5G, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi key to Value Proposition for Industrial Smart Glasses

In the second iteration of its Industrial Internet Connectivity Tracker, ABI Research, a market-foresight advisory firm providing guidance on the most compelling transformative technologies, forecasts that the manufacturing sector will have an installed base of 25 million connected smart glasses worldwide by 2026 with a CAGR of 95% from 2017-2026.

Many of these smart glasses augmented reality (AR) headsets will require reliable, high-bandwidth, low-latency connections. In this report, ABI Research forecasts the growth of eleven connectivity technologies not only for Industrial Smart Glasses but also for Robotics & PLCs and Other Equipment Monitoring.

“Wired technologies and protocols have traditionally dominated industrial applications, especially on the factory floor, and they won’t go away,” says Pierce Owen, Principal Analyst at ABI Research. “In fact, the number of fixed-line connections will continue to grow, but new, mobile, dynamic IIoT applications will demand wireless technologies as well. We already see this with increased adoption of LPWA and Bluetooth in the IIoT, and 5G with network slicing. All will empower manufacturers to deploy more high-bandwidth, low-latency, mission-critical wireless applications.”

Over 2.7 million of the 25 million connected Industrial Smart Glasses will connect over a 5G connection by 2026. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will account for more of the connections due to the desire to minimize connectivity costs, but glasses with Bluetooth will face bandwidth and latency limitations. Wi-Fi will have the bandwidth, but not the reliability necessary for mission-critical applications.

“As connectivity becomes more streamlined, smart glasses will ultimately provide real value in manufacturing, reducing training time on the assembly line, allowing for more custom orders and improving quality control, repair, and maintenance with vision machine learning,” concludes Owen.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Industrial Internet Connectivity Tracker. This report is part of the company’s Smart Manufacturing research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights.

About ABI Research

ABI Research provides strategic guidance for visionaries needing market foresight on the most compelling transformative technologies, which reshape workforces, identify holes in a market, create new business models and drive new revenue streams. ABI’s own research visionaries take stances early on those technologies, publishing groundbreaking studies often years ahead of other technology advisory firms. ABI analysts deliver their conclusions and recommendations in easily and quickly absorbed formats to ensure proper context. Our analysts strategically guide visionaries to take action now and inspire their business to realize a bigger picture. For more information about ABI Research’s forecasting, consulting and teardown services, visionaries can contact us at +1.516.624.2500 in the Americas, +44.203.326.0140 in Europe, +65.6592.0290 in Asia-Pacific or visit www.abiresearch.com.