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How Technology Is Causing Change In The Home Design Sector

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Balaji Chandra ,Chief Product Officer, HomeLane.com

Headquartered in Bangalore, HomeLane.com is one of the renowned interior design firms assisting customers across diverse aspects of home design such as furniture, modular kitchens, wardrobes & storage units, entertainment centres, shoe racks, and many others.

For most Indians, buying and setting-up their dream homes is like ticking off one big milestone from their bucket list of achievements. But, getting a home furnished is a far more exhausting experience with limited design options, multiple follow-ups with carpenters and contractors, missed deadlines and unsatisfactory outcomes. To begin with, the design options are limited, consumers
are not sure how these modular units would look or do not know the difference between the various types of materials available. Fluctuating pricing and timelines further add to the woes of the consumers.

Like many other industries, technology has started transforming the interior design segment as well. Over the past few years, the home designing and home furnishing industry have extensively adopted technologies like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & 3D Visualization to augment the home designing experience for consumers. Technology and automation are help-ing players streamline the manufacturing process at wood production industries, which in turn is enabling greater customization in the home furnishing industry. All of this integrated is helping new-age online home furnishing and home designing players scale their business with greater flexibility than ever before.

Let’s understand deeper how technology is transforming this better:

3D Technology has introduced new methods of creating personalized furniture and has empowered designers to experiment with design choices, material, finish selection, accessories and more. Laser measurement devices on the other hand ensure error-free manufacturing. These technologies have smoothened the Design & manufacturing process and has enabled brands to design and render in 3D for consumers, create 2D drawings for installation teams and BOM &
cutlist for the factories at the push of a button. With this level of automation, home design companies are able to eliminate manual steps, errors and wastage which in turn translate to cost savings and quicker turnaround time.

With the ever-increasing capabilities of AR, designers enjoy the full potential of digitally placing objects in their spaces and calculate the fit and design aesthetics.

VR design platforms enable designers to create the exact visual representation of their rooms with all the furnishings done, that too in a matter of minutes. This not only helps save time and effort but, also diminishes the imagination gap that may arise between the designers & customers during the designing process.

Robotics help increase productivity of shop floors and vastly reduce human errors and reduce cost significantly.

Sustainable Materials and material science advancement enable brands to use more eco-sustainable materials that will not impact the planet.

A significant amount of data that the entire process collects help in multiple ways as AI/ML models predict what types of design are popular in which region, whether to make products on-demand or forecast demand and stock products, create consumer cohorts.

Technology has already started creating a deep-rooted impact in the interior design industry, for designers, consumers and businesses. Designers have been experiencing seamless and faster design turn
around with much lesser need for iterations owing expectation mismatch. Businesses are seeing rapid business growth with lesser ticket timing and more order books and consumers have started experiencing more refined outreach. All this is just the beginning, technological evolution is only going strengthen the overall experience significantly and improve the cost, time and quality of the home interiors segment.

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