Today Sony launched a new augmented reality tool for helping you choose the right size TV for your home – and it’s pretty cool.
Here is what Sony say:
Sizing up televisions for the home can raise a number of questions for consumers. Judging if a TV will fit into a certain space and whether it will complement the style of the home are just some of the considerations associated with making a purchase. A lack of confidence over whether ‘bigger will look better’ often leads to consumers opting for a smaller size, when a larger television could easily fit within the space they have at home.
To help consumers choose the best size TV with confidence, Sony has developed its own ‘TV Size Guide’ tool. Hosted online (www.sony.co.uk/article/tv-size-guide), it uses augmented reality to show how different sized TVs look in any given location.
The prospective TV buyer simply goes to the TV Size Guide website and follows four easy steps:
1. Download and print out a marker – this is a simple shape printed onto an A4 piece of paper that the app will recognise and transfer onto a selected TV.
2. Place the marker where they want their TV to go, either on a flat horizontal surface or mounted on a wall, and take a photograph of it.
3. Upload the image to Sony’s online tool and it will automatically pick up the marker, working out the appropriate scale and position for the TV. It also allows the prospective buyer to choose different size TVs which will appear on top of the marker to find the best size TV to suit their needs.
4. The images will also be saved to create a gallery of choices to compare and contrast.
The TV Size Guide also acts as a reference point to provide clarity around the actual size of current TVs in comparison to previous years – for example, when comparing one of Sony’s top of the range 32-inch Trinitron TV’s from 2001(*1) and today’s 46-inch award winning BRAVIA, the KDL-46HX923 –– the latter is only 10cm wider than the Trinitron and half as deep at 24cm, including the stand, as the TV alone is just 3cm thick. This is because the frame around the actual screen takes up less space, as well as it being much flatter.
Tim Schwarz, Online Content Manager, Sony Europe explains: “Up until now a tape measure and guess work is all that most of us have had to rely on when it comes to picking the best sized TV for the home and this often leads to mistakes. We know consumers put a lot of emphasis on getting the right screen size and our research has shown that this is one of the most important features they look for when buying a TV(*2).
What people don’t often realise is that TVs take up a lot less space than they used to, so you really can go larger. This is why we’ve developed this simple guide – to give you the confidence to choose the right size TV by accurately visualising how it would look in situ before you buy.”
For more details on how the Sony TV Size Guide works you can watch a how to video below:
