Ethan D., the CEO of Connected Audio, was working in his office above his first, of many, audio shops. He was half listening as the garage below rocked with the sound of machinery creating and installing specialized AR devices for cars. With the fine-tuning of AR spatial audio in cars, Ethan’s audio devices could enhance the sounds of the external road or passengers within the vehicle. Someone sitting in the back of a minivan would be able to hear the driver and vice versa, bypassing any kids in the middle seat.
As customers pulled up to Connected Audio, they could use their AR glasses to find out the status of their cars–where they were in the shop and the expected wait time. They could also virtually experience the sound of their proposed audio system through their own AR glasses. Each customer had the opportunity to approve and, then purchase, the new system.
Ethan liked to start the day with a visual of the company’s health. He had ten garages across the state and was in the middle of a deal to expand. “Glasses, how are the garages doing today?” Ethan asked. He had recently implemented a new vision for the shops and how the mechanics worked. The glasses displayed his garages, colored green, yellow, or red based on their status. The install line, parts, and mechanics (through the sensors built into the work uniforms) were all connected.
The mechanics' uniforms informed the machinery - the hoists - of where the people were. Each tool was embedded so that the employees could find what they needed - even “sense” it through their AR glasses without having to look away when in the middle of a task. The health of the tools was captured and sent to the monthly reports that management would review.
Today, only one garage was yellow. Ethan reached out and grabbed the hologram of the garage, and then zoomed in until he could investigate which part of the garage was creating the yellow condition. He could see that one of the new employees was struggling to implement the new vision.
Every car’s audio system he worked on wasn’t projecting the sound correctly. He circled the garage manager with a finger and drew a virtual line to the new employee. He recorded a voice message “Hey John, can you check on the new system here?” and sent it to John’s glasses. Ethan knew he got through when the small augmented version of John gave a thumbs up.
Ethan wiped away the garage visuals and prepared for the monthly board meeting. He took a seat at his desk. His glasses displayed a pair of modern, office doors. The name and time of the meeting hovered in front of them. “Enter,” Ethan said. The scene transformed to 3D graphics and avatars of the board members standing, waiting for him. Ethan literally walked the board members through the data showing the health of the garages. The graphs morphed into the number of projected garages to open and audio systems manufactured.
He also addressed the recent concern of local kids throwing up AR memes at various garages. This raised the issue of security and marketing…the newest version of graffiti. The messages were visible to anyone who drove by. The solution? Ethan purchased the virtual space around his garages. When an AR meme was thrown up it just floated outside of the shop’s zone instead of sitting on it. Problem solved.
The meeting ended on a positive note and Ethan moved on to the rest of his busy day—visualizing another expansion of his business–all with the help of the connectedness of AR.