Almer's AR headset enables remote work
“Large companies developing new devices have a tough time because they need a product that does everything for everyone,” says Sebastian Beetschen, who quit technology giant Microsoft three years ago in order to found the augmented reality start-up Almer. “Our advantage is that we can concentrate on doing just one thing really well.”
The Swiss company believes a potentially transformative new deal proves it has done exactly that. Today, Beetschen, who-co founded Almer with Timon Binder and now serves as its CEO, will announce a partnership with another of the world’s largest technology companies. It has signed a strategic alliance with Germany’s TeamViewer, which hopes the deal will help it expand into the industrial sector.
At the same time, Almer is launching a second-generation version of its product, the Arc 2 headset. The company will continue to target a very specific market with its headsets – large industrial companies trying to reduce the cost and time taken to maintain and repair expensive plant and machinery.
“Every minute of downtime costs large industrial businesses huge sums, but their machinery and production lines are often very complicated, requiring specialist expertise to fix,” explains Beetschen. “When something goes wrong, they often have to put their expert on a plane so they can resolve the problem in person; in the meantime, production grinds to a halt.”
Almer’s technology is designed to solve that problem. A frontline worker can put the headset on and link up with an expert technician based anywhere else in the world. The headset provides the expert with a perfect view of what the worker is looking at, and comes with built-in software and hardware enabling them to offer step-by-step guidance on how to fix the problem.
The Arc 2 headset features a 25 megapixel camera, a microphone and speakers, and a holographic screen. This screen can be used by the expert to display text and diagrams to the worker on the ground – or even to annotate the scene in front of them in order to draw attention to a particular item or to explain the instructions in more detail. The worker's hands are free.
“We call it a digital fire extinguisher,” adds Beetschen. “It’s a device that provides a collaborative in-person experience that enables industrial companies to solve tehcnical issues much more quickly.”
Beetschen launched Almer in 2021 with the help of innovation funding from the Swiss government. He had previously been working on Microsoft’s Hololens augmented reality project, becoming increasingly frustrated with the company’s efforts to build a one-size-fits-all product that struggled to capture customers’ imagination.
In the three years since they parted company, Microsoft has continued to find it difficult to make a success of Hololens, while Almer has steadily picked up users in its very targeted niche of the market. It currently has deals with more than 20 customers, including Switzerland’s largest defence contractor, which is using the headsets to service fighter jets located in the US. Another customers is one of the world’s largest soft drinks bottling companies.
The automotive sector is another key target. Beetschen points out that a production failure can cost a large manufacturer $22,000 a minute. He also hopes enabling customers switching to providing remote support, rather than flying in experts, will help them reduce their carbon footprints.
TeamViewer, for one, is convinced by Almer’s value proposition. The German company made its name with technology that enables IT workers and others to take remote control of a computer user’s machine in order to fix a problem or offer other support. Mei Dent, chief product and technology officer at TeamViewer, believes its alliance with Almer will help it expand that model into a new market.
“Approximately 80% of the global workforce does not work at a desk but at on the company’s frontline, and most of them currently benefit very little from digital transformation," says Dent. "There is immense potential for efficiency and productivity gains by enhancing frontline work with digital tools and connecting this huge part of the global workforce to their companies' back-end systems.”
Almer sells its services via a monthly subscription, charging €149 a month for its hardware, software and support. Revenues to date have built slowly as the company has fine-tuned its product, but the start-up believes growth can now accelerate, particularly with TeamViewer’s brand recognition and support.
The company isn't completely without competitors, with North America's Vuzix and Realware, for example, offering products that might be considered rivals. But in a global market for augmented reality headsets expected to grow to $120 billion over the next two years, there appears to plenty of room for several specialists.
As for bigger players, Beetschen is hopeful that Apple’s launch into the augmented reality sector this year will raise the profile of the whole sector. Apple’s Vision Pro headset appears to be aimed at a very different customer base – including consumers – so won’t be a direct competitor for Almer. As such, Beetschen says: “An augmented reality product from Apple that takes off will give everyone in this market greater credibility.”
