reality

A headset where you can watch all your favourite programmes through holograms: You can extend windows into your bedroom, hang a music player in the bathroom, decorate your home with your favourite images and hang professional applications in the office so they are always ready for work.

Hololens is the name of this device that works through augmented reality using Windows 10 and enables you to interact and show the most common elements of the operating system. It is a new way of using a PC, but it is also a tool with huge potential in the professional environment:

Marketing campaigns

Augmented reality is an innovative technology that has not only been able to attract the attention of the technology sector, but also that of the general public. Businesses have included it in their marketing campaigns to attract potential customers by integrating this technology into their products and services.

Offering new experiences that may interest users. One of the latest examples we have is that some cinemas, in partnership with different start-ups, are trying to attract customers by expanding the traditional experience of the hoardings using this technology. It can also be seen in the tourism sector, with attractions like the Casa Batlló in Barcelona, which no longer has audio guides or paper guides, but uses an augmented reality that not only tells you what you are seeing, it gives you a recreation of the origin of the house.

Marketing campaigns

Augmented reality is an innovative technology that has not only been able to attract the attention of the technology sector, but also that of the general public. Businesses have included it in their marketing campaigns to attract potential customers by integrating this technology into their products and services.

Offering new experiences that may interest users. One of the latest examples we have is that some cinemas, in partnership with different start-ups, are trying to attract customers by expanding the traditional experience of the hoardings using this technology. It can also be seen in the tourism sector, with attractions like the Casa Batlló in Barcelona, which no longer has audio guides or paper guides, but uses an augmented reality that not only tells you what you are seeing, it gives you a recreation of the origin of the house.

Augmented reality still needs to be improved to become consolidated as a technology that can be easily integrated into both personal leisure and the professional sector. However, it cannot be denied that its great potential will make it an essential tool in the near future. Here we have posted comments on the 7 best uses of augmented reality, but there are many more. Which would you include? The future of this technology is yet to be discovered.