Sony lures you into buying a TV with a new AR app

Xperia phones are in trouble, with only 400,000 units shipped between January and March 2020. That's a massive 63.7% drop from the year-ago quarter and the lowest result in Sony's history. Television unit sales are holding their ground, though, and now the Japanese company has added a new tool to help you buy a TV. Ironically, it's a mobile augmented reality app that runs on Android phones with ARCore capabilities and Apple devices with iOS 11.3 or later.

The Envision TV AR app is already rolling out, and it will save you the measuring tape exercise. You just pick a TV and screen size and point your phone toward a wall or a stand. The app will show the virtual TV set blended with your home interior.

The application only supports Sony TV models, of course. The company wants to sell you its own tech, offering the helpful and cool Envision TV AR app. That's understandable, but as most TVs are similar in size, if the screen diagonal is the same, you can still use the app to roughly check if your new purchase will fit in your room.