With the rapid development of chips, AI, cloud computing and other basics, as well as the popularization of 5G networks and the release of the national “14th Five-Year Plan”, the value of VR/AR hard technology has gradually begun to land on a large scale, and the industry has entered a new round of rapid growth. In the rising period, it is expected that in the second half of 2021, the AR direction will usher in a wave of investment climax. Opportunities are only given to those who are prepared, who are forward-looking and who stick to their values.
“Using AI and AR means to help enterprises’ digital transformation, this is a huge market,” said Cui Haitao, founder of Goolton Technology, “Our positioning has always been based on core optical display technology to provide enterprises with overall solution services. I am excited about using innovation to empower and serve enterprises.”
In 2020, this cutting-edge AR company, which was established just over 3 years ago, has achieved nearly 100 million yuan in revenue, which is somewhat unbelievable when the industry is still generally facing difficulties in landing and revenue.
1. Goolton Technology knows the actual pain points of customers of the AR glasses business
Goolton Technology is located near Beijing Jiaotong University. The office is compact and bright. The two mannequins at the entrance wear futuristic wearable AR glasses. On the side is a set of super cool, high-tech intelligent full-body individual firefighting equipment. The people who work here are all in a hurry, diligent and bright-eyed. Their boss, Mr Cui Haitao, is humorous and capable.
Cui Haitao majored in power engineering in college, started at the grass-roots level in Digital China then was promoted to management, and then had continuous success in starting a business. He has been dealing with hardware and enterprise customers for more than a decade. This experience has enabled him to develop a special ability, that is, to be good at discovering and grasping the pain points and needs of business users.
“Since we are facing the business market,” Cui Haitao said, “our products must be defined from the needs of customers. It is impossible for us to understand medical care better than medical customers and aviation better than airlines, so we often ask and listen repeatedly. We guide customers to feedback on the traditional and bottleneck problems faced by their industry, and use our ability to solve these pain points for customers.”
Goolton Technology conducted on-site user research on a large airline. And it was found that workers had to wear goggles in order to prevent dust from falling into their eyes when they repaired the Airbus A380. They immediately realized that AR glasses and traditional goggles could not be worn at the same time. They later considered putting out high-tech smart glasses, such as AR glasses in the goggles.
2. Industry application of AR glasses
Cui Haitao said that we hope that Goolton’s products can be used by users in their daily work. For example, the user behavior portrait of our product design is that every worker will wear AR glasses from entering the factory gate to getting off work, which is convenient and comfortable. AR glasses will become a daily tool for workers, not just glasses. Used for demonstrations and visits by visitors. Our goal is that with the increase in the use of intelligent tools and the increase in the coverage of the process, the production and operation efficiency of customers will be truly improved.
We know that the petroleum and petrochemical industry has great dangers. Goolton Technology visited the customer’s fieldwork site and saw that most equipment maintenance is both frequent and affected by the changing environment. In addition, there are many data and information about operations, and data is difficult to share. Goolton Technology and customers jointly build a digital intelligent well site and conduct video surveillance through cameras and sensors in key parts of production equipment. On the basis of the digital twin, real-time sensor data is added, and back-end experts and inspection personnel can supervise and inspect the real-time images through the front-end AR glasses in order to provide remote AR assistance.
Electric power inspection also has similar high-risk operation characteristics. Workers have to climb up the towers 30 to 40 meters high, and it is difficult to work at high altitudes. It is a huge challenge for workers to complete inspection tasks under safe conditions. Drones can replace some manual tasks, but opening the cabinet door, finding the corresponding position, opening or closing the button, etc., is still far from being completed by the machine alone, and it is even more impossible to detect the equipment in the trench. The solution provided by Goolton Technology is to let electric workers wear AR glasses, free their hands, and greatly enhance the multi-task interaction and operation capabilities of workers.
When workers are working, they can see equipment descriptions, real-time data, fault prompts and other information through AR eyeglasses. Workers can perform maintenance work immediately, and back-end technical experts can communicate with them in real-time audio and video. For areas beyond the reach of experts, there are AI devices to assist and supervise.
