Do paint swatches seem unreasonably small for envisioning the proper color for your home makeover? We feel you. Two square inches is hardly enough to tell a room’s worth of difference between eggshell and ecru.
Now, thanks to Sherwin-Williams’ newest feature, the wall paint guessing game is over. This week, the country’s largest specialty paint retailer launched an app component that uses augmented reality, via your smartphone camera, to test out paint colors on your walls in real time. AR technology has been all the rage this year, from Pokemon GO to Google’s ARCore and Apple’s ARKit, combining computer vision and object recognition to create an interactive, digital experience in realtime.
Instant Paint is the latest addition to the ColorSnap Visualizer app, which also helps homeowners match photos to paint colors, envision a painted space in both daytime and nighttime lighting, and calculate paint amounts based on wall sizes, among other things.
Using your cellphone camera, you can now get a feel for your future space in 1,500 shades, instantaneously. Looking for a second opinion? Share results with your family members, roommates, or friends, and save custom palettes so you can keep track of your favorites. Like what you see? Pop into one of Sherwin-Williams’ 4,000-plus stores across the country, show them your saved choices, and voila!