Fiat Chrysler has unveiled a prototype of immersive car sales application at Mobile World Congress designed and built by Accenture Digital using Google's Project Tango developer kit.
The prototype demonstrates how augmented reality can revolutionize the shopping experience for consumers by allowing them to view and interact with a full-scale virtual version of the object - or car - they are considering buying.
The prototype allows car buyers to hold a device and, using the integrated sensor technology and motion tracking, area learning, and depth perception from Project Tango, view, walk around, look inside and configure a life-size virtual car.
On the Accenture demo, doors can be opened to reveal a realistic and detailed interior, where changes to upholstery colors or dashboard styles can be made with a tap on the device screen.
Project Tango technology gives mobile devices the ability to navigate the physical world similar to how we do as humans.
Project Tango brings a new kind of spatial perception to Android devices by adding advanced computer vision, image processing, and special vision sensors.
A Project Tango device maps the 360-degree environment around it, meaning that as it is moved it navigates and views the changing environment in the same way as a person would. As the car is viewed through the device, the virtual car moves in relation to how the user moves.
The first commercial Project Tango device is expected to be available in summer 2016 and this application will be previewed to attendees of this year's Mobile World Congress.
Accenture Interactive, part of Accenture Digital, has worked with FCA to create an application for this new technology that will transform the process of buying and configuring a new car.
Users of the FCA car configuration solution will be able to walk freely around a full-scale vehicle in almost any environment because Project Tango enables an untethered, handheld experience that does not rely on external tracking technology such as markers, beacons or GPS.
