Industrial Smart Glasses Will Drive 5G in the IIoT

In December 2017, ABI Research published the second iteration of the Industrial Internet Connectivity Tracker. The Industrial Internet Connectivity Tracker provides highly segmented data and forecasts through 2026 to support Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) business initiatives and go-to-market plans. It includes three major application segments: Industrial Smart Glasses, Robotics & PLCs and Other Equipment Monitoring. Industrial Smart Glasses are augmented reality (AR) glasses used in manufacturing applications. Robotics & PLCs refers to industrial connected robots and connected programmable logic controllers, and other equipment monitoring covers connections for condition-based monitoring of stationary industrial equipment ranging from weight scales to pumps and tanks, mining equipment, batteries and elevators.

Wired technologies currently dominate IIoT connections in manufacturing environments. Unfortunately, despite their security and stability, wires and cables present problems for mobile assets and do not empower the same dynamic IIoT applications as wireless technologies. Wireless technologies face issues, but manufacturers have already started to adopt Bluetooth and LPWA, as shown by Huawei and Toshiba’s NB-IoT solution for smart factory monitoring. As manufacturers deploy many more Industrial Smart Glasses in the coming years, they will need more flexible, high bandwidth, reliable and low latency technologies. Smart glasses will provide real value in manufacturing, reducing training time on the assembly line, allowing for more custom orders and improving quality control. The IIoT will generate USD 330 in connectivity revenues in 2026, up from USD 108 million in 2017, a CAGR of 13%. USD 95 million of the USD 330 million will come from Industrial Smart Glasses in 2026, up from a negligible amount in 2017.

Industrial Smart Glasses will feed into and draw on digital twins of products and equipment. Shop-floor workers will see a digital twin overlaid on the physical object with assembly or repair instructions according to customized needs. Wearing smart glasses, rather than using AR on other screens empowers the worker to use both hands and look directly at the work that needs doing. The glasses will also use computer vision for quality control – e.g., to notify an employee or manager of QA issues at the time and place they occur. All this requires a reliable, high-bandwidth, low-latency connection.

As such, 2.7 million Industrial Smart Glasses will have a 5G connection by 2026. Only Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will see a high number of Industrial Smart Glasses connections, with 11.1 million and 10.1 million respectively, due to the desire to minimize connectivity costs, but glasses with Bluetooth and no 5G will face bandwidth and latency limitations. Wi-Fi will have the bandwidth but not the reliability.

China projects to have the highest number of 5G connected Industrial Smart Glasses with an installed based 645,000 out of the 2.7 million in 2026. The Alliance of Industrial Internet (AII) and similar initiatives will push the adoption of Smart Manufacturing technologies with the help of the Chinese government. This push in the world’s largest manufacturing sector will result in the high number of Industrial Smart Glasses as well as collaborative robotics. Despite this, the US will lead the world with an overall number of 30.5 million IIoT connections out of a global total of 137.1 million in 2026 due to its similarly large manufacturing sector and the competition between many of the world’s leading IIoT suppliers that operate out of the US.

See our new market data report entitled “Industrial Internet Connectivity Tracker,” for a deeper dive into IIoT connections and supplier revenues.