Navigator 520: The AR Headset I Really Want

#realwear #handsfree #wearable ‪@RealWearInc‬

I first saw RealWear in action at RealComm in Nashville, TN, an industry conference for Commercial and Corporate Real Estate. I was there to participate on a panel for AR & VR applications for CRE and one of the participants was from RealWear. Up until that moment, I had always thought of VR HMD's and AR Glasses, well, as somewhat fragile devices to be treated with the utmost care. However, the speaker did something I will never forget, he removed the headset from his head, raised his arm up and then threw it on the floor with considerable force. Instead of exploding into broken bits and pieces, the headset seemed no worse for the wear. To my surprise, they landed about 10 feet away, bounced a couple of springy times, after which he fished them up off the floor, and then put them back on his head. They had been beautifully designed to withstand at least a fall from several feet, considerable force, and this put them in a category to successfully compete 1:1 with ruggedized handheld devices that could be used in the field without the fear of irreparable damage from inherently rougher workplace environments. +1 team XR.

Fast forward to AWE 2023, and as I scanned the show floor for interesting demos, RealWear caught my eye again, especially since it had been some years since my last demo. It should have come then as no great surprise that the best demos would come from teams who have been at this a while. I was therefore pretty excited to demo the new Navigator 520 with Kristen Naeimi, RealWear's Senior Training Specialist. I was an experienced RealWear wearer, and the demo definitely left me feeling like the companies who have defined their niche, and who have spent the last decade honing their devices and apps and having moved into established working relationships with larger corporations like Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, and others, are well-positioned to be the great unicorns of our industry by staying true to the course, and consistently delivering reliable, cutting-edge solutions for every day workers. RealWear's efforts are not going unnoticed, and in addition to the numerous awards they have won over the years, RealWear just won "Best Manufacturing and Industrial Solution" at XR Awards 2023 in June of this year.

A longer version of this description will appear as a post on ‪@arinsider‬, so also follow me there for a more in-depth article on the tech and what I learned.

Videography ‪@KevinKunze‬
Edited by ‪@HopscotchInteractive‬