My company is looking to build an AR "Try-On" feature for our e-commerce platform. We need it to work seamlessly on both iOS and Android. Between ARCore, ARKit, and web-based solutions like 8th Wall, which provides the best surface detection and light estimation for a realistic user experience?
3 answers
If you want the highest fidelity, you really have to look at Unity with AR Foundation. It acts as a wrapper for both ARKit and ARCore, so you don't have to write two separate codebases. For a "Try-On" feature, light estimation is everything—if the shadows on the virtual product don't match the real room, the immersion is broken. AR Foundation handles this beautifully by blending environmental lighting data into your shaders. While WebAR solutions like 8th Wall are great for accessibility because they don't require an app download, they still struggle with complex occlusion and high-poly models compared to native apps.
Amanda makes a great point about fidelity, but Tyler, have you considered the friction of an app download? In digital marketing, every extra step reduces conversion. If this is for a quick social media campaign, wouldn't a Spark AR (Meta) or Lens Studio (Snap) filter reach a much wider audience with less development effort?
For retail, I’d suggest checking out Adobe Aero. It’s great for prototyping the AR experience quickly without writing a single line of code, allowing your designers to lead the way.
Aero is fantastic for the UI/UX phase! We used it to mockup our furniture placement app before handing the assets over to the dev team. It saved us weeks of back-and-forth.
Brandon, you're right about reach, but for high-end retail, those social platforms often compress the textures too much. If Tyler’s goal is "Realistic Try-On" for luxury goods, the loss in detail on Snapchat might actually hurt the brand image. Native AR via Unity allows for 4K textures and custom PBR shaders that social filters just can't handle yet.