When you shop for new clothes, are you ever frustrated or tired of endlessly trying on so many different things? What if you go to a store to try on the jacket you want, just to be told that it is out of stock? The shop assistant says they can get the item from somewhere else and mail it to you, but you won't be able to try it on first. Does this disappoint you? Well, it's now time to say goodbye to this frustration.

5G, when applied in the retail industry, enables the use of AR mirrors that can help solve all your problems.

At the beginning of 2019, China Mobile Zhejiang and Hangzhou Changqing Street Office signed the first 5G commercial contract in China, agreeing to implement 5G technology. The purpose of this is to deliver a better shopping experience for consumers shopping in the Silk City on Changqing Street and to promote the transformation of the retail industry.

Recently, China Mobile Zhejiang, together with Huawei and Chuan He Technology, has deployed such AR mirrors in stores within the Silk City in order to officially test AR and e-commerce cloud and explore new 5G business models. By transforming Hangzhou into a city of 5G and e-commerce, it will be easier to adopt the new O2O (online to offline) business model in the local retail industry.

At one store in the Silk City where 5G AR mirrors have been deployed, the staff invited consumers to come and experience the new technology. One consumer tried out five outfits in less than a minute. "With this AR mirror, besides trying out a new outfit, you can also change the color of the outfit and add accessories such as a scarf or a bag to go with the outfit. It'll be wonderful if all these operations can be controlled with gestures or by voice. The virtual clothes are able to follow you as you walk around. It's really convenient because I can find the exact clothes I like very quickly. I had a wonderful experience!" the customer said.

Liu Yijiang, founder of Chuang He Technology, the company that provides the AR mirrors, said, "5G will change the world we live in by delivering a high-speed, large-bandwidth, low-latency network experience. 5G will integrate the real world with the digital world more agilely. For us, AR mirrors are a good example of 5G application. In the future, we will increase efforts to explore 5G applications in VR education and AR tourism, hoping to bring the real world and the digital world closer together."

According to a staff member from China Mobile Zhejiang, the company that leads the deployment of 5G virtual mirrors, "5G virtual mirrors, as part of the Silk City's 5G virtual experience initiative, mark the first commercial application of 5G in China ". The staff member explained that 5G's large-bandwidth and low latency are utilized to record videos with AR video recording technologies, which are then sent to be rendered on the cloud platform the company has built for governments or enterprises. These videos are then transmitted back to the device via dedicated access, creating a rapid, vivid, and interactive fitting experience for consumers."

The "new retail" model is being widely adopted in the consumer sector. The aim is to deliver a premium in-store shopping experience to consumers by upgrading traditional stores with technologies like big data and AI.

Thanks to 5G, the virtual clothes can follow shoppers as they walk around. This not only improves consumers' shopping experience but also helps stores increase sales. Moreover, the big data and AI analytics on the e-commerce cloud can help meet the varying requirements of different customers by suggesting items that will suit them the best.

In the near future, it will be possible to rent and use 5G AR mirrors in places like airports and hotels. This will promote partnerships between AR mirror vendors and clothing manufacturers and create new business models.

According to the 2019 Work Report of the Zhejiang Provincial Government, this year, Zhejiang will take the lead in commercializing 5G, setting a good example for how to build a digital economy. In addition, China Mobile Zhejiang is a leader in 5G deployment in China. The 5G AR mirrors deployed in Hangzhou are a good example of 5G use cases within a certain industry.

Looking ahead, China Mobile Zhejiang and Huawei will continue helping industries go digital, deliver personalized services, and build a smart user experience with AI, Edge Cloud, and other new technologies, ensuring the sustainable growth of the digital economy.

Instead of asking the magic mirror on the wall who is the most beautiful of them all, you will be able to simply ask your "magic AR mirror" to make you look beautiful. Let's start building a fully connected, intelligent world, with the mirrors we use every day.