Today is an important day in history. It’s a milestone in a new era of computing – spatial computing. At Wayfair, we’re ushering in the next-generation in computing in partnership with Magic Leap to go beyond the 2D screen and compute in your space, as a part of your space, and with an understanding of your space.

We began this journey with Magic Leap over a year ago to explore the potential of Mixed Reality, not as just another AR/VR/MR/XR platform for product visualization, but as a new computing platform – one that will be used as a productivity tool, just as we use our computers today, but not bound to a 2D screen.

Imagine a day when you can see your email on one wall of your space, chats and social networks on another, your calendar on the next wall, perhaps a game you’re playing with remote friends floating on the coffee table, and news and weather reports hovering over your desk. If you want to delete an email, you pull it out and throw it into your real trash can. In a very naive way, this is spatial computing.

Now, imagine browsing the web on this platform. Say you were on Wayfair.com, and saw an item you liked and were wondering how it would look and fit in your space. Imagine if you could just pull it out of the browser and into the desired room – well, now you can! And that’s what we’re demonstrating with our Mixed Reality experience on Magic Leap’s spatial web browser.

We’ve created an experience that allows users to browse a limited set of products in a very familiar construct – the web browser – but with 3D content and interaction beyond the browser chrome. Users are presented with a digital version of the product, placed in a staging room, together with the details of the product itself. Users can then pull the digital version of the product from the staging room into their actual space and visualize it true to scale, and in the context of their desired room. They can also pull in multiple products to experiment with different looks and layouts.

We’ve put together a preview of the experience below:

Wayfair’s Mixed Reality browse experience from a third person’s perspective

What better way to shop for the home than from home? At Wayfair, we’re committed to delighting our customers and constantly experimenting with new ideas and experiences. We’re incredibly excited about Mixed Reality as the next evolution of the shopping experience and can’t wait to share what’s next on this platform. Stay tuned!