This week in Next Reality, Tommy Palladino published an article about the merging of Scope AR’s two products, Remote AR and WorkLink. Here are some highlights from the article:
Enterprise augmented reality software maker Scope AR is bringing the
powers of its two productivity apps together like the Wonder Twins into
the form of a single app.
Rather than swap back and forth between the apps, users can now press a single button to access the functions. Having trouble understanding a job workflow? Call a colleague from within the app. Likewise, experts assisting frontline workers can refer them to instructions during a call.
Scope AR, the pioneer of enterprise-class augmented reality (AR) solutions, today at Augmented World Expo 2018 (AWE) announced the industry’s first AR platform that offers both real-time remote assistance and access to AR guided smart instructions simultaneously in one application. By combining the functionality of the company’s AR-based live support video calling application, Remote AR, with the company’s AR content creation platform, WorkLink, into one product, organizations can now experience an unprecedented level of support and collaboration.
“The ability for workers to connect in real-time with an expert to get the remote assistance they might need while also having access to rich, animated step-by-step AR instructions in one, unified interface truly has the potential to transform the way people work, while also saving companies valuable time, resources and significant costs,” said Scott Montgomerie, CEO and co-founder of Scope AR. “We are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in AR with products already in use by Fortune 500 companies. With our newly integrated platform, we are thrilled to address a common request we receive and offer our customers an even better AR experience.”
Users will now have immediate access to the best practices and expert knowledge they need to complete complex tasks in the field, shop floor or office. A demo video showcasing the power of the unified solution is available here.
Ron Miller of TechCrunch highlighted some key milestones for Scope AR in his recent article:
ScopeAR, a graduate of the Y Combinator Summer 2015 class, came to the augmented reality game very early, launching in 2011 when there was very little hardware and most people didn’t understand the technology. But it has managed to hang around long enough for the market and the hardware to finally catch with the founders’ vision of using AR as an advanced training tool in the enterprise.
New
executive hires and added support for RealWear’s AR wearable device
point toward continued innovation and success in the year ahead
San Francisco, CA – May 10, 2018 – Scope AR, the pioneer of enterprise-class augmented reality (AR) solutions, today announced a record-breaking year with revenues that nearly tripled and an employee headcount that nearly doubled in 2017. In a year that also saw the addition of several executive hires, industry-first product milestones and the formation of strategic partnerships, the company has set the pace for continued expansion and success in 2018.
“The
enterprise AR space is evolving quickly as businesses across all
industries are beginning to realize the tremendous potential AR has to
positively impact their bottom line,” said Scott Montgomerie, CEO and
co-founder of Scope AR. “Our recent company and product growth are a
reflection of the increasing priority AR is becoming within the
enterprise, and we look forward to continuing our delivery of solutions
that can not only be put to use immediately, but will evolve to support
the preferred hardware and platforms of the future.”
Demand for Enterprise AR Drives Company New Hires
In response to its significant company growth, Scope AR recently named Francisco Narganes as Vice President of Global Sales, Neil Lamoureux as Vice President of Engineering and Jason Prosnitz as Vice President of Product. Mr. Narganes is a seasoned technology sales executive with over 18 years of experience in go-to-market development, product and services. He has been tasked with leading the global sales team and growing the company’s worldwide revenue and customer base. Mr. Lamoureux brings several decades of management and engineering experience to his role, in which he will be responsible for overall product development and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the enterprise AR space. Mr. Prosnitz has a proven history of motivating teams and implementing effective product marketing strategies and will be responsible for ensuring the company’s entire product suite meets the evolving needs of global organizations.
Product Updates
Other
recent company milestones include the development of industry-first
product functionality and collaboration with other leaders in the space,
including Microsoft, Google, Wikitude, and most recently, RealWear, to
give enterprise companies the AR tools they need to more effectively
conduct complex remote tasks, employee training, product and equipment
assembly, maintenance and repair, field and customer support, and more.
Recent key product innovations and developments include:
Newly added support for RealWear’s HMT-1. With support for the AR wearable device, Remote AR users now have another hands-free option to choose from when needing to connect with an expert to walk through a repair procedure or troubleshoot a problem.
Support for ARCore, which brings real-time remote assistance to more than 100 million Android devices through use of the company’s Remote AR app.
The launch of Remote AR for Microsoft’s HoloLens, marking the first cross-platform live support video calling solution available for HoloLens.
Support for Apple’s ARKit, which enables any enterprise to implement the most advanced AR functionality within their workforce today using devices without AR-specific hardware.
The launch of WorkLink, Scope AR’s augmented reality content creation platform, on Microsoft’s HoloLens, giving users the ability to quickly and easily produce highly interactive mixed reality instruction and training content for deployment on HoloLens.
About Scope AR
Scope AR is the pioneer of enterprise-class augmented reality solutions, delivering AR tools for getting workers the knowledge they need, when they need it. The company is revolutionizing the way enterprises work and collaborate by offering AR tools that provide more effective and efficient knowledge sharing to conduct complex remote tasks, employee training, product and equipment assembly, maintenance and repair, field and customer support, and more. The company’s device agnostic technology supports smartphones, tablets and wearables, making it easy for leading organizations such as Boeing, Toyota, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Assa Abloy, GE and others to quickly scale their use of AR to any remote worker. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in San Francisco with offices in Edmonton, Canada.
Venture Beat released an article this week on how Remote AR now
supports ARCore, with contributions from Scope AR’s Scott Montgomerie.
Here are some highlights:
Know your security needs
Today’s AR solutions are sophisticated enough to meet
existing security protocols, it’s a matter of finding an AR partner that
values your security needs as much as you do in order to navigate
emerging needs together.
This is a whole new industry; there are no workplace
standards or certifications for AR yet. It’s up to chief information
officers to make sure the technology they’re implementing has the proper
vetting. Many Fortune 500 companies are already blazing this trail with
the support of AR technology providers who have also made security a
priority.
Be device-agnostic
The important thing to remember is that today’s entry-level
AR solutions won’t necessarily be what your business needs tomorrow.
There will come a day when the cost of AR-specific hardware comes into a
range where the benefits of upgrading outweigh the cost.
To future-proof your AR integration, be sure to choose a
development partner who can create content for you that someone can
adapt to any platform — both the preferred ones of today as well as
those of the future.
Keep it simple, scalable
No single member of your team is going to be an expert on
everything. By utilizing tools that allow anyone to be a creator, you’ll
be able to refine, implement, and deploy best practices as processes
change and new elements are introduced. If a single change in your
process requires an invoice and a timeline to your AR partner, it’s time
to think about switching to a content-first strategy.
Understand workforce perception
There is a growing concern among today’s workforce that new
technologies are going to lead to unfathomable job loss. “If AR can
lead to a 30 percent improvement in job efficiency,” they may ask, “will
it lead to a 30 percent reduction in staff?”
For the adoption of AR to be successful, it’s imperative that you breach the workplace culture barrier to communicate the value that AR brings to the business and the team. Efficiency doesn’t inherently mean fewer workers; it can also mean fewer mistakes. Everybody benefits from a better and safer job.
Kevin Carbotte from Tom’s Hardware released an article this week on how Remote AR now supports ARCore. Here are some highlights:
Scope AR continues to improve the Remote AR augmented reality technical assistance platform. The company today announced that it adopted Google ARCore 1.0 to extend the capabilities of Remote AR to a much wider range of devices, which means enterprise customers can now use Scope AR’s advanced tech support tools without deploying specialized hardware.
Scope AR’s Remote AR application is a handy tool for live, on-site
technical assistance. With a connected device such as a tablet,
smartphone, smartglasses, or AR headset, service technicians can start a
live video chat with an off-site expert who can then guide them through
unfamiliar procedures or troubleshoot problems. Remote experts can also
draw and add 3D content in real-time to give technicians more context
to make educated repairs.
Remote AR is now almost completely platform agnostic. The software runs on Android and iOS devices, still supports Tango devices, and runs on Windows Surface devices. Scope AR also introduced support for Microsoft HoloLens and ODG’s R7 Smartglasses.
Montgomerie said he is also keeping a close eye on Magic Leap, but he
doesn’t expect enterprise customers to adopt the Magic Leap One headset.
The ARCore-enabled version of Remote AR is available today, and all existing license holders should have access automatically.
Kyt Dotson from SiliconANGLE released an article this week on how Remote AR now supports ARCore. Here are some highlights:
Enterprise-class augmented reality company Scope AR today announced
the integration of Google Inc.’s ARCore into its remote support video
calling application Remote AR. This integration of ARCore extends Remote
AR capabilities on newer Android devices and follows the integration of
Apple Inc.’s ARKit for greater iOS device support.
Scope AR worked hand-in-hand with Google to build Remote AR app so
that it will be compatible with all ARCore-enabled devices, which
includes over 100 million Android smartphones.
The Remote AR app allows a remote helper to assist someone else in
the field who has a mobile device with a camera and a screen. Normally
this will be a smartphone the user probably already has. The onsite
technician can point the device at what needs to be discussed and the
app allows the support expert to draw on the screen while speaking in
order to provide animations and graphics that will appear to be attached
to objects in the world.
This is an empowering effect of augmented reality for connecting
support and field workers. Someone in the field essentially can give a
“window” into a remote workspace, the remote car garage, that gives the
support expert a much better idea of what is being looked at and also
allows more accurate communication.
Scope AR announced this week that ARCore (an Android software
development kit available for bringing a whole new level of AR
capability to supported devices) will be supported by Remote AR.
The company worked in collaboration with Google to build its Remote AR application for all ARCore-compatible devices, which includes over 100 million Android smartphones. With newly added support for ARCore, Remote AR is one of the most platform agnostic AR tools on the market available for use on Android, iOS and Windows devices simultaneously, as well as select smartglasses and wearables, allowing organizations to easily experience the benefits of AR by using their device of choice.
By using one of the many ARCore – supported devices, Remote AR users can immediately take advantage of the sophisticated new capabilities the platform enables including enhanced motion tracking, environmental understanding and light estimation. For example, during a live support video call within the Remote AR app, users can now annotate and add 3D content to a much larger workspace than previously available on the standard Android platform.
Remote AR delivers the ability to save time and money, as well as improve knowledge transfer and retention by combining AR with live video streaming, voice, 3D animation, screen sharing, whiteboarding and world-locked annotations. Doing so simulates the effectiveness of having an expert on-site guiding a worker step-by-step on what to do.
In 2017, we saw a turning point for
augmented reality (AR). Gone are the days where AR was simply a
buzzworthy topic following on the heels of virtual reality (VR). In
fact, IDC forecast AR and VR revenues will likely total $9.1 billion this year. Additionally, the firm expects AR/VR sales to increase nearly 95
percent in 2018 to reach $17.8 billion. The majority of that spending
is expected to be done by businesses. According to an IDC press release,
“The commercial sectors will represent more than 60 percent of AR/VR
spending in 2018 and grow to more than 85 percent of the worldwide total
in 2021.”
It’s clear enterprise companies are now seeing the real value in AR and seizing opportunities to leverage its capabilities to more easily share knowledge across their organizations. This got us thinking about the year ahead and what’s really driving the proliferation of augmented reality. Here are the top three trends we see driving the AR industry in 2018:
1. New industries adopting full-scale AR
As equipment becomes more complicated,
technicians may not have the knowledge or resources to fix problems in a
timely manner, and those with the expertise are often hours or days
away. This leaves an enormous gap in expertise. Organizations are
looking to find a way to put their expert knowledge where they
need it, when they need it. Existing communication tools and workflows
aren’t cutting it in today’s modern workplace, The good news? AR has the
potential to be the answer. While the industry is seeing some benefit
from things like video calling and tablets loaded with PDFs, these gains
pale in significance next to the potential of AR.
In industries such as utilities, telecoms and manufacturing, where enterprise organizations have a large, distributed workforce of remote workers, the value of AR is already being realized. Being able to scale organizational expertise through remote support is key in an industry where veteran workers are reaching retirement age. With augmented reality, non-technical workers can create highly interactive instructions, training materials or service and support documentation, streamlining the process for new and existing employees. We are also starting to see industries like healthcare and education leverage these capabilities. There are already healthcare companies, for instance, building AR tools that can be used in the operating room for surgical training. Teachers, on the other hand, can use augmented reality to create more immersive and collaborative learning experiences in the classroom.
2. AR will increasingly become more present in consumers’ daily lives
Pokemon Go received a lot of
buzz in the media and it drew a lot of attention from technology
leaders, but it all seemed to be a flash in the pan. In 2018, we will
see enterprise companies build on that momentum and increased consumer
interest in leveraging AR to make tasks in their daily lives easier. In
other words, we will see businesses of all shapes and sizes using AR in
order to create more valuable relationships with customers.
There’s more to AR than gaming or adding stormtroopers to live photos. SMBs, in particular, can leverage AR-based collaboration tools to explore the use of this technology with their customers. One excellent example of this is “see what I see” support. An auto repair shop, for instance, can leverage live video-calling solutions so a mechanic can walk a consumer through the repairs needed on the customer’s vehicle, drawing on the real-world view to highlight or circle the exact parts that are broken.
3. Augmented Reality will eclipse Virtual Reality
Most new technologies receive a
considerable amount of publicity when they are first introduced. VR was
hyped extensively until the industry saw poor headset sales and
investment interest dried up. Unlike VR, however, many tech industry
leaders – including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft – are
investing heavily in AR hardware, software and tools. Frameworks like
ARKit and ARCore have made it easier than ever to create meaningful
content.
With solutions like WorkLink, employees with no prior coding knowledge can develop simple, engaging instructions leveraging augmented reality – what we like to call “smart instructions.” Employees can use wearables such as HoloLens headsets or even their smartphones to view 3D computer generated imagery overlaid on top of the real world. Picture a construction worker who can repair a piece of machinery by simply holding up his phone and seeing step-by-step instructions. Interactive instructions like these have the power to make enterprise workforces more efficient than ever.
So what’s next in 2018?
AR has already shown tremendous value in terms of enterprise use-cases. Enterprise organizations will be looking for solutions that are future-proofed and designed to work with their existing systems. Companies that invest early in an AR strategy will be able to better serve their customers and stay ahead of their competition.
What other trends will drive augmented reality in 2018?
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