By Vanessa Radd, VRARA Singapore Chapter President
AI and technology taking over human jobs?
Not quite. Put on DAQRI’s Smart Helmet and you will see why. It allows you to be an ‘Augmented Human’ worker. Targeting businesses rather than consumers, the wearable seeks to help boost employees’ productivity at work, by helping companies improve their workflows as well as troubleshooting on the factory floor or at construction sites — making for a great return on investment.
DAQRI’s Smart Helmet comes with a hard hat with safety goggles attached and is powered by Intel’s M7 chip and RealSense camera sensors.
Putting on the helmet, for so many human-tech capabilities it provides, I was surprised by how light and snug it was.
Its human-machine interface overlays schematics onto real objects and allows for pattern recognition, head tracking amongst others — very useful for workers who need to troubleshoot on the factory floor.
It also grants you ‘X-ray’-like vision to see through, and inside of the objects. Workers can be alerted to danger zones, ensuring their safety, and which pipe or factory equipment need attention.
The whole experience is very fluid and does not feel clunky or gimmicky at all. Though you would need some time to get used to the menu navigation, it only takes minimal time to get up to speed.
The plus point is that the helmet allows you to be hands-free. All you need is to follow the instructions as projected into your vision by your helmet and your ability to select next steps on your menu with your eye and head movement.
Switching to the next item on the menu, I was then able to view and participate in a simulation of an operation on a human hand. This operating room application is a great way to bring augmented reality into medical training.
I’d be keen to see how the Smart Helmet can be utilized by emergency responders and those in law enforcement.
Besides the Smart Helmet, I also got to try on DAQRI’s prototype enterprise smart glasses. Lightweight, it can be used in many industries such as automotive, aerospace and healthcare.
DAQRI’s Smart Helmet and AR glasses offer both useful on-the-job and real-life applications.
All I can say is, the future of work is pretty rad.
About the author
Twitter @vanradd Contact: vanessa (at) thevrara (dot) com
Vanessa Radd is ranked the global top 3 augmented reality influencer and is the founding member of the XR Alliance. The XR Alliance is a global alliance for tech professionals in VR/AR/XR. Its FORCE is in alliance-building and VR/AR}XR for Good @xrforce. Vanessa is also the President of the global VR AR Association Singapore chapter.
###The DAQRI helmet was showcased for the first time in Singapore at a private event organized by the XR Alliance and Protiotype with the VR AR Association and TNB Ventures. ###
Video of the making of DAQRI Smart Helmet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCAShzXhBCI
