CES 2020 Showcases Plenty of Value for Enterprise AR/VR despite the Name

While the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has long since grown out of focusing purely on end consumer product showcases, the presence of enterprise-only Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in 2020 was a bit of a surprise. In prior years, consumer offerings on the hardware side (players like RealWear and Vuzix) showcased devices and platform offerings to potential clients. Value add platform players, such as TeamViewer, also had a notable presence, with demonstrations of the latest offerings of AR/VR and otherwise. There was also, of course, interest in consumer-oriented offerings, with the likes of nReal, Realmax, and others seeing sizable crowds at their respective booths. While the consumer AR demonstrations continue to be more forward looking and hopeful than actually business-driving, these enterprise opportunities are real and can be actualized today. VR is a similar story; while consumer VR was downplayed compared to previous years, VR usage for sales and marketing, retail, product visualization, and more was significant at the show. News from the major hardware players was minimal, but this activity in actual usage highlights a shift in the market as it matures. WayRay once again presented some very compelling visualization potential with laser projection for Heads Up Displays (HUDs), with others, such as Altia, which is working on user interface design and enablement for automotive and other markets, focused more on visualization enablement.  

While AR/VR hardware innovation may have been light, it was not completely absent from the show. The potential for MicroLED in TVs and similar consumer electronics has been highlighted, but it also has significant potential in AR/VR. Cost and manufacturing processes still need time to mature, but high brightness, good off-angle viewing, and high efficiency (both for battery and heat dissipation) bode well for Head-Mounted Display (HMD) applications. Otherwise, the latest hardware from nReal and Vuzix showcase some positive improvements, if more iterative than revolutionary.

With automotive, again there was a healthy mix of end consumer product showcases and enterprise enablement and partnership discussion. There was a strong focus on infotainment and general displays within the automobile this year, and an extension of that is AR HUDs, with vision forward to more all-encompassing AR infotainment and full-display windshields. There is also the extension of the more traditional and mature field service/post sale market for AR within automotive, with a number of brands already adopting AR/VR for improved maintenance efficiency thanks to hands free data access, as well as showroom value add through more immersive marketing, visualization, and interactivity capabilities. Automotive will be an increasingly important market to watch from an AR perspective, with both end consumer products like HUDs and enterprise-targeted use cases like post sales support and maintenance seeing greater adoption and implementation among brands.

The most interesting takeaway from this lies in the level of maturity showcased by these trends. Enterprise discussion at a consumer-oriented show highlights not only a level of activity across markets, but also the maturity of offerings to be able to present that value at a show like CES. This trend will continue in the coming years, and CES will serve as a great indicator of total market maturity; more overlap with consumer in both hardware and supporting platforms means greater maturity, uptake, and overall value.

Sometime in the next five years, consumer AR will hit an inflection point; this may be as simple as Apple’s rumored product hitting the market, a collection of smaller players presenting a killer use case, or (most likely) a combination of both. Prices have to fall, valuable content has to be created, and generally consumers have to be convinced of the value of AR. Whatever form this takes, CES will see a continual increase in consumer activity around AR as a result, and consumer and enterprise will continue to overlap. Just as iPhones and iPads have become a standard for enterprises despite being purely a consumer offering, so too can these upcoming AR devices see adoption across markets despite initial launch targets.

There’s no better show to highlight this than CES, and we began to see this trend this year. Hardware improvements will take a larger portion of mindshare going forward, as completely new devices join with incumbent updates sporting the standard improvements in Field of View (FoV), resolution, brightness, battery life, and more, but the content and platform side will not be forgotten either. Creation tools, enabling platforms, and supporting services are arguably more important than hardware, and although hardware garners more excitement, software and services will increasingly be shown in tandem with these devices and a more holistic picture of the AR/VR market will be created as a result.