Tile and wallpaper previews on room photos, for multi-brand showrooms
TL;DR Roomtrial lets a salesperson in a tile or wallpaper showroom take a buyer's room photo, lay any product from the shop's range onto the floor or wall and send the result by chat app. The showroom pays a monthly fee. It works because the buyer decides at home, with family, days later.
Tiles and wallpaper get bought once a decade and lived with for years, yet most buyers choose from a 60 cm sample board under showroom lights. India's domestic tile market was worth ₹531 billion in FY25, with organised brands holding only 46%[1]. Most of the rest goes through local multi-brand dealers stocking Morbi-made tiles, which make up roughly 80–90% of national output[1].
These dealers lose the sale after the buyer walks out. The family wants to see it in the actual room, the buyer can't picture a 2x4 ft tile in a 10x12 ft space, and the whole thing stalls. Brand apps exist, but each one covers its own catalogue and nothing else.
Roomtrial is a tablet and phone app for the showroom, not for the shopper. The salesperson photographs the buyer's room, or the buyer sends one by chat app. The model finds the floor and walls, corrects for perspective and lays the chosen tile or wallpaper at true scale with grout lines and repeat patterns. Three options go back to the buyer as a single image with prices and the salesperson's number.
The seed asked for live AR try-on for all décor. I kept the goal and cut the scope. Furniture placement is a separate idea in this directory, and live AR asks the shopper to install an app they'll use once. A still render sent by chat app fits how Indian families already decide, and surfaces are far easier to render well than sofas.
The dealer uploads its range by photographing sample tiles on a supplied flat-bed rig, so even unbranded Morbi stock gets a digital version. The dashboard shows which renders turned into orders. Photos of a home are personal data, so the app takes the buyer's consent before storing them[4].
The showroom owner pays and the buyer uses it free. The assumed price is ₹3,000–8,000 a month per showroom, depending on catalogue size, and you'll need to test that against what dealers spend on display boards and samples. Tile and wallpaper brands are a second buyer - they could fund the tool for their dealer network, the way one US visualiser's partner programme works[2].
Phone cameras and segmentation models are finally good enough to find a floor in a cluttered photo. Buyers expect visual previews because the biggest paint brand gives one away free, and the Asian Paints app detects walls in a room photo and applies shades and wallpapers[3]. Organised brands are taking share, from 46% toward a projected 55% by FY29[1], which pushes local dealers to look more professional.
There's no public count of multi-brand tile and wallpaper showrooms in India. The nearby figure is the ₹531 billion domestic tile market, with growth slowing to about 3% in FY24 and FY25[1]. Slow growth actually helps you here, since dealers fighting over the same buyers need a reason to win the deal. Treat the tile market as context, not your market.
India's largest paint maker offers a free visualiser for its own paints, textures and wallpapers[3]. One US visualiser covers flooring, tile, wallpaper and rugs, claims more than 7,000 retailers and offers a free assistant tier for independent shops[2]. Large Indian tile brands may run their own tools. The gap is a multi-brand tool for Indian dealers whose shelves mix brands and unbranded stock, built for chat apps rather than a website.
| Difficulty | Moderate (37/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹50–90 L |
| Time to launch | 6–9 months |
The rendering has to look real in poorly lit Indian rooms with stuff all over the floor. Getting each dealer's catalogue digitised is slow, physical work. Selling to small dealers is a door-to-door job, and churn is high if the first renders look fake.
No special licence here. Selling software to showrooms needs no sector permit, so you only need the baseline plus a few platform rules.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't trust AI renders to stand in for the real colour and finish. Screens and lighting vary, so always tell buyers to see the physical sample before they order.
Want to work out the AI layer for Roomtrial? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I'd back this for a founder with computer-vision skills and the patience for field sales in tile clusters. If you want a consumer AR app then this isn't it. Prove one thing first - that buyers who get a render close at a higher rate than those who don't, across 10 showrooms.
Plan for roughly ₹50–90 L over 6–9 months, most of it on the rendering model and digitising dealer catalogues.
No sector licence. You need company registration, GST once over the threshold and DPDP compliance, since room photos are personal data.
Yes, but tools like this already exist abroad. The Indian angle is multi-brand dealers and chat-app selling, so look for a market with a similar dealer structure.
The free Roomtrial validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the data-protection checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for dealers and buyers, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Roomtrial or something close to it? The make-or-break work is renders good enough that a family decides from an image on their phone, and a cheap way to test that before you build the model. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.