Said Confucius first, apparently – though many have echoed this wisdom in more recent times.
Learning by doing is a problem, though, in today’s remote-first world. And furthermore, there are many intense professional situations, from the operating room to the battlefield, where learning through exposure could be deadly.
XR has been the promised solution for immersive learning for many years, but the award-winning Lenovo ThinkReality A3 Smart Glasses is making this vision a reality, through partnerships with leading software developers like Sphere. Lenovo ThinkReality and Sphere have created an enterprise-ready training and workflow solution, ready to implement and scale in response to the most demanding professional challenges, from manufacturing to healthcare and beyond.
As Alexandra Corey, head of marketing for Sphere, explained:
“Rather than being glued to a desk and/or a flat screen, [users] can learn naturally in their physical environment…more effectively retaining information as they follow guided steps associated with a real object, or a model representing one.”
Augmenting Potential: The Impact of AR
While immersive VR experiences may attract consumer hype, enterprises further benefit from AR for workflow-assistance.
The lightweight ThinkReality A3 smart glasses are a transformative breakthrough, designed to support extended use for workers in industrial scenarios, and not intrude on the user experience – while at the same time, not isolating them from their physical environment and any risks or context this might present.
Instead, the learning takes place in the real world in real time, applied in the real workplace, not a digital copy. The augmentation layer enhances and informs the senses and abilities of the trainee, providing guidance and insight in a structured way, while measuring the success and skills development.
As Corey continued, “Our customers get excited about the ways that Sphere is paving the future for collaborative work…it brings the magic of in-person productivity back into remote settings, because it allows professionals to intuitively blend their space with the power of technology.
“And it’s cool! Manipulating holographic content on these amazing headsets is far more engaging than traditional methods of learning. It also proves that companies support their employees with a forward-looking approach to worker satisfaction.”
Scaling immersive experiences
The ability to deploy this kind of innovation at scale is what really sets the solution apart, and raises the skills of an entire workforce. The ThinkReality/Sphere combination is tailored to this exact use-case, as Corey explained. “Typically, it doesn’t take long into our customers’ POC phase before they’re adding licenses and purchasing new headsets. Sphere is designed to seamlessly integrate into existing software infrastructures, and we offer ample resources – like our LMS, Sphere Academy – to help them scale up from there.” Corey continued.
The integration of XR training tools into a corporate workforce helps to address the needs of intergenerational staff at a time of considerable turbulence and fast-paced economic and technical change.
Digital natives entering the workforce bring a high degree of comfort with the technology to their jobs, but they need to learn from a digital immigrant generation approaching retirement, who developed their professional expertise in a hands-on, pre-remote environment.
XR bridges this gap, and ensures that knowledge and skills do not retire along with the mature expertise – which can more easily be transferred using immersive training experiences and remote expert assistance.
The combination of the Lenovo ThinkReality A3 smart glasses and Sphere’s software application provides the differentiation to ensure customers’ competitive edge in a diverse range of industries and environments.
