How mixed reality will change the way we do business
Mixed reality holds great potential for cost savings and productivity rewards. Find out what the technology does and how you can approach it.
Mixed Reality
Industry insights
Technology
What is mixed reality?
Nowadays, almost everyone knows what virtual reality is. And most people are aware of augmented reality. But while it will revolutionize the business world at least as much, mixed reality is not yet as widely known as the two other ‘realities’.
Let us begin there: What is mixed reality or MR? MR can be seen as an extension of AR. Where AR places computer-generated content in our physical reality, MR lets us interact with that virtual content. For AR, a phone or a tablet is the medium through which you experience the content. MR, you experience through a pair of holographic glasses such as Microsoft’s HoloLens.
An effective business tool
In the first phases of virtual technologies, they were sold to us as entertainment tools. But as the technology has matured and the business world has opened its eyes to it, it has become clear that the technology will have a heavy impact on the way we do business. It goes for VR, it goes for AR, and it definitely also goes for MR.
MR enables remote collaboration of a quality and to level of detail that we have not previously been able to imagine. Let us look at two concrete examples.
Through Microsoft HoloLens, companies can use the app Tutorio to share instructions they place virtually in the physical world. In a production facility, this means that employees can be moved around and perform different tasks as needed without requiring longer education or training. Instead, the employee goes directly to the work station, puts on a pair of HoloLens and follows directions in text, images or video. Through the glasses, the employee is guided through the exact concrete buttons and places on the machine on which he or she must perform an action. Instructions are quick and easy to set up. Therefore, Tutorio is the ideal tool for ensuring that tasks are performed correctly, even when processes and procedures often change.
Value in virtual participation
Another example is live remote collaboration. Using HoloLens, industrial companies producing machines and plants can perform factory acceptance tests (FATs) during which they test and agree on adjustments with their customers across long distances. The technology works as a communication tool through Microsoft Teams, which runs directly in the glasses. Through the camera, the customer can be present without traveling to the site. And customer representatives can participate in exactly the part of the FAT that they are experts on to then leave the meeting when the run-through moves on to another topic. That way, the right resources are spent exactly where they generate the most value.
Through the MR technology, both the employee wearing the glasses, and the customer and other meeting participants can mark and draw on physical objects while discussing them. If there are more than a few people present, the technology ensures an optimal view for everyone, where most participants would have a limited view in a physical run-through.
The examples are just two out of many use scenarios for MR. Using the technology, there is money to save and efficiency to gain across industries, functions and distances.
