Kyle: It's really my dream come true. It's something that I have always wanted to see
that I had seen in science fiction stories in the past that I always thought, man I really
wish that was real. And so we built it and it exists. I'm sitting in it.
Paul: The pace and rate of technology change today is exponential.
Kyle: Technology is moving crazy fast.
Scott: We're seeing massive shifts in nanotechnology, printed electronics, 3D modeling.
Kyle: It's going to blow your mind! It's so new and so different.
Ari: It's literally plucked out of science fiction.
Kyle: The Lowes Innovation Labs is all about being proactive and creating the future.
Paul: One thing that we think we are well ahead of the field in is 3D technology
Kyle: The reaction to the Innovation Labs is usually "Lowes is doing what?"
Paul: We call that our Holoroom.
Kyle: Followed by, when the explanation comes soon thereafter is "wow, that sounds pretty
cool, that's pretty exciting."
Ari: You can create any environment you want so if you want to be in a forest you can be
in a forest, if you want to be in the desert you can be in the desert. We have the technologies
today to do that.
Kyle: What we decided as a company to do was to create these labs, which are physical places
where we can quickly bring in new technology and new startups and try them out really fast.
We as a company want to be involved in development and partnership with these start-ups. Everything
we are working on inside of the Lowes Innovation Labs is stuff that no one ever would think
that Lowes would be coming out with...ever.
A great example of Lowes working with uncommon partner is a science fiction prototyping company
called SciFutures.
SciFutures is a foresight and innovation consultancy. What we do is use the power of sci-fi narratives
to explain the complexity of the times in a way that everyone in the organization can
understand.
Scott: You look at some of the most major advancements in the last 10 years and they
came straight out of, you know, science fiction stories.
Ari: We were able to completely pull back the curtains and say come on Lowes. Pop your
head in and have a look and see what the world could be like using these technologies and
obviously they were so excited about it they were like we've got to build that. And out
of that came this idea of this Holoroom.
Kyle: Welcome to the Holoroom. So the Holoroom essentially is an augmented reality room.
Ari: One of the problems that customers who are renovating their homes have is its very
hard for them to visualize what a removed bathroom would be like.
How's it going to look if I change out the countertop? If I leave the floor? It's very
difficult to be able to visualize that and even if you can visualize it your partner
in life probably can't and that inability to explain your vision to your partner is
what stops many projects dead in their tracks. So that's why we created this thing.
So the first thing you do when you go to the Holoroom is you recreate the room you want
to renovate. Next you add in furniture and appliances, flooring all things that you could
possibly buy or do inside of a Lowes.
Customer: The mirror, the vanity.
Customer: I just love that toilet.
Kyle: Then the real magic happens and you go inside this Holoroom where you get to experience
the selections and layout that you just picked and you get to see and feel what its really
like.
Customers: It's like I'm right there, like you're in the bathroom. This is cool.
Customers: Laughter
Kyle: And that augmented reality experience allows you to walk up and see the actual grain
of the wood.
Customer: That is amazing.
Customer: That's the one that you choose over there, isn't that cool?
Kyle: It's an intuitive experience. The way you would really experience a room. You walk
around you don't just stand and look at it. You walk and you see, you get under parts,
see underneath cabinets. You can't do that with a picture.
What I noticed is that when people try it out they giggle, cause it's so fun. It's feels
like they are on a ride.
Customer: It just is a reminder that the future is upon is. This is probably just the beginning.
Kyle: Initially we are going to be rolling it out in stores but the future is pretty
obvious right, you will in the very near future be able to use this in your own home. In your
pajamas if you want to.
Sarah-Frances: You will get a print out from Lowes just like this that you can take home
with you and you download the app.
Customer: That is very cool.. Honey I know it doesn't look like it, but this is our new
bathroom.
Kyle: So this is really big for Lowes, in a lot of ways both for the Holoroom and just
for this Innovation Labs idea. This new way of thinking is spawning other things that
are even further out and wilder and crazier.
Paul: We're about to change the game.
Kyle: The things that are coming up are going to blow people away. No question about it.
I can't wait for people to see it. Giggle.