Augmented reality

Augmented reality lays digital imagery, instructions or measurements over the view of the real environment, through a tablet, a phone or a transparent headset. Unlike virtual reality, AR does not replace the environment but adds to it. The user still sees where they are standing.

For maintenance on complex installations, the difference from a paper manual is large: the instruction sits on the component itself, instead of in a book you have to translate into what is in front of you. That matters most for operations that come round rarely.

The promise runs ahead of what practice currently allows. Headsets are expensive, work badly with a helmet, and are often not permitted in explosion-risk zones. Where AR does pay off today is on tablets, for step-by-step assembly and for remote maintenance with a specialist watching along. Anyone starting here does well to begin with one task that has demonstrable failure costs, rather than with the technology.