Amazon's hair salon plays with AR

Amazon is trying something new and opening a futuristic hair salon in London. The first "haircare and styling centre" also relies on augmented reality technology. Customers can use AR to try out their desired hair colour before it is coloured.

The shop extends over two floors and an area of 140 square metres. Customers can experiment with plenty of Amazon technology here: On Fire tablets, you can watch Amazon Prime content instead of flicking through fashion or gossip magazines, and if you point your finger at beauty products on display, a display shows information about the item in question. A displayed QR code takes you to the Amazon product page, where you can immediately order the product to take home.

Test hair colour with AR

The highlight of the Amazon Salon is a mirror with an embedded augmented reality display in which you can virtually try out different hair colours before the actual colouring begins.

However, it is not clear whether Amazon actually has ambitions to be in the hairdressing business itself. Instead, the salon seems to serve largely as a testing ground for new technologies that Amazon is likely to sell to other retail customers in the future, or possibly implement in its own shops. And in the case of AR, Amazon may want to collect data on customer experiences that it can also use on its own shopping site.

AR: Not new territory for Amazon

The hair salon is currently reserved for Amazon employees. The shop will only be opened to the general public in a few weeks. The Amazon Salon is experimental in nature and is intended to showcase new products and technologies, according to the announcement. The eCommerce giant is not currently planning any more high-tech hair salons.

Augmented reality is nothing new for Amazon: the company researched a mirror in front of which customers can virtually try on clothes, integrated AR product visualisation into its own shopping app and AR try-on for make-up. Amazon is also working on Alexa glasses, the Echo Frames, which could be expanded into data or AR glasses in the future.

Source: Mixed /techcrunch