Wearable technology meets augmented reality in the form of smart glasses, the highest-profile example of which is Google Glass. Google’s solution quickly became synonymous with smart glasses, just as iPod became a synonym for MP3 player. But while Google has now shuttered its Glass program in its current form, there are a variety of smart glasses options proliferating. While Google’s Glasses were not widely popular with a consumer audience, smart glasses are now being used in a targeted manner in several industries to enhance productivity and efficiency.
Smart glasses are basically an Internet-connected computer you wear on your face. Some use traditional buttons and other physical interfaces, while some rely upon hand motions, voice commands and other more futuristic ways of interacting. Smart glasses feature augmented reality displays that provide information about your surroundings as you look through them.
A pair of smart glasses by itself isn’t necessarily going to do a whole lot for you or your business. What all smart glasses need to be useful – no matter who makes them, are the right applications. Once manufacturers realized this, they quickly started making smart glasses pre-loaded with industry-specific apps. Six15, who started off making smart headgear for the military, was one of the first companies to move into making smart glasses specifically designed to enhance workplace productivity and efficiency.
Their results were impressive. In initial trials, smart glasses helped increase warehouse productivity by 20 percent. Not only could smart glasses replace traditional paper pickup lists, they also helped warehouse workers see better in dim conditions. For warehouse workers, typically a significant portion of the day is spent hunting around for the right object to pack. Smart glasses know right where the right object is, so employees spent minimal time hunting.
The oil and gas industry is especially interested in smart glasses in the workplace: it’s looking at $1 billion in savings by 2017 from smart glass utilization. This industry’s applications apply to others too. Mechanics for example, can diagnose problems more accurately and get them fixed faster with help from smart glasses.
A warehouse shares something with the energy industry when it comes to smart glass usage: on the job training. In a warehouse, pickers could arguably be as productive in their first week as they would be after a year with the help of smart glasses. Gas and oil maintenance workers can get on-the-job training greatly enhanced by the reservoir of knowledge available right before their eyes.
Smart glasses are starting to revolutionize the way America does healthcare too. Imagine a world where a doctor can know your heart rate just by looking at you. In 2015, doctors don’t even need to pull out a tablet device to see what medications a patient is allergic to. All they have to do is look at you and the information is available with a few simple hand motions. Doctors will be able to look at a person’s vitals right in front of them, hands free, even in the middle of surgery. X-rays can be laid right alongside a patient. They can even record surgeries to educate future doctors.
It’s a bold new world in manufacturing, energy, warehousing and health care thanks to these innovative new devices. By removing the need to hold another mobile device and operate it with your hands, productivity is making a bold leap into the future.
