Can smart glasses enhance your remote assistance experience?

Smart glasses are like wearable computers depending on the context and usage; you can use them to add information alongside what you see, instruct them with your voice, or use them as a phone to call and text others. The more recent editions of smart glasses focus on meeting customers' expectations and needs by adding more durability, making them easier to use, and creating them for specific purposes. But will they become an essential tool to your remote assistance kit, or are they hype that will bring little value to your remote support experience?

Using smart glasses for remote assistance

 As the different use areas of smart glasses expand, XMReality continues to optimize how our product works on the market's most popular smart glasses. If you are already familiar with XMReality, you know what our technology is all about.

XMReality is an advanced cloud-based video tool with Augmented Reality features. The solution creates value in the typical industrial application by quickly and cost-efficiently solving hardware issues to minimize production line stand still and improve general efficiency. You can send a call link to anyone you want and start a shared video stream where the receiver has a plethora of powerful tools for providing remote support, including features that assist in explaining and resolving the issue, such as pointing, pausing, and drawing, sharing your screen, etc. 

With AR smart glasses as one of the most powerful options for the remote support toolkit, we wanted to create a more accessible experience for workers who need their hands to do the job while being supported remotely.

Accompanied by XMReality’s hand overlay feature, you can easily show your colleagues how a problem can be solved. Hands overlay is achieved by overlapping your hand over the supported person's video stream. Almost as if you were in the same room, trying to solve the problem together—a pretty cool experience.

Increased safety

There is also a considerable safety benefit that comes with smart glasses. In industries where the workers are in high-risk environments, the ability to be 100% hands-free while communicating can improve job safety by a large margin. In industries where employees use smart glasses, motor-skill-related accidents can be reduced. It is also possible to solve time-sensitive issues, for example, repairing dangerous equipment, faster.

Realwear and Iristick have followed the safety regulations required to be classified as safety glasses. This is evident in the design of their smart glasses, which allow the screen to be folded away and give the user an unobstructed view of what is ahead without any interference from the screen. Some smart glasses are also certified in, for example, how well they handle physical beatings, ignition, and corrosion by independent laboratories against industry standards—all to fit the industry's and its customers' needs.

Who should use smart glasses for remote assistance?

Smart glasses are best used in industries where it is inefficient to hold a phone in one hand and follow instructions with the other. You have those nitty-gritty problems and need both hands to solve them, but at the same time need someone to guide you, showing you exactly how to solve the problem. They are also beneficial if you have extended ongoing support or instruction sessions and you get tired of holding a phone in front of you for a few hours.

Or you may have a new hire that needs to get their hands on the rope, and you want to show them how problems can be troubleshot and solved from the eyes of a more experienced colleague. They are also beneficial if you have extended ongoing support or instruction sessions and you get tired of holding a phone in front of you for a few hours.

Smart glasses are meant to be an extension for those with specific issues or needs, not something everyone must have.

Who should NOT use smart glasses for remote support?

If you’ve tried XMReality Remote Guidance and don’t experience the need for hands-free communication, smart glasses won’t be a must-have for you. Enjoy XMReality Remote Guidance support, and keep doing what you’re doing.

If there’s an urgent issue and troubleshooting to attend to, and the person on-site doesn’t have their smart glasses, then there’s limited or no time to install or send a pair of them. Then it’s much quicker to connect using a Remote Guidance call link.

If you haven’t tried our remote support solution, we recommend starting with a free XMReality trial. The difference is that you must use your phone to point the camera at the problem instead of using smart glasses.

How does smart eyewear connect to industries?

Regarding smart eyewear being used in industries, several factors have accelerated innovation and are currently increasing the areas where smart glasses can be a helpful tool.

• The industrial market has started to embrace technology
  The massive popularity of the AR smartphone game Pokémon Go in 2016 came about at the same time as the release of Microsoft’s HoloLens, which meant that the technology was now mature enough to be used widely. The fourth industrial revolution, where more and more industries are automated and dependent on technology, has been going on for almost ten years, and because of Corona accelerated quickly.
• The quality of the hardware is rapidly increasing
  Creating smart glasses for individuals is different from creating smart glasses for industries. You must consider different contexts, like sites where chemicals, dust, and fluctuating temperatures could affect the operability. Therefore, concerns have risen about charging speeds, battery life, comfort, ease of use, ruggedness, and water resistance. Fortunately, with that in mind, hardware producers continually improve their products to make them more viable in industrial environments. For example, the design has to evolve to match the environment. While some still use binoculars such as Google Glass and the Microsoft HoloLens, others have opted for a monocular design that attaches to hardhats to fit the user's needs better.
• Covid-19 created a greater need for remote assistance
  There have always been several benefits to using AR Solutions in remote assistance, but Covid-19 made AR a need-to-have rather than a nice-to-have. As we all know, the pandemic greatly affected most industrial companies, with increased sick days, mandated social distancing measures, and increased travel restrictions. Travel restrictions, in particular, increased the need for remote assistance. Problems where companies previously would have required in-person attention from an expert were forced to be resolved from a distance. 

Industrial firms are increasingly looking into AR Solutions for remote assistance to maintain and enhance their normal working processes. Are there any boundaries on what we will experience within the smart eyewear field in the upcoming years? It’s difficult to tell, as not even smart glasses can see into the future. At least not yet.

A summary

Investing in remote assistance is an excellent choice if you would like to cut costs and reduce travel time. Simply using XMReality in any form will surely enhance your remote support experience. Workers need to free up their hands while working in certain specificities. Using only a phone or a tablet to capture the problem works for most of our customers, but some need smart glasses to enhance their remote support in a way that suits their needs.

Are you interested in trying out remote support but need to know if you are ready to invest in smart glasses? We recommend you sign up for our 14-day free business trial to get a hands-on experience with remote support.