#2 - Augmented Reality Wearables. Are they Ready? Are We?
AR Wearables. They've come a long way in the past decade, but are they ready for mass adoption? We talk about the challenges and strengths, and offer up our thoughts on where the technology is at today for enterprise.
Show correction: Eric mentions the HoloLens 2 Dev Kit is available for $3,500. The HoloLens 2 is in fact available for $3,500 but the Dev Kit for the HoloLens 2 has not been announced yet.
Transcript
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[Introductions]
Eric: Today we're going to be talking about AR wearables; are they ready, and are we ready for them. Brian, what do you think?
Brian: “Are they ready” that is a challenging question, when you think about augmented reality wearables in general there's a lot of different types of headsets that you can think of.
Most commonly the Microsoft HoloLens typically is the biggest one that people think about, it has the most hype, probably the most uses I would say when you're talking about true augmented reality.
But, there are other wearables out there that scratch the surface with augmented reality, Realwear being one of them, where it doesn't necessarily put the computer-generated graphics in the physical space but they are using some forms of augmented reality by definition.
So, when you think about ‘are they ready’ you’ve got to talk about these different types of wearables and how they're being used to determine if you think they are ready.
Eric: Okay so let's back up here for a second. What is augmented reality?
Brian: Yeah I I'll go kind of on the nerdy definition and pull it back a little bit but, by definition, it's an interactive experience where you can superimpose computer generated graphics in the physical world and you typically do that with a device that has a camera on it like a mobile phone or a wearable that you can put on your head, and it has an outbound camera and allows you to have that display in front of your face within view.
There's a lot of other types of information that you know I can go into that I won't for the sake of time, but in a nutshell that's it.
To pull back and go very basic.
It's basically faking holograms, so if you think about you know the idea of holograms they don't you know they're not real yet and maybe never will be, but people are always trying to find ways to make that feeling come to life and augmented reality is probably the best way to do that right now.
Eric: Yes that's actually pretty cool I think the first time I really thought about like augmented reality glasses or goggles or anything like that I think the first thing that my mind jumped to as kind of like a consumer was Google Glass and I think it's important to know that Google glass kind of falls into that emerging tech space, but it’s really not “AR” glasses per se.
I mean they call it AR technically because it's Assisted Reality, it's not augmented reality, and you're actually looking at basically, it's kind of a forced perspective where if you've got a little screen at the right side of your right eye and it's showing you things on the screen.
I think the initial one was like weather and showing photos and videos and that type of stuff.
Brian: Yeah like even the whole idea of remote expert.
That came into play with Google Glass where you could do like a Skype call and see the person you're talking to right there in view, and I think of heads up display.
You know that's typically what I commonly think of when I think of Google Glass or a lot of these you know and there's nothing wrong with that.
There's good use cases for a heads up display experience, but really when we’re talking about ‘if they're ready’, meaning the hardware, I really like to talk about augmented reality where the computer generated graphics are in the physical world.
And so, I do think in that Microsoft HoloLens probably is the front runner inside this side of it. I honestly don't feel that they are ready for scale.
I do think they're usable. I can tell you this if you never tried it, you put it on, and it is a really amazing experience the way it tracks the environment understand objects inside the environment.
I mean it's unbelievable. But there's some issues with it. And they know that, they're working on it, that's why it's new and it's constantly being updated, it's evolving, all these different things.
One of the biggest issues is the field of view. The first one that came out had like a thirty-five-degree field of view.
You see these things online where you see all these amazing objects around you, in your environment, and it looks really cool. The problem is when you're seeing it from the first person perspective you're only getting tiny little objects in view at each time just because that field of view is so small.
It's not an exact comparison but if you've ever looked at a heads up display in your car where you can easily shift your head around and you lose sight of your speed or navigation that's very similar to what you experience when you're in a HoloLens.
Eric: Yeah it's kind of like when you put your thumb and your index finger together, and put both hands together and extend it out in front of you like a picture.
It’s kind of like the sensation you get, it’s this little box that you're looking through in the HoloLens. I think the first HoloLens actually came out early 2016 when the first HoloLens came out.
They just came out with the second version of the HoloLens that expanded that field of view to around fifty two degrees, measured diagonally.
So they’ve increased it, and obviously there's a ways to go before they get to a point where that's really beneficial, but the application side you know going back to ‘are they ready’…
Everybody's focusing on enterprise. It’s interesting because AR is almost doing the reverse of VR, where VR started as a consumer facing product and now is evolving into more of the B2B space, and AR is almost the exact opposite. There's really not a great example of consumer facing application for AR (wearables) yet.
Brian: Yeah I mean with wearables for sure. There are some augmented reality games you can play, that I think they can be fun.
You don't commit a lot of time to them, they fade out, they’re kind of gimmicky sometimes, but I’ve tried a game in the HoloLens and I can tell you it is absolutely not for consumers, not yet anyway.
I think when they get that field of view all the way up, the battery life is up, and the price point comes down, and they start creating games that are actually interacting with your physical world because it understands walls and doors and all these things.
Maybe it's ready for consumers and that's why they’re focused on enterprise, you can find some amazing use cases that people are using for the HoloLens where you're in a facility, and you need to get step by step instructions, and you can really do that inside the HoloLens is very effectively.
Now when you do that you still have to concern with battery life, the price point is like thirty five hundred dollars so getting that to a bunch of people is going to be challenging.
The big issue is price point, the battery life, the field of view all of these play major factors and why I personally don't think something like a true augmented reality wearable is ready.
But if you're opening your mind to them you say you know what, what makes it so special in the work force?
Well, that's obvious, you’re hands free. You now don't have to have a tablet or clipboard in your hand so that's the major benefit so if you're saying I want to find a way to augment the workforce and have them hands free then you need to look at a wearable and it is usable. The other one that you can always explore is something like Realwear.
Maybe going full augmented reality where we're superimposing these computer graphics in the physical world is too much so with something like Realwear you have the ability to basically have a tablet screen next to your face.
This arm comes down, you have the display right there, it has amazing voice recognition, can handle loud environments extremely well you can remote expert, and you can get all your documentation similar to what you do in the HoloLens but it doesn't have the ability to put it in the physical world which is okay.
It also clips onto a hard hat, for example there's intrinsically safe options, a lot of value there. And that allows you to also be hands free, similar to what you would get in and something like the HoloLens.
ODG has a bunch of AR wearables as well, there's so many that are coming out, and it seems like every week there’s a new one that is that is being released or being updated and it's really interesting to see this battle happen.
Eric: Yeah, the things we've talked about so far, really kind of the challenges AR, and where the technology is at today and you mention the intrinsically safe then obviously cost.
Making a device that is intrinsically safe is actually much more expensive and I was doing some research, and HoloLens 2 actually has the ability to have an intrinsically safe option.
It's a with a company called Trimble, XR10 is the model, and it’s with the HoloLens 2, and that is $4,950 for that headset and does the same thing where it's like Realwear where it clips to the hard hat and it's kind of a part of that technology, which is actually pretty cool.
Obviously you're gonna pay for it cost wise, but it is out there. The Realwear intrinsically safe device, I was looking at on their website, and their price tag for that is $6,000.
So no matter where you're looking, for intrinsically safe, you're definitely paying a premium for it and there’s obviously a reason for that. But, even at the base level of these units right now, you're looking at upwards of $2,000 dollars.
Magic Leap’s One is $2,300, HMT-One from Realwear, it's $2,500. For the HoloLens 2 it’s $3,500…there's a lot of money that's going into this. It's not going to be a cheap option for any company to have the devices, A, and then B, have something to use the devices with: Some sort of program or indoctrinating it into their processes, there's gonna be excessive cost to get this up and running.
Brian: And and I think that actually is what would make me the most nervous as the business side. Not the tech side.
Let's say I find a great use case. And I see the efficiency increase, and the fact that it eliminates some user error, and all these different factors, then I think about the purchase price. And it's not just about the price that you're gonna buy it for now.
In about two years, three years, what's gonna come out? The HoloLens 3? You know the next thing. We have bigger field of view, better battery life, better processing power, all of that stuff comes into play so I think that actually answers the biggest question for me when I say “are they ready”, I think the tech side there's definitely some applications where I would say yes it's ready, in a limited level.
But the price point is high and to scale that in my company to know that I'm probably risking it being dated in two to three years, that is a the probably the biggest factor in my decision to say “I don't personally think they're ready” and that's why I would typically still look for something like a mobile first where I don't have to worry about scaling and hardware, I can add it into a mobile device, and then scale into the wearables man I think the hardware is officially ready with that field of view, battery life, all that satisfies what I'm looking for as a tech lead.
Eric: So those are a lot of the challenges I guess let's talk a little bit about strengths. What would be some of the strengths of the existing technology that we have today from your perspective.
Brian: Personally when I think about the technology and how it can be used, the ability to put on a device and it map my facility and provide information to me very quickly without me having to touch anything, I mean that's a massive strength.
And that doesn’t matter if I'm talking about Realwear or the HoloLens, but I can activate a facility, I can activate a piece of equipment, and I can do it without having to use my hands. If I'm doing an inspection on big equipment, I can look at the big equipment, the app knows that, puts all the overlays there that I need and I can effectively perform my job and it could have all the checks and balances to help eliminate any user error.
That's where that workflow piece comes in and that's a huge benefit. If I’m a technician, and I need to pull up any type of records or documentation about a piece of equipment, I can do that straight from the headset where it notices what I'm looking at.
Or if I have some type of gesture or voice, I can pull that information up very effectively. That's just making my job easier and making sure that I'm using the most up to date information as well.
Eric: A lot of the things we just talked about before also revolved around cost and you know how expensive this is to implements at any scale really.
I think one of the things is that the ROI is more readily apparent with this as well. So even though it may cost three to six thousand dollars for a piece of technology for one of your workers to wear, I mean, if you can actually build a business case around it where it’s increasing your productivity 30%, in instances it might make sense to bite the bullet on the technology, start getting used to it, indoctrinating your employees into the processes, and then as the new technology comes out you roll into the next stuff, but your scale of application and the ROI has to outweigh the costs.
Brian: There's two things that I'll chime in on. The hardware is one cost, but also the digital transformation process has to occur.
You have to make sure that you're either building out your workflow or utilizing something off the shelf that can help that.
A quick one that you can look at is remote expert. Microsoft has that for the HoloLens for example, and Realwear, it's available in their system to where instead of having people travel all over the world to solve a problem they can remote in and perform that duty.
But when you start getting into real workflow, like procedural and scenario-based workflow, that's where the cost goes up when you're talking about the software piece.
And that component, in managing that, and then scaling the team, and the company into that, but I really do think when you're thinking about the AR wearables to be honest, like, that field of view just kills me.
I know I keep going back to it, but like you did your whole example of your hands, that was a good example of how like the field of view is an issue, because the documentation the way you look at information, it's challenging it really is.
I did one example where I was looking at this this big console and it was like, think of it like a server cabinet, and I'm trying to perform this process but I can only have like twenty five percent of the server in view at any time.
So I'm constantly scanning this thing to try to find what I'm looking for and adjusting that field of view to my head to make sure it's ideal for what I'm doing.
Eric: I think that kind of wraps up the first part about the technology portion now let's kind of transition into the second portion is the “are we ready” for the technology and we kind of touched on a couple of these points so far.
And that it depends on, company size has a lot to do with it, being able to afford it, whether it makes sense in their companies workflow and how you work.
What do you think are we ready, are companies ready?
Brian: This is a this is actually a fun topic because I am absolutely not going to give you my opinion.
I want to actually get you thinking about your company verses me saying if I generally think everyone's ready because I really do think there are industries that are ready, meaning the people that are working in it and then there's different roles that people are performing and those roles, some may be ready and some not, and so the question you have to ask yourself is really all about adoption.
I mean you can put this thing in place, you can integrate in your company, and then you can hand it over to people and train them but the question is every day they come in will they pick it up and use it are they gonna go back to their old ways.
And those are questions you have to try to figure out, and then put a solution in place that overcomes that. And that's really key to this, I mean, if you're asking me “Hey I want to go implements the HoloLens on our oil rig and I want a bunch of roughnecks to put this thing on and use it, I’m probably gonna tell you that they're gonna laugh in your face and they're gonna put them in the truck and they're probably not going to use them.
If it's going to take someone out there, like, staring at them to get them to use, it you know, some may be set in their own ways, some are you know, “well I've done it this this way for so many years, I can think on my own I don't need a piece of equipment to tell me what to do” it might not work.
If you're looking at maybe a manufacturing company that works in tech, and you're looking to put it into your manufacturing process and it's a company that already has been forward thinking they've gone through the digital transformation process and done these things, the question is would those people be ready? Would they be willing to adopt it?
And I'll probably say yes, they would be and you can probably drastically improve the process of going into that because you have already been scaling. I think it's a matter of how big you’re jumping to determine if the company itself and the people inside the company ready for it.
Eric: Yeah that's a really smart answer, I’ve got a kind of dumb follow up question to that, so we talk about wearing these things during the work day and all that throughout different processes and such, but realistically do I want to wear a bulky headset for eight hours a day?
I mean I think that's kind of the other half of the question too, does help them with their job flow and make them more productive that's one part, but it kind of goes back to technology like are we there yet, like is AR comfortable enough to really apply at scale?
Brian: I don't think you'll ever wear the headset eight hours. Let's say tomorrow, or even a year from now or two years from now, no you wouldn't wear them for eight hours. I think it's a tool you would pick up and use when you need it.
If someone is going through a maintenance procedure on a piece of equipment, it's done yearly right or done every quarter then they would pick this up and they would use it to perform that process.
Again this is kind of why I always mention mobile-first because there's times where they can just pick up this tablet which they’re already either using, or they're doing it on a clipboard, so they’re holding something in their hand, and some of these procedures, or some of these checks and balances, like an inspection checklist can be done there.
But then there is the ‘okay we're stepping into a more dangerous process or something that really needs to be done perfectly, step by step, no cutting corners’ and so on, then would be used. Also the time it will be used is when “I've run into a problem, I'm a machinist and I can't figure out what's going on with this”.
I put the HoloLens on, I call in a remote expert, I walk them through my problem, we solve that problem together but remotely. And when I'm done with that process, I take it off. Battery life will never last eight hours for these right now right, they’re a couple hours if you're lucky.
So then you put it on the charging dock, it charges, and the next time someone needs it they're able to pull it off and use it. The use cases cannot be on a “I'm gonna put on the HoloLens and I'm gonna use it all day long, and I'm gonna use it to do my job”.
It can also be used for training, so entry-level person may use it more often but once they use it, and use it over and over again, we talked a lot about experiential learning in the last episode, they get used to that process and it's helping guide them, then eventually they don't even need it anymore.
Eric: I don’t want to like divert this from where we're going, it's kind of more of an aside, so Google Glass actually came out with an enterprise solution again.
I don’t know if you knew about that, so it was in the spring of 2019, they came out with Google Glass 2 for enterprise and it's basically the same thing. It's very similar to the first one, and I feel like Google Glass was kind of ahead of its time and they kind of asked like, ‘is Google glass really the best option for AR, and the guy that they're interviewing, it was some article I was reading, and he said well, it really just depends on the application.
They're all tools, some tools might be better than others for certain things, you've got a hammer you've got a screwdriver like they're different things so they whereas AR glasses like the HoloLens for instance, it really may not be as geared towards wearing it throughout the day, but I feel like Google Glass has applications were that would be helpful from an assisted reality side, we're having that heads-up display while you're working, specifically for like assembly processes or something like that.
I believe there is one, I think it was an airline company, and there were some use case where they were plugging wires into a certain schematic, and they had these heads up displays. I forget the technology they were using but they had, basically images where Google Glass would have that image right there, available for them as they're going through this reference.
Like, okay, wire A needs to go here, wire B needs to go here, so they’re following these schematics as they're just plugging these wires. That I feel like, I mean if that person's doing that entire day, they're gonna have to have these headsets on in some capacity for most of that. And I feel like Google Glass, they're designed if you haven't seen them, the designs basically same as it was, just basic lasses.
Brian: It's much easier to wear, they were light and easy. They were a little ahead of their time. I will tell you, I didn't know they did that that's good to know, but everyone's moving to enterprise and Google made the first mistake, like “oh these are gonna be like these consumer glasses”, and the consumers were like, “well I'm not gonna wear these”.
Magic Leap comes out and raises a gazillion dollars and then all of a sudden they announce, when they were very consumer facing, they announce they're turning to enterprise and I think these companies are realizing that the price point is more applicable to enterprise level companies, and the functionality can be used on a day to day basis.
And I think Google, doesn't surprise me, they had the technology in place, they might as well start turning their focus. But it's a sizable investment to do this and not just for the company, but these companies that are creating a hardware.
I mean the R&D that's going into these things is bonkers to think about. You know I think Magic Leap is making a shift to try to find that place and maybe it comes back to the consumer.
I think we're gonna see this is interesting thing like you mentioned with VR, but like most technology starts with consumer like mobile apps and it moves to businesses, but now we're seeing this this industry where you know with these AR wearables for example, they’re focusing on businesses and then up it'll eventually move to consumer.
Eric: Yeah one of the things I was reading yesterday they talked about that specifically. Kind of starting with consumers either identify whether consumers or the professionals was the way to go.
They said ‘while they're not targeting consumers right now, most companies in AR wearables have shifted focus to professional users at the moment.
Magic Leap is aiming at four categories, and here's our kind of big use cases: virtual communication and collaboration, 3D visualization, remote training assistance, and location based experiences.
So it goes to show that their top use cases are all professional use cases, they're not consumer based at this point time and I feel like that's a trend that's not going to be broken for some time until the technology really catches up to where you're not wearing this bulky headset, and you're wearing these every day like what you’d envision as like just a regular pair of glasses.
And the technology is built in but at the same time the battery life will last all day and it doesn't burn your temples because it gets so hot.
Brian: I think there's gonna be one company that breaks that mold early on and it's Apple. I think Apple's gonna release glasses, they’ve not announced it, but they’re kind of giving sneak peeks.
At least the ones that they’ve shown so far. It's gonna be tethered to your phone now and that's the key part they're saying, I don't think a standalone headset is capable because it has to be too bulky, it has low battery life, so I think the glasses are gonna be like your watch. It’s gonna go on your face but you have the ability to have navigation in front of you, all these really cool things like your music, and I really do think they're gonna start with consumer and I think that consumers will purchase because it's Apple and I think they're gonna be amazing.
When they don't go first to the market and they go into markets already there, they’re patient. They wait and they find the right thing to release to appeal to the masses and they are definitely a consumer based business.
You know, not completely but anyway, I'm excited to see those and I think those would be the only ones that are like over here to the consumer, of all these other ones that are focused on enterprise.
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