Lumen
Building the world's first AR flashlight for shared exploration
2019 – 2023
With Arvind Sanjeev, Matt Visco and Can Yandarag
Role: Experience design and prototyping, research, brand & website design, product strategy
The Challenge
Lumen is a response to the current state of the metaverse. The
metaverse is not built for group experiences. This is why we built an
augmented reality flashlight — it is an iPhone-powered handheld device that
uses projected AR to allow users to freely walk around and augment their
physical surroundings. Just shine Lumen on an object and/or surface and see
it come alive. We believe in a metaverse that is physical first, social by
default, and not constrained to screen-based experiences.
Human experience at the core
Lumen has been developed through a people centered design and research process. The team started off by conducting user research sessions with key stakeholders and storytellers which helped formulate the design challenge and opportunity space.
Learning by doing
Several experience prototyping sessions were conducted with different participants using sacrificial prototypes. The learnings from these were then used to craft various functional prototypes.
Adapting as technology evolves
Our technical exploration has gone through several rounds of prototyping using different technologies spanning from neural network powered object classification to V-SLAM (Visual Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping) systems. Our vision being to create a mixed reality device that encourages people to explore environments freely and experience alternate realities collectively.
Where we landed
Lumen was incorporated in 2021. We have sold units to entities such as Snap, Meow Wolf, Stanford, Harvard, and creative agencies across the globe.
And, some notable investors include: Alex Chung, Aaron Koblin, and David Rose.
