CarriAR

An augmented reality phone demo.

Winner of the Best EchoAR Project award at ThetaHacks 2021.

Background

Before the pandemic, the most common way to buy a phone was going into a carrier’s store. This allowe people to try a phone before buying it. However, this is no longer an option for most due to most stores either being shut down or socially distanced. Additionally, global shipping issues mean even the stores that are open may not have phones to demo.

The problem

Since stores are either closed or unable to demo phones, many people are instead purchasing online. However, this comes with many issues. For example, the customer can only see an image of the phone when shopping online. Because of this, someone could order a phone and be unhappy with it once it arrives. Since returning objects online takes much longer than it used to in-person, this should be avoided if possible.

The solution

CarriAR allows customers to see the phones with their own eyes, in their own houses, through the power of EchoAR. Carriers can create a website with links to models of their phones, and then use that as a virtual demo. With this method, customers can examin the phones closely while keeping themselves safe.

Inspiration

• I wanted to solve something that could not be done without the use of AR.

What it does

• An augmented reality smartphone demo that allows people to try out a phone without going to a store in person

How I built it

• HTML, CSS, and EchoAR.

Challenges I ran into

• Most models I found online weren’t correctly sized and needed to be resized and sometimes retextured in Blender.

Accomplishments that I’m proud of

• Learning how to effectively use EchoAR
• Learning how to obtain models online

What I learned

• How to work with EchoAR

What’s next for CarriAR

• Include more phones
• Create an account system so multiple people can upload their own models
• Create an app (possibly a PWA) to make the experience feel more native
• Make the models the site uses higher-quality

Credit
Models:

• Galaxy S9: User “anybody” on Sketchfab
• Everything Else: User “iSteven” on Sketchfab

All models licensed under Creative Commons