In case you wonder, XR is a term for X {A,V,M, or any other reality you can think of} Reality. In other words we look at the AR / VR market in Europe.
First of all, (XR) Intelligence is organizing the XR Europe 2020 expo next year on April 28-29 in London, UK. The event aims at senior level executives (with over 60% C-level and VP/Director level participating in 2019). There is a conference section with over 70 speakers and a small exhibition with 20+ companies showing what they have to offer. In case you are interested, you can find more information and sign up on their website.
XE Europe 2020
As a precursor they organized a webinar ‘Making the business case for XR and understanding its benefits’ this week covering certain aspects of XR, and some of the speakers are already mentioned as speakers for the XR Europe 2020. In general they addressed the current status of XR from their perspective and gave a short outlook. Speakers on the webinar were Mark Sage, Executive Director at AREA (AR for Enterprise Alliance), Brian Waterfield, Digital Manufacturing Manager at Jaguar Land Rover, Para Shah, Head of Health, Safety and Sustainability at Vodafone, and Joe Williams, Immersive Lead at LADbible Group. In case you want to listen to the full hour webinar you can find it on YouTube.
Mark Sage is from the AREA, a nonprofit organization that focuses on all things XR. The most successful applications in the XR space today evolve around remote systems, step by step guidance and real time compliance. Remote systems are not only useful for far away interactions to avoid travel, but also in larger facilities to minimize down time while waiting for a specialist. Step by step guidance covers learning as well as training, while remote compliance addresses needs for certifying that certain activities took place.
AREA also developed an AR – ROI calculator for its members to make the business case for AR more transparent. It is very important to have a good grip on what the cost for a certain activity is before you start any AR usage as a potential cost savings method. Most overlooked are intangible aspects of the AR installation, a part that is difficult to measure. One of the biggest challenges is the buy-in from senior management that has to understand that AR requires a change in mindset and not just the installation of new technology. Other issues are the integration into existing platforms and the quality of existing AR devices. Handheld devices are limited in usability and wearables are at this point not good enough.
They see the AR technology developing very fast and the chance that AR is transforming many industries in the future. While the future may be bright they also acknowledge that we are not quite there yet.
Paras Shah from Vodafone reported on the usage of VR devices to train their personnel on safety procedures while working on transmission towers. This immersive training uses experiences from gaming to show people what it is like to climb a tower and perform work at good heights. It makes sure that if you make a mistake, the training session will let you know.
To develop such a learning tool he suggested working with a good professional developer that has experience with similar applications before training them on the actual aspect you want to be covered by the learning tool. After that, develop a small part of the tool and get the buy-in from senior management. After they had a small teaser app they had management use it and measured their heart rate while using a virtual ladder. On average the heart beat went up by 10 beats. That would count for good immersiveness, I guess.
His advice for anybody developing any kind of VR learning tool is to have a clear understanding of what the tool has to achieve and communicate this throughout the management.
Brian Waterfield from Jaguar Land Rover said that they have been using AR/VR for many years (13 to be exact!) and in their experience trying and AR-aided design id the clear winner for them. They found that improved comprehension and retention makes learning in AR/VR successful for them. In design, making no physical parts takes out manufacturing physical parts from the critical path leading to much shorter development times.
It is critical to involve the people who will be working with the tool later on. Getting their support early on helps with the implementation later on. It is also important to have all the data needed for the XR system in a format the XR system can understand. Most of the implementations today use handheld devices because wearables are not ready yet. They do however expect a big difference in the usability of AR with good wearable devices.
Going forward he sees that industry understands that XR is important, but they do not know what to do with it. There are also limitations with existing technology platforms that need to be understood. The future will also need to address the the human aspect of this new technology making it more relatable for the users.
Joe Williams from LADbible (they are a publisher on social media platforms) is looking at XR as a new platform to expand their overall reach. They are looking at consumer-facing applications as well as B2B solutions that fit their business model.
They see good potential use for XR in marketing as a selling tool with many ZR activities in this area already. They also see this as a interesting platform for getting more user data to develop better marketing metrics. This is based on the fact that many of these upcoming devices use eye tracking technologies and cameras that allow the assessment not only of the user’s attention but also the ‘wellness’ factor of the user.
He expects that AR has to mature from gimmick to useful tool for consumers before this becomes a real business for them.
Analyst Comment
Listening to all these perspectives, I got the impression that XR is already on its way to penetrate enterprises around the world. What most presenters admitted was that even with limited image quality, good content can make a big difference especially in training and learning. Other uses are being developed but many will take off only once the actual XR devices become more useful.
Carlings Latest Statement T-Shirt
Of course there are many other use cases for XR in Europe. Jjust think of Lego and Ikea to name just some big ones. As an interesting one, I want to also mention Carlings, a scandinavian apparel group that just announced the latest statement T-shirt on their website. As a matter of fact, this is a white T-shirt with a logo. Looking at it on your phone (I doubt that many people are walking around with their AR glasses) will reveal the users latest statement. It will be interesting to see who buys into this concept. That would be augmented fashion so to speak.
If this would be a race between hardware and software developers one could say that the software guys are way upfront in the moment. – NH
