Assisted-reality headsets, from device manufacturers such as RealWear, are successfully used to facilitate remote expert assistance within industries including oil and gas, mining, and manufacturing. Perth fire protection business Chekfire trialed AR’s ability to enable real-time collaboration between multiple on-site technicians conducting fire systems inspections.
The emerging role of assisted-reality in industry
Facilitating remote expert assistance has become the primary business use case for assisted-reality headsets like RealWear’s current Navigator 500 series devices in industry.
This solution typically involves an on-site maintenance technician initiating a video conference call from a head-mounted tablet to a technical expert in a remote location. On the call, they can ask for guidance on how to carry out a technical work task, share visual evidence of an inspection, or lodge a support query.
Without using AR headsets, the standard method for a maintenance technician to share what they see with remotely located experts is to pull out a mobile phone or tablet, take a photo and send it via text or email. For real-time discussions, a video call can be made using a platform such as Microsoft Teams, facing the phone to the point of interest.
This can be awkward when the technician needs their hands on tools or support rails, and impossible if smartphones are not approved for on-site use.
The evolution of head-mounted tablets
In recent years, a number of companies have released innovative new devices to market that essentially rearranged the form factor of Android tablets to mount a camera from the user’s head to provide a fixed point-of-view (PoV), and positioned the display screen directly under the wearer’s eye.
However, this only partly solved the problem. Although the new head-mounted tablets enabled handsfree video collaboration, the harsh environments common to industrial worksites involving extreme temperatures, loud ambient noise, dust, low internet bandwidth, and even intrinsically safe requirements rendered many first-generation consumer-focused AR headsets unusable.
The rugged device engineered by RealWear solved these issues and finally provided a viable hands-free video conferencing solution for industrial use.
The integration of video conferencing software
Although reformed for a head-mounted orientation, a RealWear headset is fundamentally an Android tablet and, as such, can take photos, capture video and open files. Video conferencing still requires software.
Seeing the emerging opportunity for industrial communications, the major application providers, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom and TeamViewer, adapted their user interface functions to enable triggering with Realwear’s proprietary voice command system—and rugged, handsfree video conferencing was made possible.
Aside from the big vendors, an increasing number of application developers have continued to release new tools and utilities on the RealWear app store.
The challenges of in-field video collaboration
With remote expert assistance now possible and convenient using AR headsets, what if the expert who the technician wishes to consult is also in the field? Furthermore, what if these two technicians want to simultaneously share video information hands-free in real-time?
This technical requirement surfaced in the case of Perth fire services company Chekfire.
As one of its core services, Chekfire carries out routine inspections of fire protection systems at its clients’ facilities. These systems include hydrants, hose reels, sprinkler systems, pumps, tanks, and alarm control panels connected via circuits to a large number of initiating sensors installed across a facility.
This work requires the visual inspection of physical equipment and fire alarm testing to be carried out in person on client sites. The testing procedures are unique to the client’s custom installation and control system model. They require years of experience to work efficiently across a broad range of fire systems, as there is no universal industry standard.
In practice, two technicians are required to move across a large site facility, possibly with multiple floors, communicating with each other either via two-way radios or mobile phones to verbally coordinate the manual testing and confirmation process.
However, understanding the unique requirements of custom systems often requires visual references to be shared between the technicians in real-time.
This involves texting images to each other during a phone call or trying to initiate a video call using whatever software is available. This almost always results in the technicians wedging phones under their ears, putting down tools and awkwardly holding out phone cameras.
This is why RealWear hands-free AR headsets were sourced by Chekfire for a proof-of-concept technical trial.
Live trial of the assisted-reality headsets
During the test, calls using Microsoft Teams were made with Navigator 500 devices between the fire systems technicians, who required very little time to feel comfortable with the headsets.
The small screen placed under the wearer’s dominant eye is experienced as a 7-inch display. This has since increased to 11-inches with the recently released Navigator 520 model.
The Chekfire technicians were able to talk hands-free whilst simultaneously seeing what the other was looking at. So instructions like, “Hold down the red button on the bottom left for 3 seconds,” became clear and easy to communicate.
A successful PoC leading to evaluating the business value
With the proof-of-concept successfully demonstrated, will Chekfire roll out the device technology?
Post-trial, discussion quickly progressed to questions of headset price per technician, maintenance requirements, product warranties, accessories, and battery life—all typical of analysing the cost-benefit of a commercial RealWear deployment.
With its mature industry-tested solution, the experience of technology integrators reveals that RealWear trials quickly move past PoC and then move on to a discussion of total cost versus total value or partial rollouts for proof-of-value confirmation.
The efficiency gains or improved safety outcomes need to be both significant and valued within an organisation in order to push through the challenges of the required culture change for front-end workers.
Further business value however, can be derived from AR headsets by implementing other use cases, such as in-field work instruction, digital checklists and paperless inspection forms.
The future of digital integration in fire safety
This is where deliberations currently sit for Chekfire. Can digital forms be completed that satisfy the compliance needs required by the highly regulated fire safety codes?
Many inspection forms today still require a wet signature. However, this is changing across industry, and digital work tools such as PoV head-mounted tablets are likely to experience more seamless adoption.
