Employees’ greater influence in technology adoption in the workplace could benefit the use of augmented and virtual reality in the enterprise market, reported Mojo Vision Thursday. The bring-your-own-device trend that began with widespread adoption of smartphones reflects a shift in employees’ roles in defining technology preferences in the workplace, it said: “Tech-savvy consumers inside the workplace, not corporate IT managers, hold the keys to accelerating enterprise adoption of major technologies.” Enterprises indicate AR/VR adoption is a matter of when, not if, based on company spending data. IDC predicts commercial sectors will account for 80 percent of AR/VR spending on products and services by 2022, though current usage is “far from ubiquitous,” said the report. Three-quarters of workers have never used AR/VR headsets or similar devices on the job, but 78 percent say they're open to using the technology if asked by their employers. Some 55 percent believe AR/VR headsets or similar devices will be as common as smartphones in the workplace within the next decade. Workers expect to use AR and VR technologies to help solve everyday challenges on the job, adhere to required procedures and provide access to information. For the technology to be adopted widely, issues such as user comfort, privacy and device distraction will need to be addressed, said the report, based on an online survey of 1,000 consumers in September.
Sony is sponsoring a virtual reality experience tied to the Dec. 13 release of Jumanji: The Next Level at its Sony Square showcase store in New York through Jan. 5. Guests will be able to experience Sonic Surf VR, which sets headphone-free multichannel soundscapes against virtual environments in desert, jungle and snow scenes, the company emailed. The exhibit, including an interactive running game, is played on a 26-foot Sony Crystal LED screen at Sony’s 25 Madison Ave. location.
Underwriters Labs is seeking industry participation on a “technical panel” to help draft a UL 8400 safety standard for augmented-, virtual- and mixed-reality devices, it said Monday. The standard will address “areas of key concern,” including neck strain, optical radiation, eye heat exposure and headset “motion-to-photon latency,” UL said. Developing UL 8400 “is concurrent with and in response to predicted AR/VR/MR market growth,” said UL. The combination of more affordable, compact devices, advances in 5G and Wi-Fi 6 technologies and skilled software developers “has made this area ripe for growth,” it said. Forecasts are that consumers will be using more than 100 million AR/VR/MR headsets and smart glasses by 2023, it said.
The BBC began experimenting with how future audiences might watch TV using new hologram-based augmented reality smartglasses, blogged Cyrus Saihan, head-digital partnerships. “With recent advances and heavy investment in smartglasses from well-funded companies, there is now a chance that these types of heads-up digital display experiences could go mainstream.” The smartglasses that the BBC tested “let us see into a possible future, one in which we might be watching TV, accessing the news and learning about new subjects in a far more immersive way than has ever been possible before,” said Saihan Thursday. “If smartglasses do take off, our digital world and our real-world could combine in a way that has never been possible before, potentially transforming the future of media.” Early results have been successful, he said. “When you put on the smartglasses and walked around, the digital objects felt so realistic that you wanted to reach out and touch them, believing that they are actually in the room with you. What made the experience even more realistic is that, as in the real-world, the closer that you get to a digital object, the more detail you could see on it.”
The lack of quality, non-gaming content is "inhibiting" virtual reality's "broader adoption,” reported Parks Associates Monday. With U.S. broadband household penetration stuck at 8 percent, consumer familiarity with VR technology remained flat at a quarter of broadband households from 2017 to 2018, with gamers most aware, said analyst Billy Nayden. Content quality is a challenge for VR headset owners, 55 percent of whom say content for their device has remained the same since they bought their headset; 3 percent said it has gotten worse. The main barriers for VR content development are cost, demand for interactivity and limits on content length, said Nayden. Mobile headsets are capable of playing most non-gaming content in VR but often can’t play premium games and have much lower Net Promoter Scores than other headset types. For gamers, PC-based and game console-based systems are the primary VR headset option, though stand-alone VR headsets are promoted as a cost saver, he noted. Fifteen percent of U.S. broadband households have tried VR; 28 percent of game console owners are familiar with VR headsets, Parks said.
Smart glasses maker Vuzix teamed with VSee Lab on telehealth technology for its M300XL and Blade smart glasses, it said Tuesday. VSee CEO Milton Chen called telemedicine video conferencing through smart glasses a “natural progression from tablets and computers” for its customers, and it plans to begin offering smart glasses for applications including remote training on imaging technology for CT scans and ultrasounds, telesurgery and augmented-reality-enhanced video visits. VSee’s video conferencing, used by more than 1,000 companies worldwide, is used on the International Space Station. Medicare is adding more telehealth benefits (see 1904080031).
Augmented reality has the potential to “shake up” the retail shopping experience, enabling customers to “visualize products in different settings,” said Gartner Monday. It estimates 100 million consumers globally will shop using AR online and in store by next year. “Retailers are under increasing pressure to explain the purpose of physical stores, and take control of the fulfillment and return process for cross-channel execution,” said Gartner. AR can have a “transformative” impact on the consumer retail experience, it said. “Retailers can use AR as an extension of the brand experience to engage customers in immersive environments and drive revenue.”
Worldwide shipments of augmented reality and virtual reality headsets are forecast to reach 8.9 million units this year, up 54.1 percent year on year, said IDC Thursday. New headsets from Oculus, HTC, Microsoft and others will help fuel growth in the category expected to ship 68.6 million units in 2023, but two-thirds of the AR/VR market growth will come from the commercial side. VR headsets will reach 36.7 million 2023, said IDC, with stand-alone models comprising 59 percent of shipments in 2023, tethered head-mounted displays at 37.4 percent and screenless viewers the remainder. AR headset shipments, reaching 31.9 million units in 2023, will be led by stand-alone units with 55.3 percent share, HMDs at 44.3 percent and screenless viewers at less than 1 percent. VR pioneers “have wisely moved to embrace commercial use cases for the technology as they wait for more consumer-centric experiences beyond gaming and video to materialize," said analyst Tom Mainelli. The AR side has largely been enterprise-focused, a trend that's expected to continue.
There’s “no question” that consumer demand for virtual- and augmented-reality products “has not developed” as fast as experts or Kopin expected, said CEO John Fan on a Q4 call Tuesday. Kopin, which supplies consumer AR and VR headsets and head-mounted displays for the U.S. military, expects the startup soon of BOE’s new "state-of-the-art" flexible-OLED fab in Chongqing, China, he said. With it will come “a substantial increase in the supply of low-cost displays,” which will be a “necessity” to “help stimulate” wide consumer adoption of AR and VR goods, he said. BOE has “teams of engineers that can turn a factory on very quickly,” said Fan. The building is finished and the fab equipment is installed, he said. BOE is doing test runs before making the plant operational, he said. With the market infusion of low-cost OLED displays that will result, “the world of AR/VR will be different” by 2019's second half, when Kopin expects to deliver such consumer headsets fashioned from the BOE materials, he said. “Everybody will be very surprised.”
Qualcomm touted its role in extended reality (XR), announcing Monday ecosystem support from OEMs, operators and platform providers for interactive augmented and virtual reality experiences connected to 5G smartphones using its Snapdragon 855 mobile platform. Benefits from 5G in XR include high data rates and low latency, it said. XR viewers can be optimized and commercially ready for the mobile industry this year, it said. The company will expand its HMD (head-mounted display) Accelerator Program (HAP) to include and help pre-validate components and performance between smartphones and XR viewers, it said. XR viewers will bring a point-of-sale bundling opportunity to OEMs and new experiences to customers as 5G uses emerge, Qualcomm said. Later this year, Qualcomm and its HAP collaborators plan to release a viewer performance and compatibility badge icon. It cited Acer’s Ojo HMD VR viewer with high-resolution displays and 6 degrees-of-freedom tracking and the nreal light AR glasses as designs with USB-C connectivity that can work with the platform. The nreal light AR glasses initially required a processing box tethered to a Snapdragon 845 processing box, it said. OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Black Shark are expected to have Snapdragon 855-based smartphones in 2019. The increased resolution, high bandwidth and streamlined form-factor of XR viewers connected to 5G handsets offer an “evolutionary step in immersive consumer devices,” said David Cole, CEO of immersive live sports and music provider NextVR.