New Augmented Reality Technology Announced
During the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Flex introduced its new Augmented Reality Reference Design for the next generation of smart glasses. The product is designed to reduce the time to market for companies making AR devices for enterprise and consumer applications.
Basically, companies working within AR and building their own AR products can speed up the process by using the Flex AR reference design rather than develop their own AR device to work with. Essentially, it skips that step and allows employees to go right to design. It saves product development costs and can scale manufacturing.
The Flex AR reference design includes a head-mounted display (HMD), and external processing unit (EPU) and a gesture-based software platform to manage interaction.
“Augmented reality holds tremendous promise for companies of all sizes,” said Mike Dennison, president of the Consumer Technologies Group at Flex. “Until now, AR innovators have been challenged by the high costs and cross-disciplinary expertise required to design and build robust solutions. The new Flex AR reference design solves these challenges with a customizable hardware and software platform that innovators can build upon to quickly make an impact in this exciting field.”
The announcement couldn’t come at a better time.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) says total spending on augmented reality and virtual reality products will go from $11.4 billion in 2017 to $215 billion in 2021.
“AR headset shipments today are a fraction of where we expect them to be in the next five years, both in terms of volume and functionality,” said Jitesh Ubrani senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers told Business Wire. “AR headsets are also on track to account for over $30 billion in revenue by 2021, almost twice that of VR, as most of the AR headsets will carry much higher average selling prices with earlier adopters being the commercial segment. Meanwhile, most consumers will experience AR on mobile devices, although it’s only a matter of time before Apple’s ARKit- and Google’s ARCore-enabled apps make their way into consumer grade headsets.”
“The fastest-growing area within the AR market is for HMDs in industrial applications, particularly in the fields of healthcare, logistics, manufacturing and other industries that deploy field technicians. AR innovation in these areas can help surgeons perform complex procedures with remote assistance, warehouse workers fulfill orders faster, and field technicians conduct remote repairs.
