Augmented Reality (AR) hasn’t truly permeated the mainstream consciousness yet, but the
technology is swiftly being adopted by global industries. It’ll soon be
unsurprising to find a pair of AR glasses strapped to a helmet sitting on the
heads of service workers, and RealWear, a company at
the forefront on developing these headsets, thinks it’s on the edge of
something big.
RealWear
has worked to ensure its headsets are both well-designed and easy to use. Think
Google Glass, but bulkier and attached to a hardhat or cap. It’s immensely
useful technology that can help workers access digital data without using
their hands, stream video back to another team member, or receive guidance
during training periods.
Designed
for Tight Spaces
Perhaps
the most important aspect of the RealWear HMT-1Z1 is its design. After all, the
headset needs to be lightweight and comfortable to be adopted by industrial
workers, and it must quickly get out of the way when the wearer doesn’t need
it. The HMT-1Z1 is designed for tight spaces — it fits on standard hard hats,
and while it does add a bit of extra weight and width to a helmet, it doesn’t
extend anywhere close to the wearer’s shoulders — which means it should fit
anywhere a human can fit.
There’s
an arm on the side of the helmet that extends in front of the wearer’s eye, and
it can be moved out of the way when it’s not in use. It’s here where a display
is stored that workers will look at when they need visual information to help
with the task at hand. RealWear said you can still use parts of the headset
when you’re not looking directly at the display, which is why the camera is not
directly attached to the arm (it sits higher up).
The
whole thing reminds us a lot of Toshiba’s recently announced AR headset, which
the company told us is as important as the laptop it invented back
in 1985.
Safety
is a big deal in the industrial world. The headset is completely free from any
sparks or micro-sparks that could result in disaster for certain hazardous
environments, such as places with flammable gases, for example. Companies can
begin to do away with those bulky, ruggedized tablets they’ve been carrying
around factories and move to the HMT-1Z1.
Under
the hood, the headset boasts a Snapdragon 625 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of
storage, and a 3,250mAh battery rated for up to a hefty 12 hours of use, though
that will depend on exactly what you’re doing with the headset.
Voice
Activation
What’s most impressive about the RealWear HMT-1Z1 is how
you control it. There’s no touch-sensitive gestures you need to learn — it’s
all managed with voice, and better yet, there’s no need for a hotword like “Hey
Google.” The headset listens for certain commands. For example, from the home
screen just say “show my files” to see files downloaded to the device, and you
can go back to the home screen by saying “navigate home.” When you’re looking
at documents — like schematics — you can say “zoom in” or “zoom out” to change
focus. It worked almost flawlessly, even in a noisy environment like the AWE
show floor.
That’s an important factor to consider. If you’re a
worker repairing a factory component, you don’t want to have to mess around
with physical controls, and you need to easily navigate through the software,
which is based on Android. From each screen, there are a few voice
commands you can give, and options are often numbered too, so instead of having
to remember the names of things, you can simply select them based on their
number.
Future
of AR
AR has a place with businesses, and as RealWear
explains, this interest will only grow as younger employees who grew up in the
information age continue to join the work force. Some aspects of RealWear’s
tech, we think, could very much be applied to consumer augmented reality in the future. It’s
exciting to see the technology grow, and we can’t wait for AR glasses to
trickle down further for consumers.
Interested
in diving deeper? Check out the article over at Digital Trends!
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