VR and AR Continue Slow Climb into AV
While AV-over-IP seems to have finally become an accepted standard in the integration community, it’s been a slower climb for virtual reality and augmented reality, which are still struggling to prove their worth for integrators and end users beyond gaming applications.
At InfoComm, Freeman and Samsung teamed up on the Immersive Technology Pavilion to display some of the less-heralded but important uses for VR and AR, ranging from medical applications to military training to post-enlistment therapies to simplification of viewing and changing a floor plan before a brick is laid or a sledgehammer knocks down a wall.
Stampede brought VR and AR to InfoComm 2016 and there were more examples of the ways the technology can help integrators on the show floor at InfoComm 2017. Atheer, showing in the Epson booth, demonstrated its Air Suite BT 350 smart glasses. Epson showed a typical museum guided tour/immersive meeting template, with the intent of providing more engaging animation and information related to the object viewed. A more practical example shows the system in use as a “heads-up” display for remote access information by technicians.
So, while it may still be some time before AR and VR are part of everyday life in the systems integration world, there were obvious signs of traction and acceptance at this year’s show and no doubt more companies will be showing off their version of the technology in Vegas in 2018.
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