Augmented reality: enterprise or consumer technology

Innovation starts to become a market reality when it’s no longer in the news. Everyone remembers the fuss made by Google Glass between 2013 and 2015. And what happened about all this noise? Google just folded down its Google Glass, and … nothing more.

Now time has passed and Augmented Reality (AR) is getting closer to mainstream. Already several companies are coming up with augmented reality glasses. And their strongest selling argument is that these AR glasses just look normal!

For instance, Vuzix introduces its AR glasses for both the enterprise and the consumer market. According to them, markets for augmented reality include tele-medicine, remote support, field service, manufacturing, training, quality assurance, etc.

Analysts, such as Deloitte consider virtual reality will not meet a mass consumer market over the next few years. On the other hand, augmented reality brings enough advantages to be able to penetrate the enterprise market at first, and then, maybe the consumer market.

The technology is still at its beginning and faces some shortcomings, but let’s hope that it will improve when it reaches mass markets. As in many cases, it may take a few years before all issues are ironed out.

Augmented reality companies often come from an imagery background and are better at designing end user devices that at assessing a global security scheme. Seen from the secure transactions point of view, augmented reality is one of the numerous fields that form the IoT market and that need security solutions adapted to their specific requirements. When augmented reality is widely adopted, we need to ensure the communication with smart glasses (and other devices) is secure and the data they acquire and show can be relied upon. Before reaching mass markets, the industry has to be able to guarantee that smart glasses will be resistant to cybersecurity attacks and will not be used to trick end-users with false information and in getting into actions they should not undertake.

“Augmented” is fashionable: surfing on this wave, Idemia is now even using the concept of “augmented identity” as their umbrella branding motto.