Top 4 AR-VR Trends to Reshape Businesses in 2020

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality were considered as laggards of the disruptive digital trends in the last decade. However, things did a quick 180 in 2019. Both AR and VR did major strides in terms of innovation, wider flexibility, and customized optimization that led to a spurt in their demand. Now, this drift is only starting up to grow in the 2020s. Also, keep in mind, this rise is not limited to gaming anymore, where it first enters into the consumer market.

Virtual reality is about the full immersive artificial environment, while augmented reality consists of enhanced virtual objects overlaid in the real-world environment. And these computer-generated virtual objects can be in various forms like images, videos, or interactive data. These techs are collectively known as Extended Reality (XR).

According to researchandmarket.com, the global demand for XR will exhibit a 2020-2026 CAGR of 45.0% to reach US$346.39 billion in 2026. And the global XR production is expected to grow by 46.5% annually over 2020-2026. Hence it will be exciting to watch what this sector has to offer in the coming years. Let us focus on some of the key changes and trends we can expect to see this year.

•  5G: Despite its slow rollout in the initial years, 5G will revamp the XR industry and adoption. Because of its hyper-mobile networking speed, the rate of data transfer to the cloud, its analysis, and delivering an actionable output will be faster too. This will result in a zero-lag environment leading to the smooth streaming of the content from the cloud. Furthermore, this will eliminate the dependency on wired systems, and onboard hardware as end data centers can process a visual input within a few seconds.

•  Healthcare: The 2020s can witness a surge of multiple use cases in the healthcare industry. This includes advanced diagnostics devices, trial versions of medical apps, etc.  Physicians will be able to swipe up which of the treatments are better using a combination of these AR and VR technologies. Psychiatrists are already implementing Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy to treat patients with PTSD and anxiety issues. Using biosensors coupled with VR, they can now get a better idea of how their patients react and cope with stressful scenarios. Also, VR is used to help autistic patients develop social and communication skills. By tracing the eye movement, it can also diagnose visual impairments in patients.

AR is also being used to train medical students to practice surgery skills on virtually simulated models. Features like AccuVein show a blood vessel map in real-time that helps doctors avoid errors. A portable device called Automatic External Defibrillator uses AR to stimulate the heart to beat again by an electric shock to a person having a cardiac arrest.

•  Headsets: One of the major hurdles in VR technology has been heavy, uncomfortable, wired headsets, and display units. However, there have been some improvements here too. Now we have customizable, smaller devices with a wider view and higher-resolution displays for VR-AR headsets. Recently, Varjo unveiled two such headsets featuring human eye-resolution visuals, some optionally offering controller, untethered hand tracking. Just like Facebook's self-contained Oculus Quest version.

•  Industries: In industrial space, VR can be used to simulate working in dangerous environments or with expensive, easily damaged tools and equipment, without any of the risks. Thus evade the hazards and disruption risks associated with the use of an assembly line. On the other hand, AR can help in inventory database management, create and optimize visual representations of designs before they reach the prototype phase. They are therefore reducing costs.With faster data processing, real-time analytics, and power sensors, one can be certain that the scope of AR-VR will rise exponentially in the coming months. Then AR-VR will be normal in industries as they gained it in gaming.