Assisted reality and virtual reality (AR/VR)

Assisted Reality and Virtual Reality in field technology

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies have found serious return on investment in enterprise settings, including field service organizations. Now, a new type of reality called Assisted Recently is finding its way into the field technology industry.

In Assisted Reality, new type of smartglasses, known as HMT are needed in order to receive additional information on top of the surrounding environment. The HMT we will discuss here is RealWear’s HMT-1. The smartglasses in Assisted Reality, however aren’t exactly glasses, but rather a tablet mounted on a user’s head using a headband (hence the name HMT – Head Mounted Tablet). One important note, the headband itself is an integral element of the hardware, as it encloses all electronics within it.

A field service workers receives information in the line of sight of his smartglasses. However, it doesn’t change what the person already sees. For example, in the movie, Iron Man receives relevant, usable data in his field of view, but the information doesn’t block the action taking place in front of him.
With assisted reality, workers can view diagrams, text, checklists and videos that were previously delivered on tablets, smartphones and laptops.
The display used in the device is very small and therefore cannot display 3D graphics, which is common in Augmented Reality. As it turns out, many companies and their employees do not care much about 3D graphics. Quite often organizations are more comfortable with the lack of 3D perspective than actually having it.

The whole concept of the device and the way it presents information is very different than, for example, Microsoft’s Hololens, which allow users to add high-quality content to the actual environment surrounding them. Surprisingly, a worker can use HMT’s small screen to efficiently display the crucial information about a machine he is working on in

interesting and brief form, including elements such as:

• operational parameters
• simple text instructions enhanced with pictures,
• instructional videos,
• PDF documentation

The most important feature about the device is that it is completely voice-controlled, leaving the worker use both hands while working.

Important facts about the device:

• Battery life is 8-12 hours
• Dust-and waterproof certified
• Capable of withstanding being dropped from approximately 1m height

There is also an ATEX-certified version for hazardous areas Compared to Augmented Reality, the concept of Assisted Reality is a step back. However, this new reality brings huge possibilities of supporting people in performing their daily activities. It appears that many organizations were waiting for this step back.

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR): literally makes it possible to experience anything, anywhere, anytime. It is the most immersive type of reality technology and can convince the human brain that it is somewhere it is really not. Head mounted displays are used with headphones and hand controllers to provide a fully immersive experience. With the largest technology companies on planet earth (Facebook, Google, and Microsoft) currently investing billions of dollars into virtual reality companies and startups, the future of virtual reality is set to be a pillar of our everyday lives.

A realistic three-dimensional image or artificial environment that is created with a mixture of interactive hardware and software, and presented to the user in such a way that the any doubts are suspended and it is accepted as a real environment in which it is interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way.

Total immersion means that the sensory experience feels so real, that we forget it is a virtual-artificial environment and begin to interact with it as we would naturally in the real world. In a virtual reality environment, a completely synthetic world may or may not mimic the properties of a real-world environment. This means that the virtual reality environment may simulate an everyday setting (e.g. walking around the streets of London), or may exceed the bounds of physical reality by creating a world in which the physical laws governing gravity, time and material properties no longer hold (e.g. shooting space aliens on a foreign gravity-less planet).