14 Jul 2023
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Mike Boland
AWE Talks: Where Does XR Scale Today?
AWE USA 2023
Welcome back to AWE Talks, our series that revisits the most engaging content from AWE’s catalog of conference sessions. Now that AWE USA 2023 has concluded, we have a fresh batch of sessions to dive into.
This week, we spotlight places that XR scales today, including deployments at Veterans Affairs, police officer training, and Walmart employee training. These aren't future outcomes... they're happening today.
See the summarized takeaways below, along with the full session video. Stay tuned for more video highlights each week and check out the full library on awe.live and AWE’s YouTube Channel.
Speakers
David Burch, ArborXR
Caitlin Rawlins, Veterans Affairs
Robert Murphy, Axon
Jarrad Nagel, Walmart
– Much of the discussion around XR happens in the future tense, but there's ample action today.
– Varied activations are exemplified by XR deployments at Veterans Affairs, Axon, and Walmart.
– The VA is using 1200 VR headsets for immersive pain management across 160 VA facilities
– This shows real efficacy, due to VR's ability to block pain receptors through sensory immersion.
– Axon is using VR to train police officers, including current deployments to 1,400 officers.
– This likewise shows efficacy, as well as cost savings in the equipment discharged in IRL training.
– Walmart is meanwhile training employees in several functions including 1 million trainees to date.
– It has built up a robust VR program for everything from routine job events to disaster scenarios.
– As for advice and best practices to reach scale, panelists recommend getting smart on XR.
– In other words, learn the pros and cons of hardware and software vendors, then implement.
– Network your way into the industry to know all the players and be an effective XR advocate.
– It's also advisable to future-proof programs through device-agnostic tools, such as OpenXR.
– Speaking of future-proofing, graphical 6DoF VR sequences are preferable to 360 video.
– That's because updates can be done dynamically in Unity, then deploy... rather than reshoot.
– Programs should also be bottom-up in their inception and execution, rather than top-down.
– Bottom-up approach ensure committed execution from end-users because they feel invested.
For more color, see the full session footage below. 
