Recently, it has become increasingly common to hear about smart glasses. In this article, we will try to understand what they are, as well as how they can be applied in industry.
Smart glasses are wearable glasses that graphically display an information picture in addition to or instead of the surrounding world in which a person actually resides.
This technology allows you to increase productivity by eliminating the need for printed instructions. But this is not the only advantage of smart glasses. Next, we’ll look at their other advantages.
There are several different models of smart glasses on the market: Google Glass, Microsoft HoloLens, Vuzix and others. Although the introduction of smart glasses into the industry is still at an early stage, this technology is developing rapidly. Almost every month in the news you can see something about a new field of application of such glasses.
Smart glasses can be divided into several types depending on how they interact with the environment.:
Augmented Reality (AR) glasses. Additional virtual elements are superimposed on the image of the surrounding world. Typical examples are Google Glass and Vuzix glasses.
Mixed Reality Glasses (MR). Additional virtual elements are superimposed on the image of the surrounding world, while real and virtual elements can interact. Microsoft HoloLens glasses are an example.
Virtual Reality (VR). A fully virtual environment. A well–known example is Meta Quest glasses.
The most important thing about smart glasses is the features they provide to users. Let’s look at some of the application areas.
Maintenance and repair: showing instructions and functionality of the remote assistant.
Construction: an opportunity to compare a ready-made model of a building and the actual location of the building elements of a building or structure under construction.
Warehouse operations: quick search for necessary items.
Healthcare and medical training: up-to-date information about the patient’s current condition with the ability to consult in real time with a colleague or with artificial intelligence.
Advantages of smart glasses:
Increase labor productivity by providing operational information and instructions, including, in particular, current sensor readings and product assembly instructions.
Reducing the number of errors. Smart glasses can be equipped with cameras and various sensors for quality control, which allows you to detect errors in real time and immediately make corrections.
Hands-free interaction: Employees can view information and interact with the program using voice commands.
Remote interaction: Smart glasses provide a remote assistant function, allowing experts from anywhere in the world to make recommendations on complex issues.
Safety: smart glasses can quickly warn about dangerous phenomena with an indication of the escape route.
GRS has created a prototype augmented reality app for Google Glass glasses. The application allows you to follow step-by-step instructions, for example, to repair or configure equipment. Each step is accompanied by an illustration and a brief description. If necessary, the user can call a remote assistant and, using a video link, ask a question of interest, showing the location of the problem through the camera built into the glasses.
Most employees now confidently own modern devices such as smartphones and tablets. Smart glasses will be the next logical step to improve the productivity and accuracy of employees in enterprises. Although the implementation of this technology presents certain difficulties,
over time, smart glasses will become an integral part of the industry as convenient and effective tools for performing a wide variety of tasks.