Smart Glasses With AR
Smart glasses with ar use augmented reality technology to overlay virtual elements on top of the user’s real-world surroundings. They are useful for mobile and stationary use cases such as navigation, taking photos, and viewing texts.
For businesses aiming to implement AR and smart glasses into their processes, choosing the right pair of glasses is essential. Ergonomy and wearability are key factors, as these glasses must be comfortable for users to wear over long periods of time.
Real-time information
Real-time information is an essential part of running a business. It allows managers to make more informed decisions, track project costs and resources, and eliminate the need for rework. It also reduces the amount of travel needed by employees and improves communication between different departments in a firm.
Whether you’re a manufacturer, an insurance provider, or a shipping company, there’s likely some data that could be useful for you to track in real time. It might be something like how much inventory you have, when it’s expected to arrive, or if there’s any disruption in the supply chain due to weather.
Smart glasses with ar offer a way to provide this data in a very convenient and effective manner. This data can be retrieved from computers or other devices and can be displayed on the user’s smart glasses using an overlay that’s displayed directly onto their field of vision.
For example, if a shopper walks by a box of cereal at a grocery store, he or she can immediately see the price comparison features and promotional offers that are available on that product. If they want to know the nutritional content of a product, they can access that information as well.
Another benefit is that a shopper can use smart glasses to create a shopping list and add items to it even while they’re at the store. This saves them the hassle of having to pull out their phones to look up items while in the store, and it minimizes the chances that they’ll forget something.
The most important advantage of smart glasses with ar is that they’re able to provide real-time information. This is a big deal for consumers who might be smart glasses with ar health-conscious or need help with a specific task at home.
In addition, if you’re driving and you need to find a restaurant or other location in a city, you can use smart glasses with ar to provide visual directions that will help you navigate your route easily. This can be particularly helpful for those with hearing impairments who can’t use traditional lip reading or sign language.
Enhanced productivity
Smart glasses with ar are a great way to improve the productivity of employees in a variety of industries. They provide real-time access to a wide range of data and information, and also offer hands-free functionality. This makes it possible to maximize engagement and efficiency, and reduce costs.
In a warehouse setting, for instance, workers can use smart glasses with ar to scan barcodes and complete orders quickly and efficiently. This helps streamline workflow processes and eliminates the need for employees to stop their work to consult a smartphone or tablet.
Another way that smart glasses with ar can enhance productivity is by boosting collaboration between on-site and remote experts. This happens through integrated audio and video capabilities, allowing on-site operators to view their work directly in front of a remote expert.
GE Renewable, for example, has been using smart glasses with ar to assist its technicians in performing wiring insertion tasks. This process is 34% faster than when it was done without the technology. This is because a voice-powered AR device delivers instructions to the technician in real time, instead of having him look through a paper manual.
Smart glasses with ar also enable a more reliable platform for employee training. Outdated training manuals are no longer necessary, and new employees can receive step-by-step instructions and assistance from a remote instructor. This eliminates the time and cost of training, and enables employees to work more efficiently.
Furthermore, smart glasses with ar can create real-time training materials. This enables frontline workers to create and upload videos and other content as they perform their jobs, and then share it with others down the line. This provides a strong primary source of documentation for quality assurance purposes, as well as a first-person point of view for future training materials.
This type of technology is rapidly gaining popularity in a wide variety of industries, and many companies are incorporating it into their operations to boost productivity. Whether in the healthcare, manufacturing, or warehousing industry, smart glasses with ar can improve operational efficiency by reducing errors and improving safety.
Better collaboration
Smart glasses with AR allow workers to share visuals and information in real time for remote collaboration. This is especially helpful in situations where remote experts are working on site with frontline staff.
These solutions are useful for many industries, including manufacturing, field service, IT, telco and construction. In addition to enabling remote experts to view on-site conditions and collaborate with their team, they also help to enhance employee safety and efficiency.
Unlike virtual reality, which replaces the user’s environments or scenes with completely virtual ones, augmented reality smart glasses use a camera and other environmental and object recognition technologies to overlay digital 3D images and holograms over real-world environments or scenes seen at the wearer’s point of view. These devices may also use geolocation methods such as GPS or SLAM (algorithm-based simultaneous localization and mapping technology that gets data from sensors) to determine the user’s location and thus determine which environment or scene to overlay the digital 3D images or holograms on.
The most important component of any augmented reality device is the software that allows it to understand the user’s physical environment through a camera feed. This can include computer vision that enables the app to recognise specific features and flat surfaces, and AI-based environmental understanding such as edge detection, target highlighting and visual analytics.
A good example of this is the Moverio BT-45C and BT-45CS from Epson, which are compatible with a wide range of collaboration and remote assistance software. They feature all-new Si-OLED technology and a binocular see-through Full HD display to seamlessly integrate digital content with the outside world.
They also come with a powerful optical smart glasses with ar engine and a centralized camera to support a wide range of applications. The BT-45CS even has USB-C connectivity to tether the headset to a host device for sharing hands-free information.
Intel’s new head-worn holographic smartglasses could help improve remote collaboration in industries like manufacturing and field service. The company claims that they don’t restrict movement like bulky headsets do, and the crystal waveguides that they use reduce eye glow for daylight bright use in indoor and outdoor settings.
Better aesthetics
A key challenge in developing wearable AR devices is to make them look and feel like traditional eyeglasses, with the added benefits of augmented information. A key technology to achieve this is laser-beam scanning (LBS), which can be used to project bright, colorful images that are unobtrusive, Rajagopalan says.
He also points out that the technology is not just useful for visual information; it can be used to project holograms, such as Mars Rover imagery that scientists are now using on the Red Planet. The resulting holograms are a powerful way to interact with augmented reality, making it easy for users to explore new environments and immerse themselves in the experience.
For example, Drone Edition smart glasses by Vuzix allow users to control drones remotely with a bird’s-eye view displayed in the lenses. The system features a floating display that moves relative to the eyes and head position, a HD screen resolution, and long battery life.
The glasses also feature a built-in microphone, which allows them to be used with voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri. Moreover, they are designed to fit into standard eyeglass frames and have an interface that’s as simple and intuitive as possible.
In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, the glasses must be lightweight, consume little power, and work well all day without requiring frequent recharges. To address these issues, ST has developed a laser-scanning system for smart glasses that uses tiny MEMS mirrors, compact diodes, and waveguides to project images. The technology is based on the Laser-Beam Scanning Alliance, which Rajagopalan says is an ecosystem that includes member companies such as ST, Osram, Dispelix, and MegaOne.
As a proof of concept, ST built a prototype that includes a compact projector with a pair of MEMS mirrors. The mirrors deflect the light emitted by the compact diodes onto waveguides and combiner optics, which are embedded in the glasses’ lenses. The combination of mirrors, diodes, and optics is a low-power system that requires less than 1 watt to operate.
Ultimately, Rajagopalan says, the goal is to create a system that can be integrated into standard eyeglasses to create an AR-equipped version of a popular pair of glasses. That could help reduce the cost of AR smart glasses and provide a better, more functional alternative to VR/AR headsets.
