For a long time, extended reality remained in the periphery of mainstream enterprise applications. But its crossover to mass adoption is being made possible due to the emergence of an ecosystem that comprises superior hardware, edge computing, graphic rendering capabilities and the arrival of 5G networks.
Supported by this ecosystem, use cases for XR have expanded from primarily gaming to experiences across all industry verticals. In this post, we look at how XR is transforming retail, education and manufacturing.
Bringing Retail Markets To XR Shoppers’ Doorsteps
From offering personalization to jazzing up shopping experiences with a multi-sensory approach involving haptics, sight, sound and smell, the retail industry has been pioneering XR tech.
Last year, many luxury brands joined an ecommerce platform to gain access to affluent customers and participate in a new kind of shopping experience. When customers wear an augmented headset or interact with a virtual assistant, they get access to virtual stores or digitized shopping malls, right from wherever they are.
In another instance in Singapore, 5G technology has been used to set up a 24/7, unmanned pop-up retail store with self-service kiosks for digitally-savvy consumers. Bringing together artificial intelligence, IoT, augmented reality and virtual reality to offer a personalized shopping experience, the pop-up store depends on a reliable 5G connection.
These kinds of experiences are part of an upcoming sector known as ‘retail-tainment’, in which the boundaries between shopping and entertainment are blurred. In 2020, China’s shoppable livestream market was estimated at $60 billion with over 430 million people viewing livestreams.
The 5G Impact: In XR, a large amount of content is transferred from multiple sources to the cloud, which then gets downloaded onto your device, which can be a headset, augmented glasses or a mobile phone. As all these touchpoints could be in different locations, you need networks with maximum depth and breadth of coverage to make this happen.
5G works in three bands of wavelength spectrum. High-band frequencies called millimeter waves offer superlative speeds but, as they have limited reach, they are suited for smaller areas. Low-band frequencies of 600MHz offer maximum signal penetration but at lesser speed, while mid-band waves strike an ideal balance between speed and coverage.
For retail applications that span large geographies, and for those that require higher speed, 5G’s low-band and mid-band frequencies can make a difference.
Pushing The Boundaries Of XR Classroom Education
What’s Happening: XR tech has been playing a key role in the education industry even before the onset of the pandemic.
VR, in particular, has been a powerful tool to break down complex and abstract concepts. It’s helping astronomy students understand the correlation between the phases of the moon and the positions of the sun, moon and earth. Another institution has been running VR projects to teach molecular biology and atomic physics. And a 4,000 square-foot VR lab is furthering the understanding of neurological circuits using an interactive, multi-dimensional approach.
Students at Fisk University are benefiting from a 5G-powered VR cadaver lab. Instructors can remove an organ from a body and pass it on to students, who can look inside the organ to explore better, all virtually. For Fisk University, which had not been able to purchase cadavers due to high costs, and had to rely on other universities, the impact was transformational.
Post-pandemic, XR tools have become an inevitable way to facilitate distance learning. From virtual campus tours to field trips, and from K-12 classrooms to closing gaps in STEM learning in middle and high schools, XR is facilitating the creation of student-centric experiences.
The 5G Impact: Fast, reliable and low-latency 5G networks can give a big boost to XR in education, where near-real-time data transfer is crucial for an authentic experience.
T-Mobile has America’s largest, fastest, and according to network research firm umlaut, most reliable 5G network built to drive XR now and in the future.
For students, 5G is also about gaining mobility with the flexibility to take classes from their home, car or a cafe. They don’t want their XR device to limit their movement, which is the case for the time being. But it might not be that way for long.
How XR is Powering Industry 4.0
What’s Happening: Already in the early stages of the fourth industrial revolution, the manufacturing sector is going through a sea change with XR as a key enabler. Back in 2015, a leading automaker reduced its production line injury rate by 70% by using VR to immerse employees in a future production environment and assess design feasibility and safety quotient. Another automobile manufacturer uses its state-of-the-art VR center to simulate every part of the vehicle at the design stage and see how it all fits together. These digital twins have helped expedite production cycles and increase engine efficiency.
Manufacturing units employ XR in a range of use cases, such as machine maintenance, virtual inspections and training personnel on complex, dangerous machinery.
Researchers have created a system that lets users remotely operate a robot using an augmented headset. What the robot sees, the human sees, opening up the potential for factory employees to work from anywhere. Researchers also speculated that gamers would be suited to take remote manufacturing jobs.
The 5G Impact: At the heart of Industry 4.0 is the idea of machine-to-machine interconnectedness, in which the entire factory or even factories across locations work as a cohesive unit passing on data from one system to another. This is made possible by IoT sensors, which are getting cheaper over time. To gather this large volume of data from sensors, mash it together and deliver it on your XR devices, you need large bandwidths. This is what 5G networks bring to the table.
5G Opens New Doors
Since the 1980s, every turn of a decade has witnessed a new generation of wireless networks. And this has led to innovations such as SMS, email, smartphones, high-definition video streaming and a plethora of mobile applications. 5G, with its focus on high capacity, fast speed and low latencies, offers an unprecedented level of connectivity. The innovation created by this marriage of 5G and XR is exciting, and there’s much left to discover.
Regardless of industry, nationwide 5G lays the foundation for businesses to build what’s next. From more efficient field operations to smarter cities, see what the 5G future could look like—and why choosing the right network provider matters.
Most Reliable: According to independent third party umlaut from crowdsourced user experience data (January to July 2021). Fastest: Based on average, overall combined 5G speeds according to Opensignal Awards (USA: 5G User Experience Report July 2021). See 5G device, coverage, & access details at T-Mobile.com.
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