Yes, they may make you look like an extra in some sci-fi flick, but enterprise wearables are becoming more common sights across industries worldwide. Many companies now put out their customized lines of wearable headsets – Realwear, ODG, Vuzix M300s, and perhaps the most well-known, Microsoft HoloLens. They usually price out between $500-$3,000, which isn’t that steep, considering that the tech involved is cutting-edge, and come with remote IT support.
Slip a headset on, and you’ve landed in a world of augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR). What's the difference between the two? Think of AR as a digitized modification of your field of vision.
The Army, for instance, has created “Tactical Augmented Reality” (TAR), an eyepiece that allows soldiers to pinpoint a target and, if necessary, aim more precisely. Their perspective changes to resemble that of a video game screen, whereas a VR headset encapsulates the wearer’s eyes and projects up-close images that make it seem like he is inside a video game.
Enterprise wearables can be a mix of both AR and VR, but they’re often designed for practical AR functions in the real world. Read on for some examples of these wearables with remote assistance software.
Aerospace
At Boeing, if mechanics wanted to replace an engine, they once had to wait for manuals to arrive and then pore over the design sheets. Now many technicians wear AR-enhanced Microsoft HoloLens headsets, where instructions hover in their field of vision and even let them communicate with other engineers in different plants who may know the repair process better. Boeing employees reported a 30% decrease in the time it took them to complete pertinent tasks.
Routine Inspections
Imagine you’re a field inspector checking the equipment of a plant or a warehouse, or even making sure that a gas line servicing a neighborhood is at a safe calibration. Using smart glasses, remote IT support can take snapshots of the meters and develop a report that can be texted back to the headquarters and logged in its system. Also, novice inspectors can go into the field and communicate with their seniors back at the office, who can guide them through basic steps without having to be in multiple places at once.
Healthcare
Technicians use headgear all the time, but the field of wearable technology extends beyond headgear, too. Watches, headphones, and centralized tools can all help people monitor their health, for instance. Doctors can use wearable sensors to transmit data such as charts, lab reports, and body scans into a smartphone app where they can make a diagnosis and send it to their patients.
The purpose of enterprise wearables is to heighten worker efficiency and to make the jobs of those workers easier with live remote assistance. But perhaps the most humane use of wearable has measures like installing smart bands inside the safety helmets of workers. While this feature may seem like a Big Brother ploy to monitor a worker’s every move, it can help determine when people are tired and need a break, or when they’re in high-risk situations that may cause them harm (such as moving items in a warehouse or fixing an apparatus at the top of a satellite tower).
Wearables are becoming extremely popular in providing remote IT support.
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