RealWear and Lenovo recently announced a strategic collaboration adding RealWear’s offering to Lenovo's expansive ThinkReality platform.
“To fulfill the ThinkReality vision of making it easier than ever to build, deploy, and manage enterprise XR solutions at scale, Lenovo is collaborating with a growing ecosystem of hardware and software solution providers,” says Jon Pershke, vice president of strategy and emerging business development, Lenovo Intelligent Devices Group, in a statement. “The addition of RealWear’s field-proven monocular device on the ThinkReality platform means we’ll be able to support an even larger and growing number of enterprise customers as they equip industrial frontline workers with cutting-edge XR technology that improves workplace safety and drive unprecedented ROI.”
A cloud and device-agnostic solution for enterprise deployments, ThinkReality provides enterprises with advanced development and management tools, including a software development kit, content and device management services, enterprise integration, a developer portal, and ready-to-use microservices. As part of its platform, Lenovo provides a global end-to-end service program supporting the entire scope of certified hardware, software, and services throughout a solution’s lifecycle. As such, there's a high level of scrutiny when adding a partner ensuring devices and software are secure and a solid fit, Nathan Pettyjohn, commercial AR/VR lead with Lenovo Intelligent Devices Group, tells IndustryWeek.
"RealWear fills a gap in Lenovo's offering with its monocular AR device. It's a proven all-in-one device companies can use for a completely hands-free experience. RealWear also has software that has become the gold standard in the industry for voice control applications, empowering assisted reality environments," says Pettyjohn. "What they've done across 14 different languages is enable Android-based applications to use voice for almost any clickable element inside of the application."
The RealWear HMT-1 monocular device is a ruggedized head-mounted intelligent wearable giving industrial workers real-time access to information and expertise while keeping their hands and field of view free for work. The RealWear device allows workers to use voice-controlled commands—even in high noise environments—to collaborate with remote experts or navigate through complex workflows to reduce procedural errors. RealWear is fully compatible with worker personal protective equipment (PPE), purpose-built for industry and enterprise, and features the category’s only ‘full shift’ hot-swappable battery.
Being ready for completely hands-free voice control means no scrolling, swiping, hand gestures or tapping—just simple voice commands. The HMT-1 can be used for remote mentor video calling, document navigation, guided workflow, mobile forms, and industrial IoT data visualization. The device boasts more than 200 voice-controlled apps for hundreds of industrial use cases. "For instance, in semi-hazardous work environments in the field, where there's assembly, repair or maintenance on equipment where a user needs to have a completely hands-free environment. With RealWear, users can safely pull up blueprints and schematics helping them make a repair," says Pettyjohn. "The RealWear devices are the only certified intrinsically safe devices in the market."
RealWear also has a unique ability on their platform to where it is possible to run applications and cache information a field worker needs. “This is crucial in remote environments where even cellular connectivity doesn't work,” says Pettyjohn. “In addition, it can cache all of the compliance data and information through a workflow, and once it's backlogged onto a WiFi network, all the cached information is captured.”
“There are a number of users who for safety reasons or for situation awareness reasons or for specific application reasons we like to use an assisted reality solution to this solution,” Ken Lustig, cofounder of RealWear, tells IndustryWeek. "We are very excited about the Holo-One application suite that has been optimized for the HMT-1 to work in a 2D environment—and where it goes from there," he says. "I imagine they'll be a plethora of applications made available."
