End-to-end Product DesignDecision SupportMulti-Persona UX

StilaAR: Helping Buyers Imagine Home in Empty Properties

Stila was a startup focused on reimagining home staging through emerging technology. Instead of relying on costly, traditional staging, Stila used 3D scans and Augmented Reality to give buyers an instant, realistic sense of how an empty space could look and feel. The goal was to replace a legacy, manual service with a faster, more efficient, and more affordable solution for developers and realtors.

Problem

Empty properties are hard to visualize as livable spaces, causing buyer hesitation and requiring costly traditional staging.

Solution

Built an AR app using Unity, ARKit, and Vuforia that lets buyers see furnished, styled homes instantly through their phones — eliminating staging costs while offering multiple design options.

Impact

Eliminated $2,000-$5,000 per property in traditional staging costs
Enabled buyers to visualize multiple design styles in a single showing
Delivered accurate spatial anchoring using Vuforia Area Targets for persistent AR

The Problem: Empty Homes Don't Sell Themselves

When buyers walk into an empty house, they're expected to imagine their future, without much to guide them. The rooms feel cold, the scale is hard to judge, and most people simply don't have the spatial imagination to picture furniture, light, or life in the space. Traditional home staging tries to solve this, but it comes with a cost: furniture rentals, logistics, and a single fixed aesthetic that might not match every buyer's taste. Virtual staging is cheaper, but it's static, just photos. It doesn't help people move through the home and feel what it's like to live there.

Comparison of empty room versus same room furnished through AR

Why Augmented Reality?

Static Images Can't Capture the Feeling of Walking Through a Home

Virtual staging gives buyers pretty pictures, but it doesn't let them experience the space. AR changes that. By overlaying furniture directly into the real environment, buyers can walk around, judge proportions, and feel how the room flows — all while seeing their actual view, lighting, and layout. It's the difference between looking at a photo of a living room and standing in one.

The Solution: AR-Powered Home Staging

Stila is an augmented reality app that transforms empty properties into styled, furnished homes — right on site. Using a phone or tablet, buyers can walk through a space and see it fully decorated with couches, beds, art, and lighting, all anchored accurately to the room's dimensions. Rather than offering just one look, Stila supports multiple styles, from minimal to cozy, helping buyers see how different aesthetics work within the same space.

Value for Realtors:

Eliminate traditional staging costs (thousands per property)
Turn empty properties into immersive environments in real time
Let buyers explore multiple styles to find their taste
Replace static renderings with dynamic AR walkthroughs

The User Journey: From QR Code to AR Experience

Stila's system is built for real-world use — simple for realtors to deploy and seamless for buyers on-site.

Realtors send us a 3D scan of the empty property. This gives us the layout and dimensions we need to create a tailored AR experience.
Stila furnishes the virtual home using curated furniture sets in one or more styles. These furnishings are placed to fit the actual rooms, not just in size, but in mood and feel.
Realtors place a QR code (provided by Stila) at the entrance of the property. This acts as a simple anchor, no setup or tech expertise needed.
Buyers arrive, download the app, and scan the code. Instantly, the empty rooms are transformed into fully styled interiors through augmented reality.
Buyers can explore the home in real time, walk through each room, and even swap between different furnishing styles to see what feels right.

Flow diagram from QR code scan to AR experience in property

Technical Architecture: How It Works Behind the Scenes

Stila is built in Unity using ARKit and Vuforia for anchoring and tracking. To make the experience reliable and scalable, it uses a modular architecture that loads only what's needed for each property in real time.

QR Code Mapping:

Each property has a printed QR code that maps to a unique property ID. When scanned, the app fetches metadata about the property and associated asset bundles stored in the cloud.

Cloud Asset Management:

All 3D scans and furniture groupings are organized as Addressable asset bundles. These are stored using Unity Cloud Content Delivery and loaded at runtime based on the property ID.

Spatial Recognition with Vuforia Area Targets:

Vuforia uses an area target generated from the property's 3D scan to recognize the real-world environment. This enables accurate spatial anchoring, placing virtual furniture in the same positions as originally mapped in the scan.

Runtime Scene Assembly:

At runtime, Unity loads the correct furniture layout and uses Vuforia's area targets to anchor each object precisely where it was placed in the original 3D scan.

Cloud-Based, Modular Delivery:

All property mappings and furniture styles are hosted in the cloud. The app dynamically pulls only the required asset bundles per session, no app updates needed, making the system lightweight, scalable, and easy to maintain.

Technical architecture diagram showing Unity, ARKit, Vuforia and cloud integration

UX Design: Minimal Interface, Maximum Immersion

Letting the Space Take Center Stage

Stila's interface is intentionally minimal — designed to get out of the way and let the space speak for itself. Every design choice focused on clarity, speed, and immersion.

Instant Onboarding:

Users open the app and scan a QR code, no setup, no menus. The correct property is loaded automatically.

Style Switching, Simplified:

A single, unobtrusive toggle lets users switch between furniture styles in real time, revealing different looks without interrupting the experience.

Minimal user interface showing style toggle in AR environment

Realtor Portal: From Scan to Showcase

The portal gives realtors a simple, guided way to get a listing ready for Stila. Every step is focused on clarity and speed so they can move from scan to showcase without friction.

Easy Setup:

Realtors add a property, upload the 3D scan, and choose up to three decor styles, all in one streamlined flow.

Ready for Buyers:

With a single click, the system generates QR codes and assets, making the AR experience instantly shareable for showings and open houses.

Anchoring AR Is Hard — But Worth It

Designing Stila meant diving deep into the nuances of spatial computing, especially the challenge of persistent AR that aligns virtual content with real-world environments. We explored several approaches to anchoring content, from custom mapping to platform-native solutions, and ultimately found Vuforia's Area Targets to be the most accessible and reliable option for indoor use. AR is easy when content can be placed anywhere. It gets harder and more interesting when anchoring that content meaningfully within physical space. Indoors, where GPS is unreliable and lighting varies, those challenges become even more pronounced. This is still an emerging space with plenty of friction points to solve. But with the right tools and a grounded use case, we proved it's possible to deliver a smooth, high-impact AR experience where it matters most.