Extended reality technology is officially evolving to be more than just a novelty or tool for entertainment in today’s digitally transforming world. Over the last couple of years, countless organizations have discovered the benefits of XR for boosting collaboration, inspiring innovation, powering training, and strengthening CX.
Now, we’re rapidly accelerating towards a point where XR could one day be as mainstream as video conferencing, or messaging apps. However, part of challenge in reaching this level of adoption, is figuring out how to make XR worlds as easy to navigate and master as real-world environments.
With eye and hand tracking, it’s possible to immerse users in extended reality experiences like never before, unlocking more convenient interactions. The question is, how do you choose the right hand and eye tracking technology vendor?
Step 1: Choose Your XR Path
If you’re going to be investing in hand and eye tracking solutions for your XR experiences, the first step needs to be deciding which avenue of XR you’re going to be exploring. Virtually every form of “immersive” technology can benefit from tracking tools. The solution you choose will depend on the kind of things you want to accomplish with your new investment.
For instance, in the virtual reality world, hand and eye tracking can embed users deeper into their virtual experience. Eye tracking makes it easier to navigate virtual environments, while hand tracking ensures uses can interact with what they see. In the augmented reality and mixed reality space, tracking tools can help to blend virtual and real-world content more effectively.
If you’re already investing in VR for things like virtual prototyping and collaboration, it makes sense to look for vendors focused on tracking tools in this space. Alternatively, if you’re looking for tools which allow you to keep your teams connected to the physical world while offering them access to digital content, AR or MR will be the best route.
Step 2: Consider Your Hardware and Software Needs
Investing in a truly powerful XR experience with hand and eye tracking will usually mean choosing both the right hardware, and the correct software. Most of the companies investing in XR hardware today will include some form of eye tracking technology built into the equipment. However, some eye tracking will be a lot more advanced than others.
Hand tracking, on the other hand, may require you to invest in additional modules and tools to augment the XR environment. For instance, you might need to look into a module from Ultraleap to add to a Varjo headset or something similar. Alternatively, you might want to look into sensors or “base stations” for tracking movement.
It’s also important to ensure any software created for your XR environment can make the most of the hand and eye tracking functionality available. This means working with a developer with a deep knowledge of how to use tracking APIs and calibration tools. You may even want to choose a developer who can integrate your new software with the tools your teams already use.
Step 3: Know Your Goals
Understanding your goals in the XR space is an important step in choosing the right vendor for your eye and hand tracking technology. Deciding what you’d like to achieve will help you to determine what level of hand and eye tracking technology you require, as well as whether you need just one form of measurement, or both.
For instance, if you’re trying to reduce the overall bandwidth and resources your team members consume when diving into the virtual reality world, a high level of eye tracking technology mixed with AI could be the perfect solution. You can use eye tracking to implement foveated rendering, which focuses the majority of the processing power on the areas where your users are looking.
Alternatively, if you’re trying to immerse your employees in training experiences, and help them develop muscle memories and new skills, you might want to focus more heavily on hand tracking tools which allow them to interact with resources natively, using their fingers. Some vendors will even be able to help you explore things like haptic technology, for touch-based feedback whenever someone interacts with an object.
Step 4: Consider Your Users
Bringing hand and eye tracking technology into the XR space can be an incredible way for business leaders to unlock new levels of immersion for users. You can use these tracking tools to make customer experience interactions feel more unique, or help connect team members on a deeper level during collaborative sessions.
However, for any technology to be truly impactful, it also needs to encourage widespread adoption. With this in mind, it’s worth thinking carefully about what you’ll need to make your solution as appealing as possible to your users. For instance, do you need to think about integrations with existing tools to help boost collaboration and communication? You could create a Microsoft Mesh MR experience with an integration to Microsoft Teams.
It’s also worth thinking about how and where your employees are going to be using this new technology. If they’re going to be using AR glasses to gather insights from team members while they’re working on the field, they need their headsets to be convenient and lightweight, with 5G connectivity, and plenty of battery life.
Consider discussing your specific needs with your vendor, to see whether you can create a unique solution for your individual users.
Step 5: Get Ready for Experimentation
We’re still in the very early stages of the XR revolution. Concepts like hand and eye tracking are becoming increasingly common, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. In this rapidly-changing environment, you may need to be willing to update, evolve, and adapt as you go.
To begin with, it’s worth looking for a vendor that will help you to choose the perfect solution for your needs, by giving your team demonstrations of various tools and applications. It’s also worth looking into an ecosystem that’s extensible and adaptable. This should ensure you can enhance what the environment can actually do as technology evolves.
Choose a team of beta testers among your early adopters, and invite them to experiment with different kinds of technology, to get a sense for how each one might feel in their day-to-day activities. A little experimentation will go a long way towards helping you make the right choice.
