Last summer, Kevin Sterckx and his colleague from 3D printer Materialise went to Benin for the annual summer school that Materialise organizes together with the Hubi & Vinciane Foundation as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility activities. One year earlier, a project was launched there to make the Saint-Martin hospital in Papané "the cleanest hospital".
They gave the maintenance manager for the project on-site a pair of Iristick AR glasses and training on how to use them. "We now call him every week. Via 4G, Skype and the camera built into the glasses, we watch as he reports on the work that's been done," says Sterckx. "If we have any questions, he gives us a view of the problem from a different angle or a close-up. His smart glasses also give him a view of exactly what is being streamed to us. We can give direct instructions, comments and advice on what else needs to be done." The plan is to increase the services to 5S. "Last week, for example, we took a look at the operating room. The visual tour showed that everything was in its place and that rapid progress is being made towards 5S." In the same way, it was also possible for the work to connect the water reservoir with the water supply system to be closely monitored.
"Iristick works, but we are still in a test phase," says Sterckx, who is behind the laptop in Leuven (Belgium). The smart glasses are connected to the smartphone in Benin. The stability of the network is not always that great. "4G is better than Wi-Fi, there." The connection runs over the Wizzeye platform. "We enter the name of the 'room' and the connection is made automatically." The sessions usually last around 30 minutes. Sterckx: "It would be useful to be able to record images and to watch and talk at several places at the same time." Currently the image is streamed in one direction. The sound, which runs in both directions, can sometimes have an echo.
Source: Maintenance Magazine June 2019, p.14