In the near future, light, unobtrusive smart glasses will reliably support deskless work and make technicians more efficient in their tasks. The last few years have seen increased investment in smart glasses technology, with a number of high-profile acquisitions and direct investments by large companies in manufacturers and start-ups, but some challenges still remain.

As seen in this this article by Jay Kim of AREA member APX Labs, form factors, capabilities and price are all continually evolving for the better. This post highlights the five challenges that providers face before their smart glasses are widespread in enterprise. Various providers are solving these problems on their own as industry-wide best practices for how to address these challenges have yet to be developed.

Components Are Pushing the Boundaries

Processors for Augmented Reality-enabling tasks are steadily improving, but matching required capabilities for enterprise with optimal form factors is still a challenge. For example, graphics processors must be small, lightweight and highly power efficient in order to be placed within eyewear frames that remain comfortable to wear. Accelerating real world tracking and fluid rendering of virtual objects requires chips like NVIDIA Tegra X1 or Intel m7, which are just now showing up in the latest high-end smart glasses from companies like Atheer and DAQRI. Combined with eye-tracking capabilities, reliable voice and gesture recognition, these computational requirements add up, both in terms of battery consumption and heat production, which need to be properly and efficiently managed.

A high-resolution front-facing camera is necessary for creating Augmented Reality experiences but not all smart glasses have that functionality. Tilting and shaking also present challenges for both AR experience delivery and video conferencing.

Other areas of improvement remain to be made in battery life, similar to what is happening in the smartphone space. New models specifically designed to industrial specifications are coming to market this year but have yet to be extensively tested in real world settings.

Network Security and Bandwidth

Continuously providing Augmented Reality experiences based on cloud-hosted services and content requires uninterrupted bandwidth and coverage wherever employees with AR devices work. Ensuring reliable WiFi availability in cramped areas of a ship’s steel-plated hull, for example, is a daunting challenge, and we are starting to see more and more solutions adopting robust offline functionality and local storage to fill in the gap.

Both devices and networks may require high security standards in sensitive environments to ensure proprietary information is not misplaced. The shortcomings in security are the same as those faced by existing wearables and smart devices in the market today.

Content for Augmented Reality Experiences

As when content was being produced 25 years ago for the brand new World Wide Web, commonly accepted paradigms for the design of AR experiences to be delivered to smart glasses are non-existent. Authors of AR experiences must experiment and develop their own techniques for ensuring usability of user interfaces and safety.

As with the World Wide Web, standards for user interface design and content first require a greater proliferation of Augmented Reality usage on smart glasses, producing a chicken and egg phenomenon: with poor user experiences, usage remains low. With low demand, experimentation with new designs is slow.

Content for use in Augmented Reality experiences for smart glasses, such as images and 3D models, tends to be authored from scratch. Those companies that have made prior investments in CAD authoring tools have an advantage when they can access and convert existing, industrial CAD models into lightweight, polygonised versions for display in smart glasses. Successful authoring of AR content also requires heavily customized authoring toolchains and workflows and a uniform look and feel for displayed content that is emotive, highly relevant and takes into account safety requirements. 2015 saw a proliferation of providers creating smart-glasses-first content and applications to fully leverage the smart glasses platforms.

Some initiatives such as the OASIS Augmented Reality in Information Products technical committee and the IEEE AR Learning Experience Model (ARLEM) have been formed to address such challenges.

Overall User Experience

In addition to user experience for the human-machine interface, other UX factors for smart glasses are still improving. Cables are frequently required to connect a hands-free display to the networking or content processing hub, or to the battery pack. While these form factors solve many problems such as battery life and device weight, they still leave many yearning for an all-in-one device.

How to best interact naturally with the displayed content is something all manufacturers are trying to solve. The most sophisticated smart glasses are doing away with physical controls altogether in favor of voice, head motion, and gesture interaction. Bulkiness and limited field of view are other complaints that were prominent in the early days of smart glasses, but competition in this space has driven manufacturers to improve vastly on both of those. Narrow Field of View (FOV) limits the amount of information that can be displayed to the user, and the best smart glasses models are now delivering immersive display experiences that address those concerns.

Safety, Privacy and Regulations

Smart glasses present a number of new and unresolved safety challenges. Their sheer novelty also means that few regulations specifically targeting them have been developed.

As seen from this presentation by attorney Brian Wassom, although new regulatory regimes for smart glasses are required, none currently exist. Future conversations about the safety of head-mounted displays in environments such as the enterprise and industrial settings still need to take place.

Some challenges such as obstructed peripheral vision, for example, can pose a safety hazard when the wearer is in motion or in an industrial workspace. Adapting the amount and relevance of information displayed to the user is key to making the wearer safer on the job.

Conclusion

As with other types of wearables, smart glasses represent a novel technology whose development and usage are still evolving. Both business and technological challenges are in the process of being addressed so that smart glasses are generally accepted as routine work tools and become more recognized for their productivity-enhancing features.

Despite these challenges, several smart glasses deployments for enterprise use were announced in 2015 and some predict that 2016 will bring many more deployments as companies look to gain an edge on the competition.

What are your key challenges with smart glasses? Is your organization or smart glasses provider addressing any of these challenges already? Share with us your views in comments below.

Drawbacks preventing AR from entering the mainstream currently include technical complexity and the need for faster processors to accommodate for AR. Due to its accessibility, the smartphone is the most important distribution channel for AR; however, some people believe that smartphones will become irrelevant after the breakthrough of AR. A completely new set of interfaces is anticipated to rise on the basis of possibilities offered by AR within the next decade.

Microsoft HoloLens and Meta Vision are presently the most renowned examples of AR solutions, as they both utilise smart glasses to observe the virtual layer placed on top of reality. This tech is most often used in B2B applications, however, the medical and gaming industries are also making use of it in applications such as giving surgeons additional information during operations, and lending greater intensity to video game entertainment. Meta’s vision is a world without screens, full of holograms, as this means fewer restrictions on what we can witness as humans.

The article then focuses on the value of AR for customers, which involves changing the customer experience by making it more digital and personal. For example, AR will be able to create personalised advertising in the real world, such as blank billboards which different images can be projected onto depending on the individual AR interface.

The retail experience can also be changed, as AR applications can allow customers to see what items of clothing look like without physically trying them on, as well as show customers the locations of shops and brands within a shopping centre.

The use of AR in the industry sector is also mentioned in the article. The technology allows professionals to view technical issues remotely (e.g. from the company headquarters) and therefore lend advice to on-site colleagues. This in turn means that more customers can be visited; waiting time and costs are reduced.

The article concludes that AR gives a significant advantage to companies and their relationship with their customers. In the years ahead, new and impactful applications will be developed to aid everyone in their daily lives.

The five major types of AR listed in the article are as follows:

• Marker-based AR = consists of a camera used by a user and a marker recognised by the camera. Physical reality captured by the camera is augmented by an image being put in the spot of the marker code.
• Recognition-based AR = identifies real-world objects by barcode / QR code and provides user with info about it; correlates to marker-based AR.
• Location-based markerless AR = objects near the user’s location are identified and overlaid with AR features.
• Projection-based AR = digital images are projected on real-world objects to create an interactive connection between them.
• Superimposition-based AR = partially or entirely replaces the real view of an object with a digital object.

The article goes on to define Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality:

• AR = adds artificial objects to the physical world.
• VR = an environment completely made of artificial objects, giving total immersion.
• MR = combines AR and VR by using digital and physical attributes that interact.

The use of digital imagery in AR / VR devices has instigated a digital transformation in many businesses that can save excessive amounts of money and increase the variety of critical needs. Brian Blau, Research Vice President at Gartner, predicts that AR, VR, and MR solutions will be adopted in 20% of big enterprises by 2019.

The article describes applications of AR in a range of sectors:

• Industrial AR = AR can help to organise large amounts of data and place them into interactive displays / environments. A smart factory can autonomously oversee its operation by making a working model of the real world and manipulating its parts in tandem with the natural environment, using virtual info to interact with real objects. The previously known practice of prototypes can advance much quicker and with greater accuracy with the help of AR, and this also reduces costs. AR tech can enhance the human worker, keeping fewer robots in manufacturing.
• Real Estate, Architecture, and Construction = AR has a capacity for customisation models and accurate presentations, so a user can manipulate data and insert materials or other solutions to design / building problems. Sales opportunities can increase when retail staff can offer a guided walkthrough of any property via AR.
• Medicine and Healthcare = enhanced treatment and examinations are possible with wearables; medical records can be brought up in real time while doctors are performing exams. AR can help to model a difficult surgical procedure for surgeons to practice before the real surgery. Additional knowledge can be provided to remote practitioners via AR, and it can equip emergency treatment.
• Sport and Fitness = information, insights, and entertainment can be provided to users during their exercise. AR can monitor body functions so the user can be kept in a cardio zone that optimises weight loss. Personalised workout videos can also be developed for mobile apps.
• eCommerce and Retail = Amazon are utilising AR to allow customers to try on watches, and ARKit has been developed by Apple, a developer tool that assists new AR app production. However, this does create a significant gap between tech giants and small retailers due to the only way to advance technically being integrating advanced AR apps.
• Education = AR can increase classroom engagement and extend students’ range of learning through use of AR on smart devices.

The final section of the article explains how AR can transform a business by improving processes and functions. The two categories of hardware on which AR / MR can be used are mobile devices and wearables; as this hardware evolves, software development companies can develop solutions for key industry players.

A key point from the start of the article is that companies should consider where we currently are in the AR adoption curve to ensure they are adopting the right solution at the right time. It’s also important to look at the interaction model, since the underlying technology for an AR solution requires the correct interaction model to make it useful.

The four common ways to interact with AR tech are listed as follows:

• Gestures = front-facing cameras on AR smart glasses allow for interpretation of a hand motion in front of them. Gestures are most useful for use in a loud or dirty environment. For optimal effectiveness, a precise and efficient hand-tracking algorithm is needed, providing a hands-free experience.
• Voice = voice commands provide a safe alternative for interacting with smart glasses when a user’s hands may be occupied with tools. Therefore, voice commands should be added to the smart glass system actions and developers should define voice commands.
• Head motion = in noisy situations, voice commands and / or gestures may be unsuitable, which is where head motion comes in handy. Workers will be able to switch between content with a simple head motion if the AR solution provides sphere view and multi-display technologies.
• Touch = support for industry-standard touchscreen devices should be provided by the AR solution to enable workers to access some AR features when they don’t have to wear gloves or carry tools.

The article emphasises the importance of the insight derived from work completed by employees using the AR solution. Taskflows are trackable AR instructions delivered to smart glasses which Atheer’s AiR Enterprise solution enables. A list of ways in which real business insight can be gained is given:

• Get real time info about which taskflows each worker has undertaken. Seeing demographics on usage of each taskflow can highlight problems in the workflow and avoid wasting time and energy in taskflows that aren’t being adopted.
• See how far each user gets in executing taskflows. This gives understanding of how the taskflows are being adopted and whether they need to be refined, increasing effectiveness.
• Identify how long it takes each user to execute a given task. Taskflow reporting reveals exactly when each step was started and any times the user had to pause the taskflow, which allows employers to see whether the taskflow is increasing efficiency of work or not.
• Ensure that all users are working with the latest version of taskflows. The solution must offer taskflow synchronisation, therefore all updates must be immediately made available to users. Having updated taskflow guidance means the jobs can be performed in the safest, quickest, and most effective way possible.
• Collect and store taskflow data locally. The solution should be designed to keep tracking the use and effectiveness of a given taskflow even when the smart glasses are offline.

Instructions for achieving the best success in the testing of your business’s AR system are as follows:

• Make sure that AR devices are deployed to a small group of users in a pilot test first.
• Be proactive about offering feedback to the AR hardware / software provider.
• Pay close attention to reliability during trial period, and have high standards about this.
• Don’t neglect the below process for deploying an AR solution to employees in a way that will deliver the maximum ROI.

The process for deploying an AR solution is listed as follows:

1. Define the business problem you want to tackle using AR.
2. Define your use case without limits.
3. Identify the right problem – this is important.
4. Detail your current state.
5. Obtain data about how well things work (or don’t work).
6. Recognise that one size does not fit all.
7. Make your assessment of your current state as broad as possible.
8. Try it and measure the results in the lab or the field.
9. Learn and refine from your trials.
10. Plan for success by involving users early.

Key points in the infographic include:

• Video games is still the biggest industry for AR/VR, with potential 2025 revenue estimated at $11.6 billion.
• Real estate revenue from AR/VR for 2025 is estimated at $2.6 billion. Tech for the industry includes Virtual Experience (which gives users an interactive 3D walkthrough of a property under construction via a VR headset), “Street Peak” Realtor App (which provides information about a property when a smartphone is pointed at it), and Ikea Place App (which automatically scales furniture products for a customer’s home based on room dimensions with 98% accuracy).
• Estimated 2025 revenue from AR/VR for retail is $1.6 billion; 71% of consumers said they would shop at a retailer more often if they offered AR. Tech for the industry includes Airwalk Invisible Pop-Up Stores (which use GPS and an app to view shoes for sale in invisible stores set up in NY and LA in 2011), and FX Mirror and Memory Mirror (high-tech mirrors that allow customers to imagine themselves in an outfit without trying it on).
• Healthcare revenue from AR/VR is anticipated to reach $5 billion by 2025; most advancements of AR technology are expected within the healthcare industry. Tech for the industry includes Accuvein (which projects the location of veins and valves, enabling healthcare professionals easier access to them for IV placement), and the VA-ST Visor (‘smart specs’ that help blind or partially blind people with everyday tasks).
• The travel industry is expected to generate $4.1 billion revenue from AR/VR by 2025. 84% of consumers worldwide would be interested in using AR in their travel experiences, and 42% believe that AR is the future of tourism. Tech for the industry includes Google Expeditions (which allows school children to take field trips around the world while remaining in the classroom), and AR travel apps such as Wikitude and Etips City Guides (which help plan trips to new places).

At the end of the infographic are quotes from tech experts, such as Charlie Fink, Forbes columnist and author at Metaverse, who is quoted to have said that AR technology is accelerating at a fast pace, and that more exciting devices will be produced and released in upcoming years.

Augmented reality is the displaying of virtual elements onto a display which overlaps onto the real world. In practice this could be a map in front of you as you drive so your eyes don’t have to leave the road. It could be a technical tasks list or an expert watching what your worker does remotely.

A video within the article shows an example of how Renault is using the tech via Microsoft’s HoloLens on their factory floor.

The market for AR Smart glass devices is said to be heating up and with 5G coming and set to make connectivity hugely faster, Computer Business Review expects to see significantly wider use of AR in industry.  The article then goes on to review some of the products on the market to help you assess what might work best for your business.

In conclusion the article asks whether enterprises should be adopting AR and finds that large and small business across the world are adopting AR technology because they see the benefits and that it may soon prove a vital way to stay competitive.  Read the full article.

Explore The AREA’s case studies.

Virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR) applications can improve productivity, reduce cost and increase revenues in aerospace, automotive, industrial design and retail. However, high quality VR/AR experience require heavy computing resources and immediate response times. Requirements, which current cloud-computing and network infrastructure are unable to effectively deliver.

To address this market-need and accelerate adoption of VR/AR applications for enterprises, GridRaster and Saguna have teamed up to create a joint solution. This solution features GridRaster VR/AR software platform operating on Saguna Open-RAN multi-access edge computing solution.

GridRaster provides the underlying compute and network stack to power high-end VR/AR experiences on mobile platforms by leveraging the edge cloud. The solution provides high-performance graphics at ultra-low latency, while improving the overall performance by 10x.

Saguna’s Multi-access Edge Cloud Computing (MEC)solution, Saguna Open-RAN, creates cloud-computing ‘cloudlets’ at the access network; close to end users and connected devices. It enables communication service providers (CSPs) to transform their networks into powerful cloud computing infrastructures, where new Edge Applications can be easily developed and deployed.

The full press release can be viewed here.

As the author states, with any new technology, there are inherent risks we should acknowledge, anticipate, and deal with as soon as possible. If we do so, these technologies are likely to continue to thrive. Some industry watchers are forecasting a combined AR/VR market value of $108 billion by 2021, as businesses of all sizes take advantage of AR to change the way their customers interact with the world around them in ways previously only possible in science fiction.

The issues discussed as serious privacy and security pitfalls, including dangers to physical safety, that as an industry we need to collectively avoid.

There are also ongoing threats from cyber criminals and nation states bent on political chaos and worse — to say nothing of teenagers who can be easily distracted and fail to exercise judgement — all creating virtual landmines that could slow or even derail the success of AR. We love AR, and that’s why we’re calling out these issues now to raise awareness.

Without widespread familiarity with the potential pitfalls, as well as robust self-regulation, AR will not only suffer from systemic security issues, it may be subject to stringent government oversight, slowing innovation, or even threaten existing First Amendment rights. In a climate where technology has come under attack from many fronts for unintended consequences and vulnerabilities, we should work together to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Because AR by design blurs the divide between the digital and real worlds, threats to physical safety, job security, and digital identity can emerge in ways that were simply inconceivable in a world populated solely by traditional computers.

The full article can be read here.

Top competitors in the AR market mentioned in the report include:

• Microsoft Corporation
• PTC Inc (AREA member)
• DAQRI LLC
• Google Inc
• Meta Company
• Atheer Inc (AREA member)
• Blippar
• Osterhout Design Group
• Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Major Product Types of the AR market stated in the report are:

• Marker-Less Augmented Reality
• Marker-Based Augmented Reality

Major end-user applications of the AR market mentioned in the report include:

• Aerospace & defense
• Consumer
• Medical
• Enterprise
• Commercial

Leading regions of the AR market listed in the report include:

• Asia-Pacific
• Europe (second after Asia-Pacific)
• Latin America
• The Middle East
• North America
• Africa

Information given in the AR market report includes:

• Major issues in the AR industry
• Constraining factors of AR
• Production process of AR
• Problem-fixing plans for the AR industry
• Different marketing strategies for uplifting AR market growth
• Upcoming attitudes, perspectives, and anticipations of the AR market
• Raw materials for AR
• End users, traders, dealers, distributors, and manufacturers of AR

Key points covered in the AR market report include:

• List of companies that are searching for inorganic extension
• Approaching relation and deep-rooted contracts between key AR manufacturers and raw material suppliers / distributors
• Success and improvement factors of the AR industry
• AR strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• Political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal analysis of AR
• AR product capacity, import / export detail, supply-chain analysis, future plans / approaches, gross margin, and various technological developments of top leaders

The way in which AR fits into various markets is then described as follows:

• Real Estate = customers who are house-searching can see home interiors by pointing their phones at them. Construction workers can use AR to show clients what a house would look like with a different style of kitchen or bathroom. Shoppers can also see what items of furniture would look like in their homes.
• Retail = Virtual Reality mirrors allow customers to try on clothes virtually, and there are apps that allow people to try on nail polish. Other apps enable consumers to make purchases by pointing their phones at items in printed catalogues.
• Travel = VR allows people to ‘travel’ anywhere while remaining in one place, and AR helps to navigate places when travelling by overlaying directions on the street view in real time, and providing recommendations for places to visit.

An infographic is included at the end of the article, which has been previously summarised from an article on Hackernoon here (link to Predictions for the Future of AR).