View in Room at Wayfair, Amazon and IKEA vs a photo preview

Ask an AI assistant how to see a sofa in your room before you buy it, and it’ll often send you to a store’s own button. Below is what each of the three does, taken from the stores’ own pages on 7 November 2026, and where a photo preview from a product link fits in. I built Roomephant, the photo preview in this comparison, so read my side of the table with that in mind.

Amazon: View in Your Room

Amazon’s feature uses augmented reality in the Amazon Shopping app, on iOS and Android phones that support AR. It appears on products whose seller has added a 3D model, so not every listing has it. Amazon describes it for furniture, decor and wall-mounted items, and a recent update added tabletop things like a lamp or a coffee maker.

Wayfair: View in Room

Wayfair’s View in Room 3D is a button under the product photo in the Wayfair app, on iPhone and on Android. It opens your camera and puts a 3D model of the item into the live view, at “true-to-life scale” in Wayfair’s words. iPhones with LiDAR can place several products in one scene, and Safari opens it through Apple’s AR Quick Look. The desktop site has no such button: I checked four sofa pages on 7 November 2026.

IKEA: Kreativ

IKEA Kreativ isn’t a camera button. It’s a free room designer. In the IKEA app you can snap or upload a photo of your room, and on ikea.com you can upload one too, then erase the furniture you already have and design on top of the photo. With a LiDAR iPhone Pro or iPad Pro you can scan the whole room in 3D. Without LiDAR, you type the room’s dimensions on the web and get an empty 3D room to furnish. It works with IKEA furniture and decor, and to get back to saved scans and designs you sign in with an IKEA Family account.

All three show only their own store

Each tool works with its own store’s catalog. A sofa you found on a small store’s site won’t show up in any of them. If your shortlist spans several shops, you end up with one tool per store and nothing for the rest.

Where a photo preview fits

Roomephant works from a product link and one photo of your room. Links from most online stores work. Amazon, Wayfair, IKEA, JYSK and Article listings fill in the width, depth and height on their own, and for other shops you add the product photo and type the three numbers. You tap the floor where the item will stand, and usually within 30 to 60 seconds you see your room with that item in it at the listed size. It runs in any phone or computer browser, with no app and no account. Free use is capped per hour and per day.

There’s no live 3D model to walk around. The room’s scale is estimated from one photo, so the result is a dimension-aware preview, and before you buy something large you should check all three dimensions with a tape measure.

Which one to use

If the product has the store’s button and you’re standing in the room with your phone, use the button. You get a live 3D model in the camera view.

If your whole list is IKEA, Kreativ can erase your furniture and lay out a room from IKEA’s catalog. Roomephant is built for the one product you’re about to buy.

If the item comes from a store without a button, or you’re choosing at work with a photo of the room you took last week, use a photo preview.

Store details checked on 7 November 2026 on the stores’ own pages: Amazon: 3D models and AR · Amazon Shopping app features · Wayfair: Augmented reality with a purpose · TechCrunch: Wayfair's Android app gets AR · IKEA: Getting started with IKEA Kreativ · IKEA Kreativ in the app and on the web · Where to find IKEA Kreativ scans and designs