Vancouver’s Recon Instruments Integrates SAP’s Augmented Reality Apps Into Smartglasses

Vancouver’s Recon Instruments has announced a partnership to integrate SAP’s augmented reality (AR) mobile apps into its virtual reality eyewear.

This is immediately following news from Recon Instruments that its Jet eyewear is almost ready to ship from its factory in San Jose, California and will begin arriving in customer’s hands circa April 16.

The Jet includes a 1 Ghz dual core microprocessor, a 9-axis sensor suite, an on-board HD camera with Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, ANT+ and Wi-fi communication protocols.

“Including integration support for SAP AR mobile apps in our Jet smart eyewear platform demonstrates the scalability of our platform in industrial markets,” said Recon Instruments CEO Dan Eisenhardt.

“One of Recon’s core philosophies is that smart eyewear can deliver measurable value in specific vertical markets with specific applications. We’ve defined the smart eyewear category on this basis. The integration of SAP’s leading enterprise application software with the core capabilities of the Jet further underscores the strength of our approach.”

Although Recon Instruments has been heavily targeting the sports tech market and “high-intensity environments”, the integration with SAP’s AR platform promises to expand the company’s horizons towards other verticals such as manufacturing, oil & gas field work and health care.

Recon Instruments’ main focus remains on sports. Its Snow2 Goggles, made for skiiers, boasts an ultra-compact HD display, a 1GHZ dual-core chip, Bluetooth 4.0, and a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

Over the past year, SAP’s Mobile Development Lab has been building out its AR mobile app portfolio with a specific focus on smartglasses, developing manufacturing-specific applications such as Warehouse Picker or Service Technician, both made to help workers process crucial information on the job.

These apps also circumvent the use of workplace handheld devices, a trend that has been shaping up in the form of BYOD among other trends, allowing a worker to perform a task hands-free while still having access to information in their eyewear.

SAP meanwhile has released its fourth-quarter results, indicating strong uptake of its HANA platform, including by the NHL for its advanced stats platform, as well as a 68% increase in its cloud software business over Q4 results from 2013.