Disclaimer: This article has been sponsored by Dulux, but I didn’t let that sponsorship colour my review. The app is cool, check it out. It’s free!
Have you ever heard of the man-drawer? It’s that drawer in your house that’s got an old Nokia 3310, a charger for a phone that’s definitely not a fat Nokia charger for the 3310, some batteries that may or may not be dead, some instruction manuals for an IKEA table you built sans-instructions along with a dozen Allen keys there too. There’s probably a couple of sampler paint pots too, but the first step in picking a new paint colour for your home could now be augmented reality.
What is Augmented Reality?
Augmented reality has been on the increase in recent years and it got a massive boost in 2017 when Apple announced they were getting involved with AR at the iPhone 8 launch. Simply put, AR adds a layer of digital information to the world around you using the screen and camera from your smartphone. There are lots of fun applications for augmented reality, including the ability to make your dog talk, but it’s the practical uses which are most exciting.
Home improvement has been one area where AR is really excelling, from previewing how a new chair would look in your living room to helping you measure the size of rooms with a virtual AR measuring tape. Dulux decided to get in on this action, but rather than making the famous Dulux dog talk, Ireland’s most-popular paint provider has developed an app to show paint colours on your walls without the risk of spilling a drop.
The Dulux Visualizer App
Typically, the first step in painting a room was a combination of paint colour cards and those little mini paint pots. Usually, it took a few trips to the hardware store to find the shade you liked while your wall became very slowly covered in little sample squares and your man drawer filled with cards and pots. You still need those mini paint pots, but you should be able to dramatically reduce the number of trips it takes to find the perfect colour for your gaff.
The Dulux Visualizer app lets you visualise the walls of your home painted in any colour from the Dulux range. One quick picture and a colour selection later is all it takes to have a clear idea of what that wall will look like in a colour from the Dulux paint range. I’m pretty sure this will lead to you having a much better idea of which colours work and, more importantly, which colours don’t work. This all means the chances of that first mini paint pot you pick up being the colour of your dreams are much greater.
Getting Started
The Dulux Visualizer app has a massive benefit. If you’re a commitment-phobe when it comes to colours and decision making, it allows you to dip your toe into what a colour might look like on your actual walls. My advice is to take as many pictures as you can of the rooms you’re hoping to paint. Better still, you can even take panoramic style videos of a room and then save this to a project to test out colours later.
This is a good approach because you can create projects dedicated to a few different rooms and once you have all the pictures or videos taken, you don’t have to wander around the house to keep testing out new colours. Instead, you can browse through the massive range of Dulux paints and colours from the comfort of your own couch; that’s my kind of DIY.
Don’t know which colours to go with? Not a problem as the app has you covered for that too.
Getting Inspiration
If you have no idea what colour you think would look great, you can just flick through their options and get a steer on the latest home interior trends. But if you have a colour that’s taken your fancy, they’ve got an option for that with the colour picker option.
Think that red from a packet of crisps would look divine on the wall? Using the app, you can also scan real-world items to find out which Dulux paint colour is the nearest match, preview it on the wall and then find out where the nearest stockist is.
Genius! Here’s a lovely Mighty Munch red on my living room wall.
Right, fair enough. I shouldn’t be left in charge of the styling given there’s a fair chance the room would end up being packet of Meanies green. No, maybe it’s best we leave it to the professionals.
Fortunately, the Visualizer app also provides you with access to colours picked by some real professionals who actually know what they’re at. Colour of the Year for 2018 is Heart Wood, but not only can using the Visualizer app help you pick a colour that’s on trend, it can also help you pick complimentary colours too.
Back in my college days, the bed sheets never matched curtains and the walls, well I can’t even remember what colours they were, but style was not my strong point. I’ve come a long way from those days and even I now appreciate a colourful cushion on the couch or a nice lampshade that fits in with the colour of a room. Complimentary colours; learn this and impress people. Within the Dulux app, the Let’s Colour section shows you a massive range of the hottest colours while also showing you extended palettes to match the primary colour that appealed to you.
Actually, the app makes impressing your mates along with getting their opinions pretty easy too. Or if there’s a someone special in your life that’s also involved in the decision-making process you can WhatsApp them the latest idea you have for the bedroom walls. It’s even possible to share that panoramic video you created. Think of all the arguments you’ll avoid!
The Verdict
As you can probably see from the example I’ve given, the app isn’t perfect. There are some imperfections in the preview, but the starting point this app provides is incredible. In the past, you would have had one tiny patch with the colour you thought you wanted and then made several trips, trying loads of different paints and holding up little cards to the wall.
Now, you can get a much wider preview of how thousands of colours might look like on your walls. I have it on good authority that this is a great indicator of how well the room looks in a new colour – I asked my other half.
Try It Out For Free
The Dulux Visualizer app ticks two of the most important boxes for us here at Goosed.ie
- It’s a genuinely smart use of technology to do something just that little bit smarter and a lot better
- It’s completely free to download
Go ahead and give this creative app a try, even if you aren’t looking to change the colours of your walls. You never know, you might be inspired. Download the Dulux Visualizer app for iOS and Android now – it works on both smartphones and tablets.