Real­Wear HMT‑1 | The most important facts, features and advan­tages

Augmented reality main­ten­ance by means of smart glasses is one of the topics that is gaining parti­cular importance in the course of Industry 4.0. Accor­ding to Statista, sales of 3.9 million augmented reality smart glasses among leading brands world­wide are fore­cast for 2024.

That’s no surprise: Mixed reality smart glasses like Micro­soft Holo­Lens 2 or assisted reality smart glasses like Vuzix M400 or Real­Wear HMT‑1 visua­lize helpful infor­ma­tion and enable inter­ac­tion with an expert. In addi­tion, both hands remain free so that instruc­tions for trou­ble­shoo­ting can be imple­mented imme­dia­tely.

The HMT‑1 smart glasses by Real­Wear were deve­loped speci­fi­cally for the indus­trial sector and quickly estab­lished them­selves as a popular commu­ni­ca­tion medium between tech­ni­cians on site and external experts. In the follo­wing article, we have summa­rized the areas of appli­ca­tion for which Real­Wear HMT‑1 is suitable, the features it includes and the advan­tages it offers.

Real­Wear HMT‑1 review – Appearance and areas of appli­ca­tion

As the abbre­via­tion in the name already reveals, Real­Wear HMT‑1 is a head-mounted tablet and thus a full-fledged tablet. The smart glasses have a camera on the side of the head and a display under the eye. Important infor­ma­tion is thus displayed directly in the user’s field of vision. 

 

Real­wear HMT‑1 is certi­fied with protec­tion class IP66, dust-tight, shock­proof and waterjet-proof — in other words, ideally suited for indus­trial working envi­ron­ments. Main appli­ca­tion areas of the smart glasses are ther­e­fore

• Fabri­ca­tion and produc­tion
• Oil and gas industry
• Auto­mo­bile industry
• Cons­truc­tion
• Logi­stics
• Tele­me­di­cine

HMT‑1 is most often relied upon when expert assis­tance is needed for service calls, main­ten­ance, inspec­tions or repairs. The indus­trial smart glasses are also used to follow step-by-step instruc­tions, to look up infor­ma­tion in product cata­logs, or to docu­ment or retrieve machine data. Real­Wear HMT‑1 can be used for a wide range of appli­ca­tions, making the smart glasses an essen­tial tool for day-to-day service processes.  

 

Real­Wear HMT‑1 in test ­

Real­Wear HMT‑1 is one of our refe­rence models, as it convinces with its quali­ties and features in ever­yday work. Let’s take a closer look at the smart glasses. 

 

Wearing comfort

Desi­gned for longer indoor and outdoor use, Real­Wear HMT‑1 is charac­te­rized by high wearing comfort. With a weight of 380 grams, it is almost 200 grams lighter than Micro­soft Holo­Lens 2, for example.

The smart glasses are easy to put on and sit stably on the head, even during jerkier head move­ments (espe­ci­ally when using the Tri-Band head strap or in combi­na­tion with a cap or safety helmet). The adjus­table HMT‑1 Work­band, which is put on like a head­band, is parti­cu­larly comfor­table. The weight is thus distri­buted even more evenly and does not weigh on the top of the head.    

 

Display and reso­lu­tion

Real­Wear HMT‑1 is equipped with a micro display located below the line of sight. The boom arm has three joints that allow indi­vi­dual adjus­t­ment of angle and distance to the eye. It rotates comple­tely to posi­tion the display in front of the eye of choice and can be easily folded away when not in use.

The screen reso­lu­tion of the 24 bit LCD display with 20 degree field of view and 1 meter fixed focus is 854p x 480p; thus, it is equi­va­lent to a 7 inch tablet. Both the display and camera can be adjusted inde­pendently as needed, so both the wearer and the expert can see exactly what they need to trou­ble­shoot.  

 

Camera

The camera of Real­Wear HMT‑1 is located above the boom arm and can be tilted up or down by 30 degrees. Thanks to a reso­lu­tion of 16 mega­pi­xels, high-quality photos can be taken, which make it much easier for the expert to perform a fault analysis. For compa­rison: The iPhone 12 smart­phone has a 12 mega­pixel camera.

The Full HD camera (1080p) can also record videos with 30 frames per second. The inte­grated flash­light, which is controlled via voice command, provides better visi­bi­lity in poorly lit work envi­ron­ments.    

 

Control

Not only the flash­light is operated by voice — Real­Wear HMT‑1 itself is. That means no gestures like scrol­ling, swiping or tapping have to be performed. This makes it possible to work with both hands throug­hout, without having to forego supporting infor­ma­tion. A list of voice commands can be found in the user manual of Real­Wear HMT‑1.

The voice control of Real­Wear HMT‑1 is considered to be one of the best among curr­ently available smart glasses and works flaw­lessly even in noisy envi­ron­ments. The reason for this is four micro­phones, two of which are inte­grated into the display. The primary micro­phone is located on the under­side, near the mouth. The refe­rence micro­phone, which is respon­sible for noise suppres­sion, is on the display’s upper side.

Real­Wear HMT‑1 supports a total of 15 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portu­guese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Indo­ne­sian, Japa­nese, Korean, Mandarin and Thai.  

 

Storage

The smart glasses for industry have a 32 GB internal memory and 3 GB RAM. A FAT32 formatted microSD card with a maximum storage capa­city of 256 giga­bytes can be added via the microSD card slot.  

 

Battery life

The battery compart­ment of Real­Wear HMT‑1 is located at the rear end of the smart glasses, on the oppo­site side of the boom arm. A 3250 mAh Li-Ion rech­ar­geable battery is included. It is hot-swappable, meaning it can be replaced while the device is running without having to restart HMT‑1 or opened appli­ca­tions.

Accor­ding to the manu­fac­turer, the battery life is appro­xi­m­ately 8 hours with low-energy use. In prac­tical use, HMT‑1 can be actively used for about 5 hours, making it one of the most powerful smart glasses for industry.  

 

Opera­ting system

Real­Wear HMT‑1 runs on an Android 10 (AOSP) + WearHF™ Hands-Free Inter­face opera­ting system. Android provides a good basis for various soft­ware solu­tions and allows the manual instal­la­tion of desired appli­ca­tions.  

Access­ories

Various access­ories are available for HMT‑1 to make ever­yday work even easier. These include, among others:

• Head straps and pads
• Hard hats, clips and caps
• Cases
• Earphones
• Battery and char­ging options
• LTE/4G Modem

The scope of deli­very of Real­Wear HMT‑1 includes, in addi­tion to the smart glasses, as stan­dard:

• 1x USB C 3.0 cable
• 1x USB C to USB micro adapter
• 1x remo­vable battery
• 1x Work­band
• 1x rear head pad

 

Advan­tages of Real­Wear HMT‑1

Most of the assets of Real­Wear HMT‑1 have already been mentioned, but it is worth taking a closer look at the advan­tages of the smart glasses.

For example, the unri­valed robust­ness of the hard­ware, which signi­fi­cantly sets it apart from the compe­ti­tion. HMT‑1 is not only dust-tight and imper­vious to drops from a height of two meters onto concrete, it is also fully func­tional in extreme tempe­ra­tures ranging from ‑20 °C to 50 °C.

The biggest advan­tage of Real­Wear HMT‑1 is its advanced voice control. The versa­tile selec­tion of languages alone sets the smart glasses apart from other models. Added to this is the intui­tive hand­ling and active noise suppres­sion: precise voice control is possible even in the presence of back­ground noise of up to 95 dB, for example typical indus­trial noise. The advan­tages of Real­Wear HMT‑1 at a glance:

• Robust hard­ware, ideal for indus­trial envi­ron­ments, espe­ci­ally outdoor use
• Excel­lent voice control
• Wide range of languages
• Flaw­less noise suppre­sion of up to 95 dB
• High photo and video quality
• High wearing comfort
• Indi­vi­du­ally adjus­table camera and display angle
• Long battery life

 

Tech­nical data of Real­Wear HMT‑1

 

Display	20° field of view, 1 meter fixed focus, 24 bit color LCD, 0,33 inch diagonal, also outdoor good reada­bility WVGA 854 x 480 px (appears as 7 inch)
Audio	4 micro­phones with active noise suppres­sion up to 95 dB, max. volume 91 dB
Video	Up to 1080p @30fps. Codecs: VP8, VP9 and hard­ware enco­ding support for H.264, H.265 HEVC
Control	Voice control only, 15 languages available
Camera	16 MP 4‑axis optical image stabi­li­sa­tion, PDAF with LED light
Protec­tion	IP 66, MIL-STD-810G, 2 m drop test, dust-tight, waterjet-proof
Battery	5 hours, 3250 mAh Li-Ion, exch­an­geable (hot-swappable)
Connec­ti­vity	WLAN, Blue­tooth
Opera­ting system	Android 10 (AOSP) + WearHF™ Hands-Free Inter­face
Processor	2.0 GHz 8‑core Qual­comm® Snapd­ragon™ 626
Memory	32 GB internal memory / 3 GB RAM / microSD slot (max. 256 GB)
Included appli­ca­tions	Docu­ment Navi­gator, camera with barcode reader, video recorder, media player
Ports	3.5 mm audio, 1 USB Type C
Weight	380 g
Price	On request

 

Remote Service – new era with smart glasses like Real­Wear HMT‑1

Remote support via augmented reality and smart glasses — what was dreams of the future a few years ago will soon become common prac­tice. After all, it offers the oppor­tu­nity to shorten down­times, avoid high travel costs and improve the CO2 balance. Added to this is the advan­tage of being able to work with both hands without having to keep an addi­tional tech­nical device on hand for commu­ni­ca­tion or to retrieve required infor­ma­tion. Real­Wear HMT‑1 makes it possible — espe­ci­ally in combi­na­tion with the right appli­ca­tions or soft­ware.

This includes our smart service solu­tion bitnamic CONNECT. It offers a package of useful features to effi­ci­ently meet daily chal­lenges in main­ten­ance and service. The core element of bitnamic CONNECT is Remote Main­ten­ance: The soft­ware, speci­ally deve­loped for industry, connects service tech­ni­cians on site with experts world­wide in an inter­ac­tive video confe­rence. Problems with machines, systems, etc. can thus be solved toge­ther, saving time and money.

Would you like to learn more about bitnamic CONNECT, ideally in use with Real­Wear HMT‑1? We will be happy to present both to you, live and without obli­ga­tion. Simply arrange a demo appoint­ment with our Sales Manager Chris­to­pher Siemer. We will also gladly intro­duce you to the successor of the HMT‑1.

If you would like to learn more about the new smart glasses from Real­Wear in advance, please read our Real­Wear Navi­gator 500 Review or our compa­rison of Real­Wear Navi­gator 500 and Navi­gator 520.