Smart Glasses Companies Look Past VR for Enterprise AR Opportunities at CES
With virtual reality stalled, smart glasses companies are heading to CES focused on expanded opportunities in the enterprise segment. Heavy market “fragmentation and scarcity of content” is plaguing consumer VR hardware sales growth (see 1812200009), but “maturation of developer tools, supporting platforms, and use case breadth are shifting market dynamics slowly toward the enterprise,” said ABI analyst Eric Abbruzzese. VR gaming presents a $5 billion opportunity by 2023, and “simulation and training, as well as more specialized VR uses, will propel VR” alongside augmented reality.
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At CES, Vuzix, partnering with AccuWeather, will demonstrate interactive augmented reality weather experiences, it said Thursday. Individuals will be able to interact and view localized weather content and weather forecasts through Blade smart glasses, which the company is pitching as “a convenience of being able to leave their phones in their pockets” while staying informed of the weather.
AccuWeather will deliver to Vuzix users “up-to-date weather forecasts and tools” unique to the AR experience, said Steve Smith, president-AccuWeather Digital Media. Comparing the viewing experience on smart glasses to viewing weather forecasts on a mobile device screen, Smith said Blade wearers will see a “comprehensive weather forecast as a visual overlay that pops into their field of vision.” He described travelers putting on the glasses on the day of a flight to check the current forecast to see if weather might delay a trip. After landing, the local weather at the destination display shows current weather conditions, and wearers see the information “without having to pull a smart phone out of your bag,” he said. The AccuWeather AR app is expected to be released for the Blade glasses in Q1.
Vuzix also will demonstrate at CES a proof of concept artificial intelligence shopping experience with Mercari based on a Mercari app launched in 2013. A video shows a woman using Vuzix glasses with the Mercari marketplace app to get recommendations for shoes she could buy by pointing at shoes she likes while wearing the glasses. The AI technology identifies the shoes she pointed at with her finger and searches for similar items available on the Mercari e-commerce marketplace.
The app provides a new way for people to comparison shop and connects digital shopping to the real world, said Vuzix CEO Paul Travers. To protect users’ privacy, information retrieval is conducted “as much as possible” within the device, not on the cloud, and search is limited to only the spot where a user points, said Yuki Hamada, Mercari chief product officer.
Smart glasses company Kopin is hosting a panel on the future of VR Jan. 9 at CES. Discussion topics include how VR can overcome its “growing pains” and reach potential, how manufacturers and developers can support VR growth, the role of 5G in the VR future and the first “killer app” for VR, it said.
Austria wearables company Viewpointsystem will return to CES after a year hiatus, showing its latest wearable, the VPS 19 smart glasses, which combine eye tracking with a display element for a “mixed reality” experience. The company’s glasses, which can operate over 4G networks or Wi-Fi, are designed to be used indoors or outdoors in manufacturing, retail, healthcare and mobility, and are due to launch in early 2019, CEO Nils Berger told us. The company’s Digital Iris technology offers “intuitive interaction” and bidirectional information to extend the user interface experience beyond what’s possible with manual or voice controls.
Viewpointsystem’s VPS 19 system comprises glasses, a mixed reality (MR) click-on and a smart unit that attaches to a belt or holder. Giving a use case for the VPS 19, Berger described a worker operating a machine in the field who requires assistance. A remote specialist sees what the worker sees via the glasses and instead of describing an operation, draws an arrow, which appears projected onto a worker’s glasses as if floating in air. The arrow stays in place even if the wearer shifts position, he said.
The VPS 19 system “recognizes the user’s subconscious attention, showing them only the content they subconsciously want and need,” said the company. The subconscious will play a role in humans’ interaction with the digital environment, and smart glasses with MR, because they’re “under our nose,” could replace existing products such as the smartphone, Berger said. That’s five or six years away because of limitations in screen contrast, computing power, network capacity and battery technology, he said. To replace the smartphone, smart glasses would have to be lightweight, viewable in multiple lighting situations, have long battery life without producing heat and be able to handle the upload and download speeds consumers demand.