Amazon.com Inc. wants to make it easier for people to buy furniture and other home decor items online by letting them try out thousands of items in augmented reality on the Amazon iOS app.

Using Apple’s ARKit, Amazon new AR View feature allows users to view and place thousands of virtual items in their homes, which of course includes Amazon’s own products such as Echo, Echo Dot and Fire TV.

To start using the new feature, you tap on the camera icon in the Amazon app and choose the new AR View option. You can then choose from several different shopping categories, including kitchen, home office, home decor, toys and games, and so on. Once you choose an item, the app uses your smartphone camera to superimpose the item in your home, and you can drag and rotate the item around to see how it looks in different locations.

The new AR View feature could make Amazon a more attractive option for users looking to buy items that have traditionally been harder to pick out online, as a photo gallery can only do so much. Amazon has been working to overcome this limitation in other areas as well, such as Amazon Prime Wardrobe, a “try before you buy” clothing service that allows Prime members to easily try on and return clothes. Amazon also released several other new features recently in preparation for the holidays, including voice shopping on Alexa.

Amazon is not the first company to turn to AR as a home decor tool. For example, Swedish furniture giant Ikea launched its own AR furniture tool earlier this year. Target Corp. also released an AR feature last week, but unlike the AR tools released by Amazon and Ikea, Target’s app does not automatically place virtual items and instead requires users to manually move, rotate and resize furniture.

You can watch a video of Amazon’s new AR feature:

Photo: Amazon.com