RealWear introduces RealWear Navigator ™ 500: the world’s most comprehensive wearable with industrial-grade Assisted Reality for employees at the forefront

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RealWear introduces RealWear Navigator ™ 500: the world's most comprehensive wearable with industrial-grade Assisted Reality for employees at the forefront

VANCOUVER, Washington – (BUSINESS WIRE) – RealWear, the leading provider of assisted reality solutions for frontline industrial workers, today announced RealWear Navigator ™ 500, the company’s next generation of industrial wearables. Building on the global success of its flagship head-mounted display RealWear HMT-1 ™, RealWear Navigator 500 represents a new family of assisted reality products for RealWear, with a new modular platform, improved user experience and convenient ergonomics that make it easier for employees at the forefront, perform work tasks while keeping their hands and field of vision clear to perform tasks more safely over longer periods of time in the “new way of working” hybrid work environment. RealWear will be showcasing RealWear Navigator 500 at a special interactive event today at 9:00 am PT (Participate Here).

Fully optimized for hands-free use, RealWear Navigator 500 is an innovative platform solution that combines hardware, software and cloud-enabled services with a rugged design that is a third lighter and slimmer than the previous generation to make it for the frontline workers to make the device easier to wear during the entire shift. The hardware is designed as a modular platform with an upgradeable 48-megapixel (MP) camera system, a truly hot-swappable battery with Wi-Fi and an optional 4G (and soon to be available 5G) modem. The voice-activated user interface includes a unique noise cancellation technology designed for high-noise environments. RealWear has 200+ partner optimized apps that support a wide variety of use cases, such as: B. Remote collaboration, guided workflow as well as IoT and AI data visualization.

Assisted Reality [infographic available] is a non-immersive experience and has become the preferred Extended Reality (XR) solution for frontline industrial workers, especially when high situational awareness is required. Assisted reality experiences are closer to the physical world than virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences that immerse workers in the metaverse.

With RealWear Navigator 500, RealWear has once again raised the bar for the use of Assisted Reality and other XR technologies at the world’s leading industrial companies. Automotive, logistics, manufacturing, food and beverage, and energy companies, among others, can use RealWear Navigator 500 to provide real-time access to online information and expertise for the world’s more than 100 million frontline employees.

“As pandemic worries continue to weigh on the global economy, how technology enables a ‘new way to work’ remains a focus, especially for frontline workers,” said Andrew Chrostowski, Chairman and CEO of RealWear. “Today we’re introducing something much bigger than a product. The RealWear Navigator 500 provides the next generation of work with a “reality first, digital first” business solution for remote collaboration, operational efficiency and hybrid working in safety-critical industries. Assisted Reality – even more so than Augmented or Virtual Reality – is specially designed for the frontline workers who need both hands to work, and offers the perfect balance between 100 percent presence and the self-confidence of employees with the ability to feel confident in the Finding your way around industrial environment. After all, nobody wants to be around dangerous devices while their heads are in the metaverse. ”

A modular, lighter design with an improved camera and vivid display

The innovative new features and capabilities of RealWear Navigator 500 reflect the feedback from thousands of customers currently using RealWear’s assisted reality wearables in the workshop, construction site, manufacturing facility and other hazardous environments. These innovative new features and capabilities include:

  • A patented, revolutionary modular platform that enables customers to replace certain modules such as camera, modem, battery and others in the future;

  • The industry’s only truly hot-swappable, full-shift battery that allows employees to complete extended tasks for hours without losing work;

  • A stunning camera system, complete with a 48 MP sensor; the ability to take high quality photos in extremely low light; with an improved zoom in tele mode, which enables employees to zoom in more than 4x while maintaining full HD quality (1080p). In addition, the camera has an advanced auto focus and strong video stabilization;

  • A clear, vibrant, adjustable display;

  • A lightweight, slim form factor that can withstand a two meter drop test without compromising the RealWear HMT-1’s IP66 rating;

  • Secure, seamless device sign-in options and centralized deployment and management functions for the enterprise and

  • First-class noise-canceling technology with reliable local speech recognition in environments with up to 100 decibels (dBA).

Accelerating the adoption by industrial companies of a new way of working in a post-pandemic world

One-off changes in the way employees work and collaborate have been accelerated by the global pandemic. This leads industrial companies to find creative ways to empower and engage their frontline industrial workers, especially with limited local support. The result is an increase in demand for industrial grade, hands-free wearables with assisted reality.

“RealWear has been a critical factor in our success in digital transformation and a key partner in transforming our certification and consulting services,” said Dan Purtell, Group Innovation Director at the British Standard Institute and RealWear customer. “RealWear’s technology has enabled us to efficiently scale our subject matter experts around the world while reducing our carbon footprint. We have now conducted over 200,000 remote audit days, eliminating on-site travel to many customer locations that were previously inaccessible. With RealWear Navigator 500, RealWear has doubled what we appreciate about the HMT-1. The addition of a modular design, a hot-swappable battery, and an improved camera will expand our use cases and add even more value to our customers. ”

Use cases for RealWear vary widely, with an early focus on the need for remote collaboration. Recently, the solution has expanded to include use cases that include guided workflows, document navigation, digital workflows, and most recently, AI-enabled IoT data visualization.

“Although there has been a lot of focus on the shift to remote work for office workers, there is a growing awareness of the unique industrial use cases that are changing expectations for remote field workers and support, especially in difficult, noisy and hazardous environments consumer-class technology solutions won’t make it, “said Tom Mainelli, industry analyst at IDC. “Conventional laptops, tablets or mobile devices are no solution in the system environment or in the field. Rugged wearables now offer real-time access to real-time information, like the head-up display in a jet pilot’s helmet, while ensuring that frontline industrial workers have the full field of vision and free hands they need to work safely. It is important that these are not just new features and capabilities – what RealWear is using is an assisted reality form factor that is part of a generation change in the way industrial companies operate and support their operations on site and in the factory. ”

Unmatched collaboration with industry leading solutions

At the core of RealWear’s leadership in the Assisted Reality category has been its ability to deliver “see what I see” experiences that show that its unique form factor benefits both businesses and frontline employees. Notable optimized remote collaboration apps for RealWear include Webex Expert on Demand, Zoom, TeamViewer Frontline, Librestream Onsight Connect, AMA XpertEye, oculavis SHARE and Microsoft Teams, among others.

At the start of the pandemic, RealWear and Microsoft announced that Teams on RealWear devices are fully optimized for hands-free Teams calling. From October 2020 to October 2021, Teams adoption on RealWear grew 251%, more than tripling the number of Teams users on the device.

RealWear Navigator 500 speeds up team adoption significantly. With a more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, lighter weight, and a hot-swappable battery, remote collaboration becomes more seamless and a preferred way of communicating. Additionally, with the new improved low light camera and the potential for future camera modules, frontline workers can take better POV shots to share and collaborate in new ways.

“Microsoft Teams for Frontline Workers has grown tremendously with partners like RealWear, and we expect RealWear Navigator 500 to take our success to a new level to accelerate hybrid work,” said Kristina Behr, vice president of product, Microsoft 365 Frontline Worker and Industry. “With RealWear Navigator 500, RealWear enables frontline workers who use teams to quickly collaborate with remote experts to safely solve complex problems while keeping their hands free and being fully aware of the situation.”

Worldwide support and availability

RealWear has a global sales, support and reseller ecosystem that maintains and supports the RealWear Navigator 500 solution with rapid response support, a global experience center in Dubai and offices in key industrial markets around the world. Customers can access RealWear offerings through a growing ecosystem of resellers and partners including Microsoft, Autodesk and Lenovo.

The list price for Archer is $ 2500 with a 3 year limited warranty. Customers can order RealWear Navigator 500 today, with the solution expected to be shipped before the end of the year.

Media kit available here.

About RealWear

RealWear® is the world’s leading provider of portable assisted reality solutions that involve, enable and encourage modern industrial workers at the forefront to carry out work tasks more safely, efficiently and precisely. RealWear gives these employees real-time access to information and expertise while keeping their hands and field of vision free to work. RealWear has been tried and tested with world-class customers such as Shell, Goodyear, Mars, Colgate-Palmolive and BMW, who use it to improve work safety while delivering an unprecedented ROI.

RealWear is headquartered in Vancouver, Washington in the United States, with local offices in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands and Japan and a new customer experience center in Dubai. RealWear’s leading position was further strengthened with triple (3-fold) growth in 2020. The company has supplied wearable devices to more than 5,000 unique enterprise customers worldwide in a number of industries including energy, manufacturing, food and beverage, automotive, and telecommunications.

More information is available at www.RealWear.com.

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