Wearable technology is among the most exciting recent developments in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), with smart glass in particular becoming an integral part of PPE thanks to their numerous advantages and ability to enhance existing safety functions. At the same time, there are increasing restrictions on travel, meaning new solutions are needed to provide expert technical support to local engineers at customers worldwide.

JBT’s PRoSIGHT safety certified smart glasses have been developed to both enhance safety functions by vastly reducing the risk of human error and deliver support from JBT experts to technicians across the globe. Acting as a PPE of the future, PRoSIGHT enables equipment to be serviced far more quickly while removing the need for travel and is set to become an essential part of a technician’s toolbox.

Smart PPE
PPE protective gear – including clothing, helmets and glasses – is designed to protect the wearer in dangerous working environments. With digital innovation, has come the challenge of increasing worker efficiency and productivity levels, while decreasing the number of human errors. With that in mind, traditional PPE has been advanced with cameras, microphones, sensors, and other built-in intelligent features to assist frontline workers. Moreover, PPE is being designed in such a way that innovation and technology become an integral part of it. What used to be a single functional piece of protective equipment is being transformed into digitally enhanced protective gear designed to deliver another layer of knowledge and information. With the JBT PRoSIGHT certified (ANSI Z.87.1, CE- EN166) smart glasses, what used to be a hype, is now a reality.

Informed protection
Besides acting as a barrier between the wearer and the working environment, smart safety glasses can add another layer of insight, knowledge, and information to the situation. What used to be a single piece of protective equipment, has transformed into a multifunctional device with multiple advantages. With digital innovation within the wearable tech industry, another dimension of shared knowledge and connectivity is added next to enhanced safety and protection.

PRoSIGHT smart glasses hold several unique advantages over mobile technology (smartphones and tablets) in an industrial context:

  • The embedded cameras perfectly capture the wearer’s perspective when establishing a video streaming session for remote assistance. ‘You-see-what-I-see’ is not a marketing slogan but a reality, in which the expert sees exactly what the glasses wearer is seeing.
  • The smart glasses not only protect the eye area but also serve as a multi-functional smart and interactive technological device, unlike other reactive PPE.
  • Smart glasses allows engineers to maintain both hands free to do the job, supported by remote experts with the most natural view possible of the situation.

Real-time support
Imagine a JBT field service engineer performing a complex maintenance task while having a real-time streaming session with a highly trained expert in the back office.

The FSE can communicate with the expert who’s using PRoSIGHT’s augmented remote assistance software platform via the built-in microphones and video camera, he can zoom in on details, using voice commands and at the same time perform certain actions on the equipment he is maintaining. The PRoSIGHT augmented remote assistance software platform makes it possible to show step-by-step instructions on the display of the smart glasses, in order to guide the FSE in complex maintenance or technical problems.

With his eyes focused on the job and both hands available to do the job, his safety is guaranteed to the maximum. PRoSIGHT™ is the safest way for field technicians to work hands-free in real-time with a remote expert and will become a standard element of the PPE uniform.