Transforming Business Ops: Top AR/VR Solutions this year

You will likely be evaluating and deploying virtual reality to train or collaborate on design or for augmented reality.

You may also be in the proof-of-concept (PoC) or just starting a production rollout.

Smart glasses like Vuzix, Google Glass, and RealWear are not covered in this article. These are "augmented reality" technologies, not "assisted reality." Augmented reality can display data and content in 3D with context for the surrounding environment.

Although there are some exceptions, smart glasses are not generally capable of this. With numerous successful production deployments, we already support these "assisted reality" devices. Smart glasses are more mature in deployment and management than augmented reality or virtual reality headsets.

Many customers have difficulties with AR and VR devices, such as their PoC or production deployment. Because these tools were only available recently to manage, secure, and use these technologies within the enterprise.

What are the challenges facing enterprises?

Youll Have to Face Challenges, or You Might Be Meeting Them.

1. Its difficult to deploy devices.

   Your IT team will only deploy devices that they understand and can manage.

2. Each device must be manually configured before it can be distributed to the user. This is not feasible for deployments of 25+ devices.
3. Deploying device profiles, OS updates, applications, or content is impossible.
4. Your device does not come with an enterprise-level user experience.
5. The kiosk mode of your primary application is incompatible with it (i.e. Users cant manage Wi-Fi or other settings.
6. You cant access applications or content based on the corporate user group, but there is no security.
7. Each application is unique and has its own set of credentials.
8. Although standalone devices can be purchased, they offer a different level of quality than a PC experience.
9. You wont be able to run legacy or 3D content on your chosen device.
10. Remote access to your corporate content is not possible for users.

Do these sound familiar? These challenges can be solved.

Here are Five Things That You Should Know About Enterprise AR/VR Solutions

From the point of deployment, there are five pillars to any enterprise-level AR/VR solution.

Before diving into the content in the following posts, lets look at each pillar.

1. Device Management Solution

Nearly all companies have IT systems (mobile device administration or MDM software) that allow them to manage their devices, including phones, tablets, and laptops.

Corporate-owned personally enabled (COPE), corporate-owned shared usage (COSU), and bring your device (BYOD) are three categories for devices (BYOD). We provide Workspace ONE Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) to help manage the different devices within an enterprise.

Your IT team will want AR/VR devices managed using the existing device management software. This will allow them to order new machines quickly and easily.

It is essential to fully understand the solutions capabilities and the device it will manage.

There are three types of AR/VR devices today: standalone Android/Linux devices (PCVR), standalone Windows devices (HoloLens 2), and PC-based devices (PCVR).

The PCR process is straightforward, as IT can operate like regular Windows desktops/laptops. PCVR needs to be mobile-friendly and can be challenging to deploy. It also requires the management and maintenance of expensive fixed hardware.

You can also deploy standalone devices.

The most widely used operating system for standalone AR/VR devices is Android. Finding out which Android features the hardware provider supports is crucial.

Only some Android devices are made equal. The Android Open Source Project (ASOP), on which they may have a common foundation, does not imply that they support management tools like Android Enterprise.

For any organization to support Android Enterprise capabilities, a standalone AR/VR device built on Android is required.

The Oculus Quests management capabilities are limited today because it doesnt allow MDM systems to run as the "device owner." This capability was introduced with Android Enterprise.

Pico Neo 2 supports "device owners" permissions, so MDM management actions dont require approval from the user.

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2. Secure Content Access and Application Access with Single Sign-On

How will you manage your devices once you can? The current VR devices come with a consumer-like UX and access to various games.

There is no user identification or security. Devices come with a vendor-managed identity or a social account. This is not appropriate for enterprises.

IT must ensure that only corporate users can access corporate content on every device. IT must have corporate credentials to access devices, apps, and content.

IT will need to be able to provision content and applications to these devices with their existing management system and ensure that the applications are visible to users once they have accessed the device.

You can run one application on your device. This has its challenges. The kiosk mode feature allows you to have security and identity managed by the application (ideally using identity Federation).

Project VXR will enable you to use corporate credentials to access corporate applications.

Suppose you want to grant users access to multiple apps or content from different vendors. In that case, youll need a way for the device to be secured and user access managed using corporate credentials.

Single Sign-On (SSO) will simplify access. Either the user unlocks their device to access provisioned applications (using a user cert) or authenticates once with their credentials and SSO into native or web apps and content.

3. Enterprise UX

Its time to consider the complete user experience after you can control devices, offer users applications, and enable secure application access.

This is crucial for new technologies like AR/VR.

AR and VR use very different computing technologies than we are used to. You wear the technology on your head. There are only a few handheld controllers.

There is no keyboard or mouse and no touch screen. Hire AR/VR developers team can seem intimidating at first, especially if you have a vision of reality that is virtual.

Users will feel more at ease if they dont feel overwhelmed and if the user interface is familiar.

Most current headsets offer a consumer experience that is geared toward tech-savvy gamers. The UX primarily focuses on consumer apps that offer games and videos, not for enterprise use.

Enterprise use cases require that AR/VR headsets be used positively and straightforwardly to start with users. Enterprises will need to manage the user experience.

This is done by using kiosk mode, which avoids a consumer UX. It also allows for custom launchers and enterprise applications.

Every application and experience should be clearly explained from the beginning. This will make it easy for users to use their controllers and headsets and interact with the content.

Enterprise users will want to log in and only access the apps they have been granted. This should be done in the most straightforward, intuitive, and efficient manner. AR/VR app developers often need to use spatial user interfaces (UI) properly.

Could you keep it simple?

Enterprises that deploy multiple AR/VR devices will need to make sure they have a consistent user experience across all devices.

4. Remote AR/VR Capability

Now youre all set. You have deployed standalone headsets to your employees to allow immersive training, augmented workflows and collaboration, or any other use case.

The standalone headsets can easily access and manage through ITs MDM software. They are capable of delivering a solid AR/VR experience.

The GPU and CPU capabilities of standalone devices are limited. For immersive training or design visualization, you may need a higher level of fidelity than what a standalone device can provide.

For design review purposes, lets create a virtual reality simulation for a rocket engine. More than 20,000,000 polygons, several textures, and materials make up the 3D model of a rocket engine.

Only 12,000,000 of these polygons may be seen at once. You will need to send 72 frames per second to your headset at the headsets native resolution. This can be anywhere between 1440x 1600 and 1,920x 2,160 for each eye display.

The VR experience is not possible with standalone devices. Whats the solution?

Remote AR/VR allows you to run simulations and models with high fidelity on a virtual machine backed up by a GPU at a data center.

The experience can then be streamed to a headset via Wi-Fi or the future 5G. This allows you to have the advantages of a mobile VR device with all the power and features of a graphics computer.

Read More: A Lot Of Automobile Companies Today Offer A Digital Experience Of Their Products With The Use Of AR Or VR

5. Content and Integration

AR and VR can be transformative technologies for businesses, especially with a distributed workforce. However, these technologies are only possible with content.

AR and VR are new media that require new tools for authoring content, new content types (3D), and new technologies to integrate existing data.

The number of companies offering AR/VR content development has considerably increased, especially in immersive training.

There is a substantial market for AR/VR tools and content. These tools include underlying engines like Unity and Unreal, authoring tools like Amazon Sumerian, and 3D model marketplaces.

You have many options, whether you want to make your own or purchase something already made.

You must import your product data and content into AR/VR. These could include product designs, building plans, architectural models, medical data, CAD/CAM data, and instructional documentation.

These are just three examples of the challenges:

1. Upload your content/data into your AR/VR app/development tool
2. Optimizing your content to be used in AR/VR
3. Updating data/content

Unity and Unreal, both development tools for AR/VR, offer devices that allow you to import 3D data into AR/VR applications.

Open-source projects are available to allow the import of standard 3D formats, such as GLTF, into different AR/VR platforms.

Optimizing 3D content can be more difficult. There are many ways to decrease the models polygon count or detail.

Or, you can use remote AR/VR to deliver your content. You should know any devices capabilities, including its ability to render complex 3D data.

It is essential to consider where content/data resides and how your application can access it dynamically from remote sources.

This is not only about application development but also security and how your vendor (or application developer) can provide an AR/VR experience that is future-proof.

It would be best if you thought about how data/content is sent to headsets and how employees can access it remotely.

Todays standalone headsets need to be more secure. They lack encryption capabilities at rest and often dont offer VPN functionality. Device management software can assist in providing encryption, per-app VPN capability, and remote file storage.

To create AR/VR experiences, you need to have access to legacy applications. This could be web content, remote Windows applications, or web-based applications.

In AR/VR development, accessing pre-existing apps and 2D material is feasible without taking off your headset or going to a computer. Interaction with current applications is currently limited in VR due to the absence of keyboard access. Businesses should consider this functionality when assessing their organizations AR/VR tools and applications.

How to Hire a VR Developer

Here are the skills and abilities you need to look for when hiring a VR developer.

1. Deep Knowledge of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Models

An app development project for VR can be evident and high-stakes. It can also serve as a project to create customer-facing VR apps on mobile and the web.

Competent VR developers need to understand the following SDLC models deeply.

1. Waterfall: Projects with high stakes would have clearly defined requirements. These projects also require detailed reviews after milestones. This model is suitable for requirements analysis, design and development, testing, deployment, and maintenance.
2. Agile: A business may launch customer-facing mobile and web apps as "Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) and then improve them based on market feedback. Agile is better suited for such projects because iterative development is required.

Cyber Infrastructure Inc. has a lot of experience with crucial SDLC models. What is the software development life cycle, and how do you plan for it? It is a piece I wrote on these models.

2. Experience With Prominent Managed Cloud Services Platforms

Cloud service platforms managed by businesses are becoming more popular because they allow for innovation at scale and can be predictable in cost.

The following cloud offerings are recommended for VR developers:

Hire Expert Developers For Your Next Project

1. Amazon EC2 (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2): AWS Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Many businesses use this solution for building their apps. Although AWS offers a lot of cloud capabilities, an IaaS platform is more complicated as the provider manages only the infrastructure.
2. AWS Elastic Beanstalk: AWS Elastic Beanstalk (Platform as a Service) is AWSs Platform as a Service (PaaS). AWS manages the cloud infrastructure, storage, middleware, and operating systems. Hire VR developers with experience integrating 3 rd party APIs, databases, DevOps, and other services.
3. AWS Amplify is AWSs Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS): The mobile apps backend is not required to be developed or managed by the project team. This can allow them to concentrate on the design and development aspects of the front end.

3. Expertise With Popular V SDKs/ap

You can speed up your development process using APIs and SDKs to incorporate key features into your app. Many VR SDK/API options can be used to accelerate your development.

You should also hire experienced developers.

Find developers who are familiar with the following VR SDKs/APIs.

1. Oculus VR SDKs: Oculus VR is a well-known provider of VR platforms. The company offers SDKs to help developers create VR apps for Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S. You can find more information about the SDKs here.
2. Google VR SDKs: Google VR SDKs can be downloaded for many platforms, including Android, iOS, and Unity. These SDKs are available for download here. The documentation is also available.
3. Amazon Sumerian is a VR/AR solution by Amazon: It works with all major platforms, such as Oculus Go and Oculus Rift. Sumerian can also be used with Android and IOS platforms. Sumerians can be used for many purposes, including training, education, field service productivity, retail sales, etc.

4. Node.js Skills

Your VR project will probably include the launch of a web application. Node.js provides an excellent environment for creating web applications.

There are many benefits to this runtime environment, such as: :

1. Open-source js: means that a large developer community contributes many open-source tools and frameworks to this runtime environment. This is why Node.js developers are often productive.
2. Js supports event-driven, asynchronous programming: This improves app scalability. For a VR app development project: scalability is a critical consideration.
3. This environment is ideal for streaming and, for VR app development projects, its a significant advantage.
4. JavaScript is a well-known programming language. Node.js uses JavaScript to drive high productivity for programmers.
5. Node.js web apps are highly performant.
6. Modern NoSQL databases such as MongoDB are built using JavaScript. Its, therefore, easy to use them in Node.js.

5. Experience in Developing Scalable Web Apps

As we mentioned, VR apps must scale well. Therefore, hiring programmers with a track record of building scalable web applications is essential.

The following skills are required:

1. Programmers must first be able to identify scalability goals using the correct metrics.
2. Developers should be able to use the APM solutions for scaling a web application.
3. It is crucial to choose the right PaaS platform. Programmers can be hired who are familiar with the popular AWS Elastic Beanstalk.
4. Suppose you are looking for IT architects who deeply understand architectural patterns. In that case, it is essential to form your team. This is crucial for web app scaling.
5. Developers need to be familiar with the best frameworks for scaling web apps. Node.js is the best framework for this project. Its lightweight and can scale up quickly.
6. It is crucial to use the correct database for web apps that scale. PostgreSQL allows you to scale apps. MongoDB, a NoSQL database for scaling, is another option. These are the skills that developers should be able to use when hiring.

Cyber Infrastructure Inc. is an expert in developing scalable web applications. I explained this earlier in "How do you build a scalable website application?".

Read More: Transforming Businesses with AR & VR are Said to be the Next Technologies in 2022

6. UI Design Expertise

You will need to employ UI designers for a VR app development project. Therefore, you must look for experienced designers in the following areas:

1. Web app UI design: Designers need to know the rules of excellent web UI design. This is what "10 rules for good UI Design" explains.
2. Android app UI design guidelines: UI designers must be familiar with the Material Design guidelines as Android apps must adhere to them.
3. iOS app UI design: Apple uses Human Interface Guidelines. Therefore, UI designers need to be familiar with these guidelines.
4. For VR apps, some guidelines can be followed. These guidelines should be familiar to UI designers.

7. Experience With Android App Development

A VR app development project will likely require an Android Augmented Reality App Development Company.

Therefore, it is crucial to find Android developers who have the following skills:

1. Java programming is essential for Android developers.
2. They must also be familiar with Android Studio, the popular IDE that allows for Android development.

8. iOS App Development Expertise

Likely, you will also target iOS platforms for your VR app. Therefore, it is essential to hire iOS developers with these skills:

1. They should be familiar with Objective-C, as it has been the core of Apples app development since its inception. This language is well-known by many developers who work on Apples platforms. Objective-C also has powerful features. Cyber Infrastructure Inc. has a lot of experience with Objective-C, as I explained in "How do you convert an app from Swift to Objective-C?"
2. It would be best to familiarize yourself with Xcode, the popular IDE that allows you to develop apps for Apples platforms.

9. Experience With Testing Frameworks

This project requires testers to be hired. Therefore, you should look at the following skills:

1. Selenium is a popular open-source framework for testing.
2. They should be familiarized with Espresso, a popular framework for testing Android apps.
3. Experience with XCTest is also required by testers, which is used to test iOS apps.
4. It is crucial to test with a variety of browsers and mobile devices. Testers should therefore be familiar with testing solutions such as pCloudy. pCloudy supports a variety of mobile devices and browsers.

10. Devops Expertise

This VR app development project will require competent DevOps experts. It would be best to search for DevOps engineers with experience with AWS DevOps tools, infrastructure, and platforms that we recommended for this project.

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Conclusion

The fundamental pillars are crucial for deploying AR and VR in an organization. Any of these pillars can cause deployments to halt and leave you with a stuck-with-a-solution that wont function in the future if you neglect them.

This content series will discuss each pillar in greater detail and show you how to implement them successfully.

References

1. 🔗 Google scholar
2. 🔗 Wikipedia
3. 🔗 NyTimes